Top Iran cleric chides Ahmadinejad aide over Israeli remarks
Grand Ayatollah Nasser Makarem Shirazi, a leading Iranian cleric, chastised a leading aide to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over his controversial remarks that Iranians are “friends with Israelis” on Tuesday.
Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie sparked the fury of Islamists, some MPs and cleric by saying that the two peoples are “friends.”
There is no doubt that the Israeli regime and people are both against Islam and Muslims, occupying their lands… so how could we speak of friendship with them?” Marakem Shirazi was quoted as saying by the conservative Jomhuri Eslami newspaper.
“Why should people who think like that be one of the president’s colleagues?” he added.
Rahim Mashaie is one of Ahmadinejad’s most important advisers and closes allies. Earlier this year his daughter married the president’s son.
Ahmadinejad is known as radically anti-Israel. One wonders whether Mashaie said what he said in order to take away some concerns in both Israel and the West. If so, the response of Iranian clerics, student groups and clerics accomplishes the exact opposite; they draw attention to the fact that the ruling class in Iran hates Israeli Jews with a passion not seen since the Second World War (when Israel was not yet created of course).
In Iran, there is the most great Jewish population between European Union and US — with the exception of Israel, of course. The crude antisemitism of Mr. Ahmaninedjad has nothing to do with Iranian traditions.