What are Iran’s true intentions?

I was privileged to join Clare Lopez, Mark Langfan, and Dr. Walid Phares for this panel presentation jointly sponsored by The Endowment for Middle East Truth and the Center for Security Policy

Using photos, text, and clips, the video depicts how jihadism, and canonical Islamic antisemitism motivate the relentless effort to destroy the State of Israel from a shared Sunni-Shiite perspective. Featured, prominently, is an end of times messianic theme re-activated with fervor in Islam, for at least a century now, since the advent of the modern Zionist movement.

Uniquely Shiite “infidel impurity” (so-called “najis”) regulations and their impact are also explored in the context of centuries of Iranian Shiite theocratic rule.These motifs are illustrated, from the Sunni perspective by:

• The founder of the Palestinian Arab Muslim jihadist movement, ex-Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin el-Husseini, via his 1937 proclamation seeking to galvanize the global Muslim umma (or community) for a jihad to annihilate Palestinian Jewry, a decade before modern Israel came into existence. El-Husseini’s proclamation, which some deemed a “fatwa,” hinged upon Koran 5:82, which declares that the Jew’s harbor inveterate hatred toward Muslims, and the apocalyptic canonical tradition of Islam’s prophet Muhammad that maintains the messianic age will be ushered in by the annihilation of the Jews.

• A repetition of this end of times canonical tradition of Jew-annihilation, 75 years later, by the current Palestinian Authority Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Muhammad Hussein, during a January 9, 2012 sermon

• A May 10, 2013 sermon at Sunni Islam’s Vatican equivalent, Al-Azhar University, and its mosque, by Muhammad Al-Mahdi, a senior scholar and head of the Sharia Association at  Al-Azhar, invoking both Koran 5:82 and the same end of times canonical tradition of Jew-annihilation

• An October 25, 2013 interview by Sunni Islam’s Papal equivalent, Al-Azhar Grand Imam Ahmed al-Tayeb, also invoking Koran 5:82

Doctrinal Shiite jihadism, and Islamic antisemitism in Iran, including the unique (and dehumanizing) impurity regulations, since the nation became a Shiite theocracy during the Safavid era (i.e., at the beginning of the 16^th century), were characterized next, past as prologue to our era, and the current Rouhani Presidency. This material—the remainder and bulk of the presentation—includes:

• A concise formulation of jihad by the jurist al-Amili (d. 1621)

• Description of the “najis” impurity regulations by the Ayatollah Khomeini of his era, al-Majisi (d. 1699), from Majlisi’s treatise, “Lightning Bolts Against the Jews”
• The chronic, ugly consequences of those regulations over centuries for Jews, in particular, captured by the first hand account of French observer Claude Anet, from 1905

• Ayatollah Khomeini’s statements on jihad, Jews and Jew-annihilation, martyrdom, and takiya, i.e., sacralized Islamic dissimulation, 1942-1989

• Statements sanctioning Israel’s destruction by alleged “moderate” Iranian Presidents Khatami, Rafsanjani, and Rouhani

• The disturbing views on “infidel impurity” and Jew-annihilation by much ballyhooed “Green Movement” inspiration, the late Ayatollah Ali Montazeri

• A clear and forthright encapsulation of the Iranian regimes’ ideology vis a vis Israel—again riveting on Koran 5:82, and Islamic messianism—by current Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s representative in the Iranian Martyr Foundation, Mohammad Hassan Rahimian

• The poignant, experientially wise observations of Iranian Jewish exile, Farideh Goldin, born (1953) and raised in the Shiraz Iran Jewish ghetto