Iran’s Supreme Leader tops the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s (SWC) “Top Ten Anti-Semitic and Anti-Israel List” for 2013.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center said Monday that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was placed at the top of the list “because of his continuous calls for Israel’s annihilation even during the announcement of the interim nuclear agreement.”
The annual list released by the center exposes Jew-hatred by government leaders, movements, and cultural elites who are influential, have impact, and wield real power.
“Throughout 2013, as the US conducted secret talks with Tehran, the Ayatollah’s anti-Semitic and anti-Israel hate flowed unabated,” said SWC, adding, “On the eve of Iranian elections, Khamenei declared, ‘Zionists’ were the real power in the United States, updating the old canard of a global Jewish conspiracy.
The #2 spot on the list was taken by Turkey’s Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who in 2013 continued his verbal attacks on Israel, including blaming the Jewish State for the Gezi Park protests. Erdogan also fingered Israel as for being responsible for the Egyptian military’s ouster of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi.
In next spot on the SWC list one can find Richard Falk, the United Nations’ human rights expert who has a history of anti-Israel statements.
This year, Falk said that if renewed peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) fail, the UN General Assembly should turn to the International Court of Justice and seek an opinion on “the legal consequences of Israel's occupation of land claimed by the Palestinians."
Others named by the SWC include the American Studies Association (ASA) that only several weeks ago voted in favor of an academic boycott of Israel and Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters, who this year compared Israel to Nazi Germany.
“The situation in Israel/Palestine, with the occupation, the ethnic cleansing and the systematic racist apartheid Israeli regime is unacceptable,” Waters, who has previously faced criticism for virulently anti-Israel statements, said in an interview earlier this month.