Last Thursday, the Islamic Republic swore in its new president, Ebrahim Raisi, a veteran leader who has presided over some of the regime’s most murderous acts of oppression. Yet neither Raisi’s record nor his country’s most recent acts of piracy, kidnapping, and war-making deterred the EU from sending a delegate to the ceremony. Fiamma Nirenstein observes:
First in line at the party—and seated in the front row at the ceremony—were the Hamas politburo chief Ismail Haniyeh, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Ziad al-Nakhaleh, and the Hizballah deputy secretary-general Naim Qassem (whose Lebanon-based, Iran-backed organization had just fired a barrage of missiles at Israel). . . . In the row right behind them, wearing a red tie, sat Enrique Mora, deputy secretary-general of the European External Action Service, the European Union’s diplomatic body, who officially added the above organizations to the EU blacklist—and who’s been leading Europe in the talks in Vienna to breathe new life into the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the nuclear deal with Iran.
[H]ow can Europe pay homage to a country that has made the destruction of the Jewish state and hatred of America its principal banner? How can it celebrate a government that invites and honors those who plan the murder of women and children on buses and pizzerias and supplies them with money?
The ayatollahs can be pleased with themselves. While terrorists take their place prominently in the first row, we in Europe, without a word, situate ourselves behind them in the second row.
Read more on JNS: https://www.jns.org/opinion/europe-kneels-before-raisi/