Are the dark ages over?

President Obama’s efforts to ally the United States with the Islamic Republic of Iran is a grave matter, eventuating in the bizarre non-agreement agreement funding and facilitating Iran’s nuclear program. The Islamic Republic of Iran is ruled by an extraordinarily evil regime that avails itself of no tact or subtlety in the expression of its malign intentions. At the same time, it remains the leading state sponsor of terrorism and is responsible for the death and maiming of many Americans.

The regime observed International Holocaust Remembrance Day late last month in an unusual fashion. The UN urges member states observe the day by honoring the victims of the Nazi era and developing educational programs to help prevent future genocides. The invaluable MEMRI caught the Supreme Leader’s observance of the day with the release of the video “Are the dark ages over?” (video below, about three minutes long).

The video runs with this text:

Who assists the fake Zionist regime? Who supports them? Who clear the road for them? Who stands behind them?

It is Western powers – headed by America that are doing so. This is why they say in their slogans that they are opposed to terrorism and ISIS, they are lying. They say things that are not true. This is ignorance.

No one in European countries dares to speak about holocaust while it is not clear whether the core of this matter is a reality or not. Even if it is a reality, it is not clear how it happened. Speaking about holocaust and expressing doubts about it is considered to be a great sin. If someone does this they stop, arrest, imprison and sue him. This is while they claim to be supporters of freedom. This is the ignorance that exists in the world today.

We should be awake. You dear brothers, dear people of Iran, Muslims in the great Islamic Ummah and officials in different countries should know that we can stand up against the ignorance.

The Tower takes up the video here. The Tower quotes Emaunuele Ottolenghi, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, on the significance of the Iranian regime’s Holocaust denial.

Given how entrenched and pervasive Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism are within the Iranian regime, it is hard to dismiss the possibility that the regime’s principal motivation for embracing this narrative is to provide justification for its recurrence. Holocaust deniers, after all, have long sought to excuse the crime’s perpetrators and shift guilt onto its victims as a prelude to repeating that same crime.

The video reflects the animus of the Iranian regime against the United States along with its animus against “the fake Zionist” regime of Israel. The animus is all on the surface. As I say, there is nothing subtle about it.

The dark ages aren’t over, not even close.

NOTE: The State Department lists state sponsors of terrorism here. The State Department discusses Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism in chapter 3 of its 2014 country reports on terrorism.

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