New York, NY, June 26, 2012 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today called on U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to immediately condemn an incendiary anti-Semitic and conspiracy-laden speech by Iran's vice president blaming Jews for spreading drug addiction and controlling the international illegal drug trade.

In his address to a U.N-sponsored conference marking International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking in Tehran, Iranian First Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi bizarrely claimed that no Jews are addicted to drugs, declaring:  "The Islamic Republic of Iran will pay for anybody who can research and find one single Zionist who is an addict. They do not exist. This is the proof of their involvement in drugs trade."  He went on to blame "Zionists and Jews" for involvement in other alleged conspiracies, including the Russian Revolution and ordering the killing of black babies.

Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director, issued the following statement: 

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.

 

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.  We begin by calling on Ban Ki-moon to speak out and to make clear that these views are not only objectionable, but repugnant to the entire international community.