Anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism in Iran

Delegitimizing Jews and Israel in Iran's International Holocaust Cartoon Contest

“…This serves to attribute the destruction of one of the holiest sites in Islam to the Israeli army. Furthermore, there is an implicit anchoring of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to historical religious conflict between Jews and Muslims--this has performed an important mobilizing function in Arab/Iranian anti-Zionist discourse (Jaspal 2013a(Jaspal , 2014Litvak 1998).…”

“…Indeed, in December of the same year, President Ahmadinejad hosted the International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust in Tehran, which brought together Holocaust deniers from some 60 countries. In short, the Iranian cartoon contest can plausibly be regarded as a journalistic extension of Iranian state ideology in which anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism play an important role (Jaspal 2013a;Jaspal 2014).…”

“…This age-old prejudice has manifested itself in various forms and guises over several centuries. The dominant themes, such as deicide, the blood libel, the accusation of world domination, that have historically characterized European anti-Semitism gradually infiltrated social representations of Jews in the Middle East (Herf 2006;Jaspal 2013a;Webman 2010;Wistrich 1999). The Islamic Republic of Iran makes no secret of its antiZionist stance which is frequently punctuated by blatant anti-Semitism (Shahvar 2009).…”

“…There has been research into the social psychological aspects of anti-Semitism (e.g., Cohen et al 2009;Jaspal 2013a) and its historical, cultural and political underpinnings (e.g., Lindemann and Levy 2010;Litvak 2006;Shahvar 2009). Yet, despite the social and political importance of the 2006 cartoon contest and the general clout that visual representations can have in shaping public opinion and intergroup relations (Bounegru is, myths and fears concerning the "evil" nature of Jews, which are represented in cartoon format.…”

Israel in the Iranian Media: Demonizing the “Zionist Regime”

“…It regurgitates well-known social representations created and encouraged in Tehran's political rhetoric. 29 Moreover, it provides greater reach to key figures of the country's theocratic and political establishment by disseminating their controversial anti-Zionist assertions. This is significant because the assertions of these political figures tend not to be given much attention in mainstream global media outlets such as the BBC and CNN.…”