US condemns Raisi's 'anti-Semitic' remarks on Holocaust denial
On Monday, September 19, two senior US government officials condemned Ebrahim Raisi's recent statements denying the Holocaust, calling them "anti-Semitic."
In an interview with the American CBS network, Ebrahim Raisi did not confirm the occurrence of this disaster, responding to a question about the Holocaust, saying: "If these events occurred, they should be investigated."
Deborah Lipstadt, the US government's special representative to combat anti-Semitism, called Raisi's remarks "ridiculous and dangerous."
"His [Raisi's] statements are a form of Holocaust denial and a form of anti-Semitism," he tweeted.
White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan also retweeted Ms. Lipstadt's tweet and wrote that Raisi's statements were "cruel and should be universally condemned."
Israeli officials have also reacted to Raisi's remarks, with Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, whose father was a Holocaust survivor as a child, posting tragic photos of the genocide and writing, "Here are some signs."
General Aviv Kochavi, the Chief of Staff of the Israeli Army, also said: "Those who are Holocaust deniers can also have weapons of mass destruction and deny it."
"You don't have to be a historian to understand the horrors of the Holocaust, you have to be human," Mr. Kochavi emphasized on Monday, September 19, during a visit by a senior Israeli military delegation to Auschwitz in Poland.
On January 27, 1945, the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, the largest Nazi concentration camp, was conquered by the Soviet army, and several thousand of the camp's prisoners, mostly sick and dying, were liberated.
The Islamic Republic has questioned the existence of Israel since its inception, and statements by Tehran officials about "erasing Israel from the map" have been repeated many times.
The government of the Islamic Republic, especially during the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, officially denied the Holocaust.
However, after Ahmadinejad became president, Hassan Rouhani's government attempted to moderate the Islamic Republic's positions on this issue.
In early August, the publication of Ali Khamenei's statements about Jews on his Twitter account once again sparked global reactions.
"We condemn this egregious and ongoing anti-Semitism," Deborah Lipstadt wrote on the official Twitter account of the Office of the U.S. Special Representative for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism.
In January of last year, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution banning any denial of the Holocaust, but the Islamic Republic did not vote for the resolution.
The government of Ebrahim Raisi at the time accused Israel of using the victims of World War II and the Jews as justification for its actions against the Palestinian people and neighboring countries.
But Raisi's recent statements about the Holocaust are likely to influence his first trip to New York .
Source: Radio Farda
