On Tuesday, Speaker of the Iranian Parliament Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf denounced the Israeli genocide in the Gaza Strip, likening the Jewish state’s actions to those of Nazi Germany. According to the Iranian state-run Press TV, Ghalibaf made his comments during the opening day of the 6th World Conference of Speakers of Parliament in Geneva, which is organized by the Inter-Parliamentary Union, in coordination with the United Nations.
“We are witnessing the emergence of the Nazis of the 21st century,” Ghalibaf said. “A regime, which through cold-bloodedness and a [grim] scenario, is waging a campaign of aggression that seems to have sprung from the nightmares of the most horrific crimes in history.”
“Gaza today is not simply an expanse of land, but rather an abattoir and a crime scene. It is a slaughterhouse built out of a terrible and wicked mentality that swallows humanity within itself. What is happening in Gaza is not war; it is a systematic massacre,” he continued.
He repeated the Nazi comparison later in his address. “Gaza today is not merely a regional crisis; it is a test of the world’s conscience. If the Nazis of our time are not stopped there, the flames of this tragedy will spread across the globe,” he stated.
More than 60,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched its war in October 2023, the Gaza Ministry of Health reported on Tuesday.
Ghalibaf, who was first elected to the Islamic Consultative Assembly in 2020, went on to condemn the U.S.-backed Israeli war against Iran. He also took aim at the international community’s failure to hold the instigators accountable and reiterated Iran’s right to defend its sovereignty.
“The attacks were not only a threat to Iran’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, but also a worrying warning for the destabilization of collective security in the region and across the globe,” Ghalibaf said. “The inaction of international institutions in response to these actions raised serious questions about the credibility and effectiveness of international peacekeeping structures, including the U.N. Security Council.”
Iran’s top lawmaker delivered his speech the same day that Iranian Armed Forces Chief of Staff Abdolrahim Mousavi said the Islamic Republic did not trust the U.S. or Israel. Mousavi told Tajikistani Minister of Defense Emomali Rahmon that Iran found no value in the “promises and commitments of the Americans and Zionists.” He added that Iran was fully prepared to engage both countries should they restart last month’s war.
On Monday, Ghalibaf said that Israel was guilty of genocide. He accused the Israeli government of fomenting the starvation crisis in Gaza, “causing famine, hunger, and thirst” and “causing children and women to die slowly while still alive.” The state-operated Mehr News Agency also reported that Ghalibaf blamed the instability caused by the U.S.-backed Israeli war on the West’s embrace of unilateralism.
Ghalibaf, a hardliner who served as a senior commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, was present when the IDF attempted to assassinate Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian during the June 16 meeting of the Supreme National Security Council. He has been critical of the International Atomic Energy Agency for refusing to condemn the U.S. attacks on three of Iran’s nuclear facilities. Late last month, he announced that Iran would stop cooperating with the IAEA until it guaranteed that the country’s facilities would be safe from foreign attacks. On June 25, the Iranian parliament voted overwhelmingly to sever ties with the agency.
