The New York Times reported that former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was supposedly being positioned by the United States and Israel to lead Iran. That claim is beyond absurd.
I believe I am the only Zionist leader who has ever sat face-to-face with Ahmadinejad for an extended private meeting. I met with him in his hotel in New York City for more than an hour while he was attending the United Nations General Assembly. I even invited Fox News to participate because I wanted the American people to hear directly from the man who openly called for Israel’s destruction.
What I witnessed was chilling.
A meeting with Ahmadinejad
Before Ahmadinejad entered the room, I noticed he was surrounded only by clerics. They sat quietly with their palms raised in prayer to the Mahdi, the Islamic messianic figure who many radical Shi’ites believe disappeared into a well and will return during an apocalyptic end-times battle.
During our conversation, Ahmadinejad told me that when he spoke before the United Nations, the Mahdi appeared with him in a supernatural green light. He claimed that during one of his speeches, world leaders sat mesmerized and did not blink for nearly half an hour because of this spiritual presence.
As I listened to him, I thought to myself: this man should be in a mental institution.
Ahmadinejad then leaned toward me and said, “Do you know why Iranians die at 62 while Zionists live to 82?”
I told him I did not.
He replied, “Because Zionists poison rats, send them into Iranian crops, and we eat the contaminated food.”
I stared at him in disbelief and asked, “Is this a joke?” He answered, “I am not joking.”
I then asked him, “How exactly do the rats swim across the Persian Gulf?”
Without hesitation, he told me I should read The Protocols of the Elders of Zion because it would “enlighten” me.
That book is one of the most antisemitic documents ever published, a fraudulent propaganda piece that fueled hatred against Jews across the world and helped lay the ideological groundwork for the Holocaust. It stands alongside Hitler’s Mein Kampf as one of the most dangerous works of antisemitic conspiracy theory ever circulated.
Reckless journalism
To suggest that US President Donald Trump or Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would somehow choose a Holocaust-denying extremist like Ahmadinejad to lead Iran is not journalism. It is delusion.
But let us assume, for argument’s sake, that Ahmadinejad had suddenly repented of his hatred, abandoned his extremism, and decided to extend a hand of peace to America and Israel.
Even then, publishing such a story during wartime would be reckless beyond comprehension.
If there truly were any covert negotiations or intelligence operations under way, exposing them publicly could endanger American operatives, compromise allied intelligence efforts, and cost lives. Responsible journalism does not recklessly interfere with national security during a global conflict.
The United States is not only fighting a military battle. We are fighting an ideological war, an economic war, a proxy war, and a media war.
Years ago, I asked a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff a simple question: “What determines when wars begin and end?”
He looked at me quietly and answered in a whisper: “The media does.”
I have never forgotten those words.
Public opinion shapes political pressure. Political pressure shapes military decisions. And media narratives shape public opinion. That is why false narratives are so dangerous.
There is no doubt in my mind that the Times is deliberately pushing a false narrative designed to undermine America’s effort to win the war against Iran.
The Iranian regime has spent decades spreading lies, funding terrorism, threatening Israel, and chanting “Death to America.” Ahmadinejad was one of the loudest voices of that regime. He denied the Holocaust, promoted antisemitic conspiracy theories, and openly called for the destruction of the Jewish state.
The writer has written 120 books and is a #1 New York Times best-selling author. He is the founder of the Friends of Zion Museum in Jerusalem, the Ten Boom Museum in Holland, and Churches United with Israel, the largest Christian Zionist network in America, with more than 30 million followers.
