Iran’s Ayatollah Launches Unhinged Twitter Rant Against ‘Filthy Zionist’ Jared Kushner

In this picture released by an official website of the office of the Iranian supreme leade
Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP
John Hayward

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Tuesday tweeted criticisms of the U.S.-brokered peace deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) before launching into an anti-Semitic tirade against President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner.

Khamenei threw in some threats against the UAE for good measure:

As of Thursday afternoon, Twitter has not blocked access to Khamenei’s violent and anti-Semitic messages, deleted them, or even labeled them with a content warning. In case the supposedly truth-obsessed, propaganda-fighting, anti-hate social media platform eventually decides to take action against Khamenei’s clear violations of its rules, the three messages are transcribed below:

The nation of Palestine is under various, severe pressures. Then, the UAE acts in agreement with the Israelis & filthy Zionist agents of the U.S. — such as the Jewish member of Trump’s family — with utmost cruelty against the interests of the World of Islam. #UAEStabsMuslims

The UAE rulers opened the door of the region to the Zionists, and they have ignored and normalized the question of Palestine, which is a question about the usurpation of a country. This stigma will remain on them.

The #UAE betrayed the world of Islam, the Arab nations, the region’s countries, and #Palestine. Of course, this betrayal won’t last long.

The Jerusalem Post picked out several “anti-Semitic tropes and dog whistles” in Khamenei’s tweets and quoted observers who wondered how Khamenei can get away with blatantly violating Twitter’s Terms of Service:

Blue and White MK Michal Cotler-Wunsh slammed the tweets, asking Twitter whether “singling out a Jew and referring to Jews as ‘filthy’ violate your hate-speech policy.”

US Assistant Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism Ellie Cohanim tweeted that it was time for the social media giant to permanently remove the “vile anti-Semite” from Twitter. Emily Schrader, founder of Social Creative, also slammed the tweet for being antisemitic.

The Jerusalem Post further noted that Khamenei’s insults were rendered differently in the various foreign language Twitter accounts maintained by the Iranian government. The dog-whistle words “cruel” and “filthy” only appeared in the English-language version, for example, while “Jew” was left out of the Spanish and French versions, and the line about “vile Zionist agents in the Trump family” was sometimes edited to remove the reference to President Donald Trump and his family.

The Jewish Journal noted more attempts to draw the attention of Twitter management to Khamenei’s vicious tweets, including CNN anchor Jake Tapper, international human rights attorney Arsen Ostrovsky, and philanthropist Adam Milstein. 

The Jewish Journal reported that Twitter did not respond when directly asked to comment on Khamenei’s tweets.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo personally responded to Khamenei on Tuesday:

“And if you’re looking for those betraying Islam, China is seeking to destroy the Uyghurs. Looking forward to your public callout for the CCP’s horrific treatment of those Muslims,” Pompeo added. CCP is an abbreviation for Chinese Communist Party.

The Times of Israel suspected Khamenei’s rant was meant to intimidate, or infuriate, other Arab nations that might follow the UAE’s lead (and Egypt and Jordan before them) by establishing formal relations with Israel.

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