In a paradox of history, Tehran's former foreign minister calls for cancellation of the "Zionist project" just a few feet away from the Holocaust monument in Berlin’s city center.
The former foreign minister, Mohammad Larijani is the brother of Iranian parliament chairman Ali Larijani and the former top negotiator on issues of national security, including Iran's nuclear program.
Larinji is now the director of the Institute for Studies in Theoretical Physics and Mathematics in Tehran and a member of the Iranian Human Rights Committee.
The conference in Berlin, which was aimed at discussing anti-missile defense systems, quickly turned into a blatant anti-Israel event with commentary from Syrian, Lebanese and Saudi Arabian speakers attacking Israel.
All of this took place not in Iran, but rather in Berlin, the capital of Germany.
The conference was organized by a local foundation for peace and conflict resolutions.
It was "generously" funded as described in the event’s program, by the German government, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation connected to the German Social-Democratic party and the German Protestant Church.
Governmental offices in Germany quickly rushed to clear themselves of responsibility for the event. The conference’s invitation reveals that the event was sponsored by the German Foreign Ministry. However, in response to an inquiry by Yedioth Ahronoth, the ministry’s spokeswoman said that the Finance Ministry subsidized it.
An examination on Wednesday into which office really did fund the event yielded no answers. In response to Yedioth Ahronoth’s questions regarding what problem Iran has with Israel and if Iran is fearful of Israel, Larijani responded, "We have no problem with Israel, we have a stance.
"We think that Israel represents a plan to create a Jewish State in the heart of the Muslim world and that this Zionist plan has failed terribly and only caused horrible damages."
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