As prepared for delivery
Jonathan, thank you so much for your strong and very moving introduction. I’m truly touched.
And before I begin, happy 75th birthday to the people of Israel.
Ladies and gentleman, good evening. It is a pleasure to be with you tonight to pay tribute to 110 years of the Anti-Defamation League’s tireless work to combat bigotry.
Your commitment to the fight against hatred, particularly against those of the Jewish faith, is honorable, and I thank and congratulate you for these efforts.
I know that this audience is all-too familiar with the scourge of antisemitism, the importance of fighting against it, and the necessity of educating about it. So I am here this evening to offer my thoughts on the cascading effects that antisemitism can lead to and the toll they can take.
As a student of the practitioners of peace, from Gene Sharp to Dr. King to Gandhi, I have long respected the ADL’s work. I believe it’s impact goes beyond the singular focus on antisemitism. Instead, your work helps counter all forms of discrimination. Because hate is hate, and wherever the passive normalization of hatred of one group is allowed, it makes the society that much more vulnerable to such poison being directed at others.
I saw this firsthand in my country, Iran.
The leaders of the 1979 Islamic revolution, and the founders of the current regime that has brought such horror on my country, were driven by a blind animus toward the Jewish people. As a two power, our leading statesman were accused of being “Zionist spies.” Our businessman and philanthropists, like Habib Elchanan were executed. Indeed, the entire government was accused of being a Jewish conspiracy. This antisemitic fearmongering was pervasive. But the hatred and conspiracy theories did not stop with the Jewish people.
When the revolutionaries antisemitic propaganda campaign became so pervasive such as to appear normal, the hatemongers and hate peddlers fixed their sights on their next targets. Iranian women quickly became the foremost targets of the revolutionaries and their new government. They were publicly beaten harassed and segregated in the early days of the revolution. That was only the beginning. For four decades, they have been systematically disenfranchised, most notably being legally considered to be worth half of a man.
The Islamic Republic’s campaign of bigotry also includes members of the Bahai faith, who are punished for their religious beliefs, face government mandated discrimination in schools and workplaces and experience property confiscation and desecration of their cemeteries.
Sunni Muslims were denied the right to worship in their own mosques. Christians were forced into secretive house churches. The vast majority of Iranian Shia Muslims – those who did not subscribe to Khomeini’s perverse interpretation of our faith -- were persecuted. Those who spoke up … were silenced or killed.
The persecution even took aim at our ancient culture and traditions. The new regime attempted to ban the celebration of Nowruz, our national holiday. It came after those who celebrated Iran’s pre-Islamic identity.
Forty-four years on, the list of victims of what began as an antisemitic conspiracy theory, continues to grow.
You may be familiar with the famous quote from German pastor Martin Niemöller. First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.
Well, after the Islamic Revolution in Iran, and in many other places, it is indeed the case that first they come for the Jews, and then they come for the others.
So, that is why we must speak out. That is why I am here this evening. And that is why I went to Israel.
I went to stand up against the Islamic Republic’s antisemitism, and to stand in solidarity with victims of the Holocaust, in the face of the regime’s Holocaust denial. (applause).
I went to mourn with the victims of the regime-sponsored terrorism. But I also went to Israel to stand up for my people. So there would be no further victims of hatred and bigotry. For when we allow baseless hatred of one group to go unchecked, it inevitably leads to more. That is what happened in my country.
My trip to Israel was not merely to stand on principle. I went with a new vision for our region. A vision that is not bogged down in the forced ideological divisions of recent decades, but instead based on the ancient ways of our lands and connections between our people. The ties between the Iranian and Jewish people are millennia and rooted in the traditions of Queen Esther and King Cyrus. It was in Cyrus’s spirit that I went to Israel.
Because it is that spirit of tolerance, friendship and cooperation that is truly representative of the Iranian nation. Not the antisemitism, terrorism and deprivation that the current regime occupying my country represents.
But to see this tradition, we do not need to refer all the way back to Biblical times. This was how we lived as a nation just four decades ago – Iranian Muslims, Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, Bahais and even people of no faith lived together as citizens endowed with equal rights. That led our country to extend that same spirit, the spirit of Cyrus, to our regional and international relationships. It was the Iranian Diplomat, Abdol Hossein Sadari, who refused to flee occupied Paris, and personally issued Iranian passports to over 2,000 Jews, allowing them safe passage to Iran, and saving them from Hitler’s concentration camps.
He was our Schindler.
Today it is the people of the Middle East, including religious minorities, who are fleeing the region and seeking refuge in Europe, as the result of discrimination, oppression and conflicts. It is remarkable to consider that just several decades ago it was the people of Europe including members of its Jewish communities, who sought refuge in Iran, fleeing the Holocaust and war. That spirit continued with Iran’s cooperation with Israel, to our partnership with nations in the Persian Gulf and across the Middle East. Today, the Abraham Accords remind us that it is still possible, but I believe that such peace will only be sustainable, when a secular, democratic Iran joins its ranks.
In a future secular and democratic Iran, the rule of law, based not only on the international declaration of human rights, but on Cyrus the Great’s first ever declaration, will establish and guarantee freedom of religion as a fundamental right, so that Iran can return to its roots as a nation where people of different faiths live and worship freely alongside each other. In such an Iran, this will extend our relation with all of our neighbors based on the principle of mutual respect and peaceful coexistence. That is the Iran I envision. That is the Iran my compatriots are fighting for.
My friends, just as Cyrus helped free the Jewish people from Babylon and aided them in rebuilding the temple, today my people are in captivity and in need of solidarity and support. There is a temple that needs to be rebuilt. Iran is that temple. Stand with us.