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October 18, 2017 1:03 pm
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Iranian Leader’s Book Urging Elimination of Israel Among Antisemitic Titles Displayed at Frankfurt Book Fair

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avatar by Ben Cohen

Senior Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh meeting with Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in 2012. Photo: File.

Antisemitic and anti-American creeds, including a collection of speeches by Iran’s “supreme leader,” were on full display at last weekend’s Frankfurt Book Fair — the largest event of its kind in the world — according to a Jewish human rights group that monitored the event.

Dr. Shimon Samuels — international affairs director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) — noted that antisemitic literature was particularly visible on the Iranian and Egyptian stands at the fair.

More than 286,000 visitors attended this year’s fair, which brought together 7,300 publishers from over 100 countries. The fair was jointly opened on Saturday by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron.

One of the titles on display at the Iranian stand was “Palestine: Selected Statements” — a collection of writings and speeches on the Palestinian issue by Iran’s “supreme leader,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in which Israel’s elimination is repeatedly called for. Published by the Association of Islamic Revolution Publishers in Tehran, the book portrays the elimination of Israel as a sacred Islamic objective. It also recycles classic antisemitic theories, with chapters  on”The Hegemony of Zionism over the Majority of News Agencies” and “The Hegemony of Zionism over the Majority of Global Centers of Power.”

The book’s final chapter is entitled, “Israel and America: Doomed to Annihilation.”

The Egyptian stand carried a book on religious political parties in Israel, published by Al-Ahram, Egypt’s largest publishing house. The book argues that the Jewish faith encourages its followers to see Arabs as “human waste which has to be disposed of.”

Samuels noted that many pro-Palestinian books were on display at the fair that should be regarded as legitimate contributions to public discussion, stressing that the SWC’s role is to monitor books that engage in incitement and hatred. “We too reject censorship,” he said. “Our work, in cooperation with the Frankfurt Book Fair, is to alert the authorities when that right is abused and foments danger to the public good, or violates German law.”

 

 

 

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