Dieudonne Basks in Anti-Semitic Lovefest in Iran
Image by getty images
Iranian ex-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called Dieudonne M’bala M’bala a “great artist” during a meeting in Tehran with the French comic and repeat inciter of hate against Jews.
Dieudonne visited the Islamic Republic last week, the news site fararu.com reported, and presented Ahmadinejad with a golden statue of a man performing the quenelle — a gesture reminiscent of the Nazi salute which Dieudonne is promoting as a sign of discontent with the establishment but that French Prime Minister Manuel Valls has called a gesture of “anti-Semitic hate.”
Dieudonne calls the statue a “golden Quenelle” and has presented a number of them to personalities he defines as anti-Zionist. Ahmadinejad is a noted Holocaust denier who during his presidency wished for the disappearance of Israel.
On his official Twitter account, Ahmadinejad wrote about the encounter: “Visiting an old friend, a great artist. #Dieudonne #all4Palestine.”
During his eight years in office through 2013, Ahmadinejad ran competitions of cartoons on the Holocaust, soliciting drawings that suggested the genocide never happened or is happening to the Palestinians.
Dieudonne has more than 10 convictions for inciting hatred against the Jews, including through ridiculing the Holocaust and suggesting it is fabricated.
Dieudonne, whose shows are regularly banned in France and who is facing accusations of tax evasion in addition to ongoing probes into anti-Semitic speech, is the inventor of the word shaonanas.
A mashup of the Hebrew word for the Holocaust and French for pineapple, it is widely understood to be a codename suggesting the Holocaust never happened without violating France’s laws against denying it.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
