Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei evoked the Holocaust when he tweeted out a graphic, “Palestine Will be Free. The Final Solution: Resistance until Referendum.” Khamenei’s embrace of a Nazi-era slogan was no accident. Not only Iranian hard-liners, but also so-called reformers such as former President Mohammad Khatami have dabbled in Holocaust denial and revisionism.

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif sought to diffuse Western outrage at his boss’s embrace of a Nazi-era slogan in a follow-up tweet: “Disgusting that those whose civilization found a'”Final Solution’ in gas chambers attack those who seek a real solution at the ballot box, through a REFERENDUM. Why are US and West so afraid of democracy?”