When certain statements separated by nearly a century are placed side by side, a troubling continuity emerges. In Mein Kampf, Hitler writes: “The Jew is and remains the typical parasite… a ferment of decomposition.” (1)

In the 1920s-30s, no Jewish state existed. Hitler therefore targeted Jews as individuals and as a “race.”

Now that a Jewish state exists, Ali Khamenei declares: “The Zionist regime is a cancerous tumor that should be cut out and will be.” (2) The rhetoric has adapted: one no longer speaks of “the Jew,” but of the “Zionist regime.”

In both cases, the Jew—or the Zionist regime—is not treated as a person or a legitimate state, but as a pathology to be dealt with as such. The elimination advocated in each case is framed as an act of public health.

More than that: as an act of public salvation. Hitler presented “the struggle against the Jews as necessary for the survival of the German people,” as a form of “salvation.”

Khamenei frames it as a moral obligation: “Fighting the Zionist regime is a duty,” and at the same time as a prophylactic solution: “The only remedy to this problem is the elimination of the Zionist regime.”

In all cases, elimination is presented as the solution.

For the regime of the mullahs, this “solution” is inscribed in the heavens: “God willing, there will be nothing left of what is called the Zionist regime in 25 years.” (3)

This prophecy was materialized in central Tehran by a “countdown clock,” an electronic display showing, in days, hours, and minutes, the supposed inexorable end of Israel.

For both Hitler and Khamenei, the disappearance of the Jews—with or without a state—is the ultimate objective, at the end of a process of pathologization, dehumanization, and delegitimization.

That neither the UN nor the so-called “international majority” denounces this disqualifies them.

But whereas in the face of Hitler the Jews were disarmed, abandoned—hefker, as one says in Hebrew—before Khamenei stands the State of Israel, risen “like a lion.”

(1) Mein Kampf (2) Speech, 2013, khamenei.ir (3) Speech of September 9, 2015, khamenei.ir

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)