FIRST ON FOX – A decades-old interview is including to a widening scandal involving a former high-ranking Iranian official and controversial Princeton professor. Seyed Hossein Mousavian is accused of endorsing Hezbollah and Hamas in a 1997 German newspaper interview.
The brand new revelations about Mousavian’s pro-Hamas and pro-Hezbollah interview in a German paper, coupled with what some declare was an endorsement of an Iranian regime fatwa (non secular order) ordering the assassination of British-American creator Salman Rushdie, comes at a time when the Ivy League professor is the topic of a congressional probe. Mousavian is at the moment dealing with a U.S. Home Committee on Training and the Workforce investigation for allegedly advancing the pursuits of Iran.
In November, Fox Information Digital completely reported on the investigation into Mousavian’s ties to the world’s worst state-sponsor of terrorism, the Islamic Republic of Iran. The investigation is ongoing, and the congressional committee has not issued any findings.
In an interview again in 1997 with the left-wing German every day paper Taz, Mousavian, who was Iran’s Ambassador to Germany on the time, was requested if Iran helps teams like Hezbollah and Hamas. Mousavian appeared to place his assist behind Hamas. “If by that you simply imply that we provide Hamas with weapons: No, we don’t. However should you imply that we assist the Palestinians of their battle, sure, we do.”
When requested by the paper if Iran gives Hezbollah assist materially or financially, Mousavian stated “We assist Hezbollah morally and never by supplying weapons.”
The U.S. Center East Media Analysis Institute first translated Mousavian’s German language interview earlier this month on its web site and offered background materials on his alleged position in stoking terrorism in Europe, together with the assassination of Kurdish dissidents in a Berlin restaurant named Mykonos in 1992.
Mousavian, a Center East safety and nuclear coverage specialist at Princeton College, was hosted by the Obama administration, in response to the Washington Free Beacon, at the least thrice on the White Home, and invited to talk at an necessary U.S. STRATCOM army occasion in August 2023 through the Biden administration
In line with the congressional letter, first obtained by Fox Information Digital, Mousavian’s look at the STRATCOM symposium “involved members of the Armed Providers Committees of each the Home and the Senate. Moreover, facets of this situation bother us as members of the Home Committee on Training and the Workforce.”
Mousavian instructed Fox Information Digital in November that, “My speak on the U.S. Strategic Command was all about peace within the Center East and why the U.S. ought to keep away from wars and deal with peace and cooperation.”
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When requested by Fox Information Digital if he considers Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist organizations, Mousavian refused to reply quite a few Fox Information Digital press queries through electronic mail, phone and WhatsApp. Fox Information Digital approached Princeton College through phone and electronic mail for remark. The Ivy League establishment didn’t reply to Fox Information Digital’s questions.
Mousavian additionally appeared to defend the Iranian-led marketing campaign to assassinate U.S. and British author Salman Rushdie as a result of the well-known novelist depicted the Muslim prophet Muhammad irreverently.
In 2022, a 24-year-old man named Hadi Matar, who’s fan of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a U.S.-designated overseas terrorist group, allegedly stabbed Rushdie within the neck and liver through the creator’s speech in Chautauqua, New York. After the assault, Rushdie misplaced sight in a single eye and using one hand.
A Nov. 5, 1992 Reuters report, titled “German Opposition Desires Iranian Envoy Expelled,” stated that, ” …Hossein Mousavian was summoned to the German Overseas Ministry after remarking in a radio interview that Bonn wouldn’t act towards its commerce pursuits with Iran to again Rushdie’s request for the dying decree to be lifted.”
The Reuters report continued “Social Democrat Freimut Duve instructed parliament in a particular debate on what has grow to be generally known as the ‘Rushdie Affair’ that Mousavian ought to depart Germany as he didn’t respect its legal guidelines.”
In the radio interview after Rushdie’s look, Mousavian defended the historic Islamic follow of imposing the dying sentence for blasphemy.
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Mousavian declined to reply quite a few Fox Information Digital press queries about whether or not he continues to endorse the Iranian non secular decree to homicide Rushdie.
Mousavian denied his nation’s position within the Iranian state-sponsored murders of the 4 Kurdish dissidents within the Mykonos restaurant. He termed the Berlin courtroom verdict, which convicted Iranian and Hezbollah operatives of the assassinations, as “nonsense” within the German Taz interview. Mousavian refused to reply Fox Information Digital press queries about his rejection of the Berlin courtroom Mykonos verdict.
In line with a 1997 article from the Berlin newspaper Der Tagesspiegel, Abolghasem Mesbahi, a former senior-level Iranian intelligence official, instructed a Berlin courtroom through the Mykonos trial, “Mousavian participated in a lot of the [Iranian regime’s] crimes that occurred in Europe.”
Throughout Mousavian’s tenure as Iran’s ambassador to Germany, he was accountable for the embassy that the Berlin courtroom discovered “served because the ‘headquarters” for the planning of the 1992 assassination of 4 Iranian dissidents on the Greek restaurant Mykonos in Berlin.”
“This accusation is an enormous lie,” Mousavian instructed Fox Information Digital in November. “The 398-page verdict is printed, and everybody can have entry to it. The Berlin courtroom verdict doesn’t comprise any direct or oblique allegations towards me. German authorities by no means compelled me to go away the nation. … I’ve been a frequent customer to Germany,” added Mousavian.
The requires Mousavian to be fired coincide with the scandal-plagued pro-Iran regime tutorial, Mohammad Jafar Mahallati, who taught at Oberlin Faculty in Ohio.
Mahallati was Iran’s former ambassador to the U.N. from 1987-1989. Oberlin Faculty ousted Mahallati in November 2023 after a mushrooming sequence of scandals, together with Mahallati’s pro-Hamas teachings and requires the destruction of the Jewish state. In line with Amnesty Worldwide, Mahallati lined up the Iranian regime’s mass homicide of 5,000 Iranian dissidents in 1988.
The California-based Alliance In opposition to the Islamic Regime of Iran Apologists (AAIRIA) spearheaded the high-intensity marketing campaign to fireplace Mahallati.
Iranian American human rights activist Lawdan Bazargan, the lead organizer on the AAIRIA marketing campaign, instructed Fox Information Digital about Mousavian “It’s profoundly disheartening that Princeton College would appoint such a person, permitting him to masquerade as a proponent of peace. To suppose that an agent of an oppressive Islamic regime, recognized for its flagrant disregard for non secular freedom and its menacing slogans of ‘dying to America’ and ‘dying to Israel,’ may have the audacity to proclaim involvement in peace initiatives is nothing in need of a cynical farce.”
She added, “Princeton’s endorsement of Mousavian tarnishes its popularity and undermines the ideas of peace, tolerance, and tutorial integrity it purports to uphold.”
AAIRIA urged Princeton to summarily hearth Mousavian, who will not be a tenured tutorial, and the NGO introduced a protest at Princeton College subsequent week towards the controversial tutorial. Simply final month, the Nationwide Affiliation of Students issued a name to terminate Mousavian’s employment.
A number one antisemitism knowledgeable has claimed that Mousavian’s account comprises antisemitic posts towards Israel. Mousavian falsely claimed in an October X submit that Israel bombed a hospital in Gaza and termed it “against the law just like the Holocaust of Nazi Germany.”
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the affiliate dean of the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Middle, instructed Fox Information Digital that “Cleary, it is a one that feels it doesn’t matter what he does that his standing shall be protected at Princeton.”
Relating to Mousavian evaluating Israel with the crimes of Nazi Germany, Cooper stated “that anybody who makes use of that language is proving his antisemitic credentials. He feels assured and is immune from any motion towards him.”
A Fox Information Digital examination of Mousavain’s X Posts since Oct. 7 reveals the overwhelming variety of posts are assaults on the Jewish state and assist of many Hamas speaking factors, together with that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
Cooper stated “I feel Princeton has lots to reply for,” and Mousavian ought to be disqualified as an educational in American greater training.
“To say it is a scandal wouldn’t give justice to the problems uncovered. It is likely to be time to name Princeton College ahead at a congressional listening to as a result of it covers problems with delicate nationwide safety, “stated Cooper, who has testified in Congress about antisemitism.
