Kayhan Editor Denies Holocaust, Calls For Israel's Annihilation

The August 3, 2014, editorial of the Iranian daily Kayhan, penned by the newspaper's editor, Hossein Shariatmadari, who is an associate of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, denied the Holocaust and argued that the real Holocaust is Israel's actions against the Palestinians. The editorial included a lengthy quote from a previous Kayhan editorial by Shariatmadari published in 2006[1] and then published again in 2013[2]; the quoted section stated, inter alia, that the term "holocaust" had its origins in the alleged burning of an entire Christian community by the Jewish king of Yemen, Zu-Nuas, in the pre-Islamic era. The quote also noted that following World War II, the Jewish Agency had appropriated the term "holocaust" for its fabricated story of the murder of 6 million European Jews, and outlined Shariatmadari's disapproval of the fact that European Holocaust deniers had faced prosecution and prison sentences.

In the August 3 editorial, Shariatmadari pointed out the "characteristics of the Zionists that are familiar to the world's residents – their worship of money, their cruelty, and their cowardice" are characteristics that the Nazis widely attributed to the Jews. He also claimed that the Zionists are not Jews, though they claim to be, and that they, like the Pharaoh of Moses' time, murder children in order to prevent the emergence of a threat.

Also in the August 3 editorial, Shariatmadari expressed his satisfaction at the outcome of the Israeli offensive against Gaza, claiming that it heralds the imminent end of the Zionist regime and proves the correctness of Tehran's position on the need to eradicate Israel from the political map.

Following are excerpts from the August 3 editorial, including the quote from the 2006 article:

Hossein Shariatmadari (image: basijnews.ir)

"Zionists Mercilessly Murder Children For Fear Of Palestinian Population Growth"

Shariatmadari began the editorial by quoting from his 2006 article: "The Jewish king Zu-Nuas of Yemen stood, with the Jewish rabbis around him, in front of a deep pit in which a large fire was kindled. On the other side there kneeled a very large group of men, women, and children chained and surrounded by soldiers and the generals of Zu-Nuas' army.

"The cry of the women, the sighs of the men, and the heartbreaking weeping of the children fills the air. The great rabbi of the Jews turns to Zu-Nuas and reads aloud [Zu-Nuas's] verdict upon the prisoners, who are a large group of Yemenite men, women, and children. This is in the time before the appearance of Islam. Several years beforehand, the people of Yemen had accepted Christianity. Some time previously, Zu-Nuas, the King of Yemen, had accepted Judaism, and now he announces the terrible sentence from the great rabbi in his court. The prisoners have only two choices: Either they declare their rejection of Christianity and acceptance of Judaism, or they will be burned in the blazing fire. But the prisoners, who were among the faithful believers in Jesus, do not relinquish their faith. And then... they are all thrown alive into the fire and burned, by order of the Jewish king. Neither are the children spared from being burned alive in the fire of the rage of the king and of the Jewish rabbis...

"This terrible event and this shameful crime by the cruel Jews is the first documented [occurrence of the] mass burning of living people.

"The root of the word 'holocaust' is Greek. Today, [the word] is used to mark a slaughter by means of mass burning of people by fire. Some linguists maintain that the term is taken from the crime that the Jews committed...

"In the early part of the eighth decade of the 19th century [sic], some members of the International Jewish Agency, which included [the historian] Pierre Vidal-Naquet, Serge Weils [sic], and [the historian] Francois Bedarida, and was led by Rene-Samuel Sprat [apparently a reference to Rene-Samuel Sirat], the famous rabbi of France, relied on the false story of the slaughter of six million Jews in World War II.

"So that the injustice caused to this [religious] group would not be forgotten, they prepared a bill and brought it to ratification in France in July 1990...

"To date, dozens of prominent European historians and hundreds of famous lecturers and well-known experts in the research of historical documents have presented documents on whose authenticity no intelligent person can cast even the slightest doubt. They have proven by an absolutely scientific method that the affair of the slaughter of six million Jews, the crematoria, the gas chambers, and everything that the Zionists claim in this matter is a complete lie and a fabricated story..."

"The Characteristics Of The Zionists That Are Familiar To The World's Residents Are Their Worship Of Money, Their Cruelty, And Their Cowardice"

He then continued his editorial with new content: "The European [researchers]... were summoned to court and sentenced to prison terms and fined only because the results of their research differed from what is claimed by the international Zionist agency. This took place while the fabricated story of the Holocaust, as told by the Zionists, is completely undocumented, unattested, and unverified except by the famous French thinker Rene-Samuel Sprat [sic].

"Another real holocaust, after Zu-Nuas's holocaust in Yemen, is the ongoing savage attacks by the Zionist regime against the residents of the Gaza [Strip], that led to the mass killing of women, men, and, primarily, children of that Strip. These are again being carried out, as they always have been throughout history, by the Zionists, whose nature is predatory and child-murdering. The year 1948, the year of the occupation of holy Palestine, can and must be set as the starting point of the second holocaust, which has since then, and to this day, been carried out with various savage means by the germ of destructive corruption, and which has now reached its peak in Gaza.

"However, the recent holocaust being carried out by the Zionists includes signs attesting to the imminent end, or at least the coming end, of the bloody Zionist regime. The characteristics of the Zionists that are familiar to the world's residents are their worship of money, their cruelty, and their cowardice – and their cruelty and their cowardice are rooted in their worship of money. In order to overcome the fear of [the Palestinian] military men and soldiers, the leaders of the regime that occupies Jerusalem [i.e. Israel] use a variety of weapons and equipment that prevents the other side from directly reaching them, so that the Zionists can fight their opponents while maintaining physical distance from them... In addition, the Zionist regime persists in presenting a horrible image of merciless spilling of blood in order to sow doubt among its enemies over [whether] to confront the Zionist crimes...

"These two schemes of the Zionist regime – i.e. presenting an animalistic, blood-spilling image and confronting the enemy from a distance – are today significantly losing their initial effectiveness, because of the exemplary show of strength by the resistance, and because of Iran's capability to support it...

"After [2012]... the enemies went to 'take care of' Syria... By means of mercenary terrorists from various nations, and by holding a series of conferences under the banner of 'friends of the Syrian people,' they tried to divert the arrow of the Islamic awakening movement away from its target – the mercenary dictatorships in the region – and towards the countries that support the resistance, giving a central role [in this diversionary effort] to the governments of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, and Al-Sisi's Egypt. In some cases, this project succeeded, creating rifts and schism among some of the resistance forces in the region.

"Not only did Israel's attack on Gaza, referred to by some Western media outlets a 'great stupidity,' create a dead end for the project of diverting the Islamic awakening from its path – but it actually brought about the opposite. As the least of the outcomes of this, we can point at the Saudi, Egyptian, Turkish, and Qatari shame, and the shame of the rest of the countries in the region that want to reconcile [with Israel]; at the resistance forces' sense that they must unite to confront the aggressive actions of their shared Zionist enemy; at the unanimous outcry by the Islamic nations and by global public opinion against Israel's crimes; and at the exposure of the true Zionist identity of the mercenary terrorists, particularly of ISIS and their ilk."

Khamenei Presents A Clear, Detailed Formula For Annihilating The False Israeli Regime

"Leading these achievements, we must point out the proven correctness of the position of Iran and of the Muslims' jurisprudent of our generation [i.e. Khamenei] in the world – that is, that the Zionist regime is the source of fitna and unrest in the region, and that the main issue facing the Islamic world is [the need for] a serious and comprehensive confrontation with this germ of corruption and destruction...

"In these very days, Khamenei is presenting a 'roadmap' and a clearer and more detailed 'formula' for annihilating the false Israeli regime from the world's political geography; one of its most important details is the arming of the Palestinian people in the West Bank...

"While no practical measure has yet been taken to arm the West Bank, Palestinians in the area are already rising up against the occupiers – to the point where many analysts consider this a third intifada. At the same time, Qassem Suleimani, the powerful and well-known commander of [Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC)] Qods Force, has stressed that [the option of] disarming the resistance is illusory. He said: 'We will turn the land, the air, and the sea into a hell for the Zionists... making the arena difficult for the Zionists and their supporters both inside and outside the region.'

"They [the Zionists] know well that Khamenei is serious about implementing his roadmap, and that there is no way of reconciling with him... All this evidence attests to the fact that the region is facing a great and serious event that will benefit the Islamic world.

"Ultimately, it is vital to stress that despite their claims, the Zionists are neither Jewish nor the disciples of Moses – just as Obama is not Christian, and several leaders of Islamic countries do not know what Islam is. The Zionists' characteristics and actions are absolutely identical to those of the Pharaohs, the enemies of Moses... Just by way of example, it can be said that murdering children is part of the identity shared by Pharaoh and the Zionists – and in both cases this stems from their fear and their cruelty. While Pharaoh ordered the savage murder of children in order to prevent the birth of Moses, the Zionists mercilessly murder because of their fear that the Palestinian population will increase. There are dozens more unique characteristics that they [Pharaoh and the Zionists] share – characteristics from which the Jews have always distanced themselves."

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