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Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged coordinated global action on Monday to build an alliance against the growth and spread of
neo-Nazism and white supremacy and the resurgence of
xenophobia, anti-Semitism, and hate speech sparked partly by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The U.N. chief also urged international action "to fight propaganda and disinformation." And he called for stepped up education on Nazi actions during World War II, stressing that almost two-thirds of young Americans do not know that 6 million Jews were killed during the Holocaust.
Guterres spoke at the annual Park East Synagogue and United Nations International Holocaust Remembrance Service marking Wednesday's 76th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, held virtually this year because of COVID-19.
He said the pandemic "has exacerbated longstanding injustices and divisions."
"Propaganda linking Jews with the pandemic, for example, by accusing them of creating the virus as part of a bid for global domination, would be ridiculous, if it were not so dangerous," he said. "This is just the latest manifestation of an anti-Semitic trope that dates back to at least the 14th century, when Jews were accused of spreading the bubonic plague."
Comment: It's difficult to know if Masoumi-Tehrani is hopelessly naive about Israel's multi-pronged and mostly covert acts of aggression towards Iran over the last two decades - or if he actually knows and understands what's going on - but thinks his statements are actually a viable approach to detente with Israel. Which would also be hopelessly naive.
In either case, Israel has for many years now sought to not only demonize Iran before the world but to literally bring it to its knees.
Why else would Israel send no one less than the head of its notorious Mossad (for goodness sake!) to dictate what US policy should be towards Iran?!? Mossad chief to outline Israeli 'demands' to Biden for rejoining Iran nuclear deal