Israeli children ‘corrupt’: Iranian ambassador’s history of anti-Semitic slurs
Before making headlines in his call to end the state of Israel, Australia’s most undiplomatic ambassador, Ahmad Sadeghi, made a series of anti-Semitic slurs that eclipses even his most recent tirades.
The most undiplomatic ambassador in Australia, Ahmad Sadeghi, made a series of anti-Semitic slurs on social media before sparking controversy with his call to “end” the state of Israel and the “Zionist plague”,
Iranian ambassador Mr Sadeghi, 60, has been predominantly using his social media platform on X to attack the state of Israel, with his incendiary remarks defending Hamas as a spontaneous “resistance” and condemning Israeli children as corrupt, and openly suggesting Israel should be designated as a terrorist state and its leaders marked as “war criminals”.
Mr Sadeghi first addressed the Middle East conflict publicly on October 12 last year, declaring the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas terrorists was a “spontaneous Palestinian jail-break”.
“The Al-Aqsa Storm was a spontaneous Palestinian jail-break out of an open-air prison called ‘Gaza’; a coastal enclave deprived by Israel of their life essentials,” he posted.
One of the most significant escalations of Mr Sadeghi’s rhetoric came in late October, when he accused Israel of having no moral standing or right to exist. In his words, the Israeli state was “the most notorious killing machine in current world history”, and he claimed the world should work to “end the heinous life of (this) apartheid regime”.
Amid ongoing discussions about accountability for war crimes, Mr Sadeghi publicly advocated for Israel to be assigned “war criminal” status and labelled the Israel Defence Forces a “terrorist organisation”. Asserting that Zionism is equivalent to apartheid, he claimed it serves as “a faucet for occupation, ethnic cleansing, and a real holocaust against Palestinian civilians”.
Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Alex Ryvchin said the regular public airing of “racially charged” slurs and insults against Israel was a disgrace.
“His regular public pronouncements, which are laced with support for violence and racist language, are a disgrace. Our government needs to explain why it permits this man to remain in our country when visas are denied on character grounds for far less,” Mr Ryvchin told The Australian.
“No Australian diplomat in a foreign posting would ever think to incite hatred and destabilise his host society through racially charged calls for the destruction of a sovereign state.
“Why would we permit others to do so in our country?
“The German government has just shut three Iranian consulates. It’s past time for our government to take similar action.”
The Iranian embassy in Canberra has declined multiple requests for comment when approached by The Australia, while Israeli ambassador to Australia Amir Maimon remains tight-lipped on his counterpart’s remarks as well.
In another inflammatory comment he made on February 15, Mr Sadeghi shared a video of IDF soldiers dancing in a room accompanied by a verse from the Koran that states: “We declared to the children of Israel in the Book that you will surely cause corruption on the Earth twice, and you will become exceedingly arrogant”, which was followed by a personal statement that reads: “It has been revealed in the divine scripture that the children of Israel will certainly commit corruption and rebellion twice.”
Mr Sadeghi even questioned whether extensive land purchases by Jewish billionaire Joe Lewis in Patagonia, Argentina, were part of an exit strategy for a “post-defeat phase in Palestine”. He implied that such land acquisitions may foreshadow a new homeland project if Israel was defeated in the war.
“Is the massive purchase of lands in Patagonia (south of Argentina) by Jewish billionaire Joe Lewis (where thousands of Israeli soldiers enjoy their holidays), an Israeli exit strategy in (a) post-defeat phase in Palestine? Then, may god have mercy on (Argentinian) lands! #endofIsrael,” Mr Sadeghi wrote.
Tehran’s envoy claimed the “occupying Zionists” had their first state established in Birobidzhan on the Chinese-Russian border in 1928, adding it “could be (the) right place” for them to be relocated.
“Few might know Birobidzhan in (the) trans-Siberian region, close to the Russian-Chinese border, is the 1st Jewish state established in 1928; having approximate size of Switzerland & population around 80K could be (the) right place occupying Zionists be relocated there,” he said.
For an official diplomat, these statements fall far from the typical bounds of diplomatic language, leaving Australian politicians and the public questioning the propriety of his conduct.
Iran’s former foreign minister, Hossein Amirabdollahian, appointed Mr Sadeghi to the diplomatic role in July 2023.
When the ambassador said in August this year he hoped for the “Zionist plague” to be “wiped out” by 2027, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the government had summoned him to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade “as protocol”.
In the post, which remains on his X platform, Mr Sadeghi called Israel a “genocidal regime” and said he looked forward to the only Jewish state being “wiped out of the holy lands of Palestine”.
He was again hauled in to DFAT when The Australian revealed he hailed Hezbollah’s assassinated Hassan Nasrallah as a “remarkable leader”. But his most recent claptrap was calling the Israeli strike on Iran a “terrorist attack”, after which no disciplinary measures were taken.
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