Ayatollah Khamenei Takes Top Spot on Anti-Semitic Slur List

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei's "rabid dog" comment landed him in first place in the Simon Wiesenthal Center's annual top-10 list of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel slurs, where he was joined by the likes of Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters and basketball star Tony Parker.

Khamenei took first spot for describing Israel in November as "the rabid dog in the region" of the Middle East, reports The Jerusalem Post. He also said that Israeli "leaders look like beasts and cannot be called human," and that "Zionists" were in control of the United States, "updating the old canard of a global Jewish conspiracy," the center said.

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Turkish Prime Minister Recip Tayyip Erdogan placed second for blaming actions of anti-government demonstrators in June on the "interest-rate lobby," which his deputy described as "the Jewish diaspora." Erdogan also suggested the ouster of former Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi was brought about by Israel, the center noted.

Rabbi Marvin Hier, the Wiesenthal center's dean and founder, said this year's list was created to point out that leaders of nations and people who have credentials should not get "free passes" when it comes to their anti-Semitic behavior.

"The rest of the world should not be so friendly with them," Hier said. "It is not correct to have meetings with the prime minister of Turkey when he is a common bigot."

He also said Erdogan, who has visited Washington, should not be welcome in the United States, and criticized a photograph of foreign ministers celebrating the Iran nuclear deal in November.

"The jubilant mood" came just days after Khamenei called for "the elimination of the state of Israel, making it clear that Iran's singular foreign policy is the elimination of Israel," Hier said.

But the list included more than just world leaders. Rock band Pink Floyd's Waters, for example, made the list by calling Israel an "apartheid state" and comparing it to Nazi Germany.

The center added San Antonio Spurs star Parker, a native of France, for making a "Nazi-like salute," and called on him to apologize, according to Fox News.

Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Alice Walker was also on the list. Her latest book, "Pin in the Cushion," was described by the center as a "diatribe against the Jewish state" in which "Walker depicts Hamas-ruled Gaza as a benign place" while comparing Israelis to Nazis.

The American Studies Association, which singled out Israel for a boycott, and the Pine Bush, N.Y., school district, which the center says failed to protect its Jewish pupils from "anti-Semitic slurs and physical abuse by bullies," also made the list.

Two Jewish-American writers, Richard Falk and Max Blumenthal, are also on the list. The center said that Blumenthal uses chapter titles in his book "Goliath" to equate Israel with the Nazi regime, and that Falk has accused Israel of trying to organize its own Nazi-like Holocaust against the Palestinians.

Others on the list include an extremist Hungarian political party, which called for a registry for Jews for "security reasons," the United Church of Canada for endorsing a boycott of Israel, and European cartoonists for their depictions of Israel and Jews.

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