Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) leadership preached an ultimate war on the Jewish people in live-streamed talks arranged by the Islamic Students Association of Britain, according to a Jewish Chronicle report on Thursday.
Some of the speakers who addressed the Muslim student audiences have, according to the JC, been sanctioned by Britain for human rights violations.
The Jewish news outlet obtained recordings of these talks where IRGC leaders encouraged violence against and parroted conspiracies regarding Jews. The talks have reached tens of thousands of people.
According to the JC report, Saeed Ghasemi, an IRGC commander, speaking to the students, denied the Holocaust, bragged about training al-Qaeda terrorists, and glorified soldiers who would fight against the Jews in an end-times war on the Jewish people, advocating for those in the audience to join said war on the Jewish people.
Mongering for an ultimate, genocidal war on Jews is not a uniquely IRGC idea. It exists and has existed in extremist Islamist circles from online spaces to Hamas rallies on the Temple Mount.
Another speaker featured at these IRGC talks, Hossein Yekta, advanced the claim that Jewish people “created homosexuality,” a claim that mirrors assertions made by other extremist religious and nationalist groups such as the Westboro Baptist Church and the Goyim Defense League.
Yekta further encouraged those in attendance to “raise the flag of the Islamic revolution, Islam, and martyrdom [and to view themselves as] holy warriors,” the JC reported. He went on to promise that the “era of the Jews” would soon be over.
The JC noted that the Islamic Students Association of Britain’s chair, Ataee Dolat Abadi, denied that he remains in the position, and furthermore, that any such events took place.
“Islamic Students Associations have never had any direct or indirect affiliation to the IRGC or any army, government or security group anywhere in the world, and neither have I,” Abadi claimed in comment to the JC. “Islamic Students Associations have never held any physical gathering/deminar/conference in Kanoon Towhid or anywhere else with any of the falsely accused individuals,” he added.
Still, the JC claims that it “has identified eight IRGC leaders who have addressed UK student audiences since early 2020.”
Additionally, the antisemitic IRGC talks to UK students have regalvanized calls for the UK to designate the IRGC as a terrorist organization and thus restrict such talks from occurring.
Such action, however, the JC notes, has met resistance from the Foreign Office.
Nevertheless, some British politicians and figures have been exceedingly vocal in support of a move proscribing the IRGC as a terror organization.
“In organizing such despicable talks, the Islamic Students Association of Britain acts at best as a willing propaganda arm of the Iranian regime, and at worst as an agitator for state-sponsored terrorism,” said Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee Alicia Kearns before going on to advocate prosecution of individuals and groups inciting violence in the UK.
“This kind of penetration is a perilous development that may well be damaging national security,” noted Anthony Glees, a Security and intelligence expert and Emeritus Professor at the University of Buckingham. “America has proscribed these people and we should too,” he said.
The conversation regarding such a move has been in progress for months now, reaching a crescendo in January of this year before slipping out of the public attention. In fact, in early January, the Jerusalem Post highlighted a report claiming that the UK was in the process of making the designation.
Israel calls for UK to designate IRGC as a terror org
Israel as well has been a heavy advocate for a UK decision designating the IRGC as a terror organization.
Also in January of this year, Israel called on the UK to designate the IRGC as a terror organization following a meeting in Jerusalem between Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen and British Minister of State for the Middle East, Lord Tariq Ahmad.
