In House Party, a late 60s American TV show, host Art Linkletter had a segment called “Kids Say the Darndest Things.” Linkletter would interview young children and coax them into saying exactly what they were thinking because the truth was funny. I thought about that show as I read the darndest things Iran’s theocrats had to say about Israel and the U.S. since their Islamic revolution in 1979. I found it all morbidly funny.

For instance, take what Iran’s now dead Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said in 2000: “Iran’s stance has always been clear on this ugly phenomenon (Israel). We have repeatedly said that this cancerous tumor of a state should be removed from the region.” Isn’t that darling?

It was Tuesday afternoon, and I was digging for more of the darndest things Ali had said, when at 3:24 p.m., a missile alert pulsed from my phone (take a listen), startling me. But I wanted more dark humor before I had to head to the miklat (my apartment building’s bomb shelter), so I kept going. Ali didn’t disappoint. Fifteen years later, he affirmed his message, declaring that “G-d willing, there will be no such thing as a Zionist regime in 25 years.” No lines to read between. Iran had a twenty-five-year plan to wipe out Israel. I hear you, man. But, Ali, what should Muslims do in the interim? “Until then,” Ali answered, “struggling, heroic, and jihadi morale will leave no moment of serenity for Zionists.” Like poetic symmetry, at that threatening moment, the sirens sounded (take a listen). Iranian missiles were headed my way. I hightailed it down to my miklat.

By 3:30 p.m., after the Iron Dome booms rattled my miklat, Home Front Command gave the all-clear signal. I helped my neighbor walk her three little kids to their second-floor apartment and resumed my reading of all the darndest things Iran’s despots had said in the name of Islam.

“We must strive to export our Revolution throughout the world, and must abandon all idea of not doing so, for not only does Islam refuse to recognize any difference between Muslim countries, it is the champion of all oppressed people,” said the first Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, on March 21, 1980, to commemorate the Iranian New Year. How sweet. And we see that Ayatollah Ali, Ruhollah’s successor, had no problem with that plan. While Israel may have had a special place in Ali’s heart, why limit such hatred to the Jews when you can export it to the rest of the world? Ali indeed delivered, and at no extra charge. As Marjan Keypour Greenblatt of the Atlantic Council put it, “Since 1979, the Islamic Republic has operated along two strategic tracks: exporting its Shia revolutionary doctrine and establishing influence through networks like the ‘Axis of Resistance.’”

Into the night, I read speeches by Iran’s Ayatollahs, presidents, generals, cronies. They all had the same Jew hatred stench. Jews suck. Israel sucks. They need to be eliminated. My readings left me with the distinct impression that these Iranian theocrats had a rather unhealthy obsession with Israel and the Jews. Old story, different actors. Still, it bummed me out. I........

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