Iran Official Blames Drug Trade on Jews, Talmud

By JTA June 27, 2012

An Iranian vice president blamed “Zionists” for the global drug trade and said the Talmud encourages promoting addiction in non-Jewish communities.

Iranian First Vice-President Mohammad Reza Rahimi made the comments Tuesday as part of ceremonies marking International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking in Tehran.

He said evidence of the “Zionists’” direct involvement in illicit drugs is that fact that “you cannot find a single addict among the Zionists,” the semi-official Iranian FARS news service reported.

Referring to the Talmud, he said, “The book teaches them how to destroy non-Jews so as to protect an embryo in the womb of a Jewish mother.”

The Anti-Defamation League called on United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to immediately condemn the incendiary anti-Semitic and conspiracy-laden speech.

“To all those who thought that anti-Semitism is a thing of the past, certainly this makes it very clear that it is alive and well again. What makes it more sinister and dangerous is the fact that it comes from a leader of a country that has vowed to destroy the Jewish state, and is making efforts to obtain the means to do it,” ADL National Director Abe Foxman said in a statement.

“Before now, good people in the world either ignored Iran’s anti-Semitism or did not take it seriously. One would hope that this resurgence of dangerous anti-Semitic themes at a U.N. conference in Tehran would shake up the moral, political, religious leadership to condemn it with a strong voice.”

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