After the Holocaust, the Western world vowed never again to tolerate a regime committed to the extermination of the Jewish people. Eighty years on, despite all the rhetoric, either consciously or unconsciously, this promise has been broken.

Let me be clear (and I write this as a British-Iranian): the West has been, and remains, in complete denial about the Iranian regime’s war on Jews. I am not scaremongering, exaggerating or omitting nuances, although this is what the champagne socialists across much of Whitehall and the legacy media would like you to believe. Quite the opposite.

In fact, they are the ones who are illiterate to the religious-ideological nuances driving supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his paramilitary the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) aggression towards Israel, not least since October 7.

Khamenei and the IRGC view conflict with Israel not through the lens of state deterrence or in defence of Palestinians – as is often heard in the mainstream Western narrative – but as a religious-ideological struggle against Jews.

Every aspect of how they communicate, interpret and act against Israel is plagued with the goal of exterminating the Jewish people in a way that bares uncanny resemblance to the Nazi regime in Germany more than eight decades ago.

Since October 7, the IRGC has conducted two unprecedented direct attacks on Israel, what it officially refers to as “Operation True Promise.” While this name may mean very little to Western leaders and societies – exemplified by their indifference towards repeating it – the name in fact has the same connotation as the “Final Solution”. It is a direct historic reference to the sixth divinely ordained Shia Imam, Ja’far Ibn Muhammad As-Sadiq, who is said to have promised the complete annihilation of Jews at the hands of the “powerful people” in the city of Qom, home to Iran’s Shia clergy.

Likewise, Khamenei and the IRGC have continued to compare their conflict with Israel since October 7 with the Islamic battle of Khaybar, when the Prophet Mohammad’s army attacked the fortress of Khaybar – a Jewish stronghold in Arabia. After Khaybar fell to the Islamic army, Ali ibn Abi Talib, the first Imam of Shia Islam, effectively eradicated the entire Jewish community in Khaybar, killing all men over the age of puberty whilst enslaving the female population.

Today, not only has IRGC propaganda vowed that “Ali’s sword will conquer Khaybar again”, but the very ballistic missiles it has fired against Israel are officially known as “Khaybar destroyers” or Jew destroyers.

Today, we often question the morality of the European leaders who chose to appease Hitler despite all they knew about his violent antisemitic ideology. And while history may not repeat itself, it does often rhyme. As you read this, the red carpet has been rolled in Davos, Switzerland for the Iranian regime’s vice president for strategic affairs and propagandist-in-chief, Javad Zarif, a figure often compared to a modern-day Joseph Goebbels. European leaders and media will sit side-by-side in a luxurious setting with Zarif and entertain his whitewashing in spite of the fact that just 72 hours earlier, senior IRGC commanders once again vowed to “erase” the Jewish state from the face of the Earth.

But this ignorance at best, indifference at worst, towards the Iranian regime’s ideological war on Jews is not simply restricted to the West’s political class. It has now become an unfortunate regular feature of Western society. In London, week in, week out, ordinary people have attended rallies organised by entities linked to the Iranian regime, stood side-by-side with placards promoting Khamenei’s antisemitism, and even cheered as pockets of protesters chant “Khabar, Khaybar”. Of course, Tehran’s useful idiots in the West will insist that Khamenei’s regime is against Zionism, not Judaism. But senior IRGC commanders, who are personally involved in spearheading attacks against Israel, have themselves debunked this very line. In a live interview with Iranian state TV, senior IRGC commander Mohammad Jafar Asadi openly cursed the “evil Jews”, stating there was no difference between Zionists and Jews as “the root of Zionists are Jews”.

Visiting Auschwitz last week, Sir Keir Starmer vowed to fight the “poison” of antisemitism. But if he and other leaders genuinely committed to this promise, they would mean taking a robust stance against Khamenei’s regime, the only recognised state today that is ideologically committed to the extermination of the Jewish people.

This means not shying away from proscribing the most violent armed antisemitic organisation in the world, namely the IRGC. It means shutting down all centres in the UK that are linked to the regime, as my organisation has been calling for in a new campaign to “make Britain a Khamenei-free zone”. And, perhaps most importantly, it means supporting the Iranian people’s democratic aspirations to free themselves from Khamenei’s totalitarian Islamist dictatorship.

Kasra Aarabi is Director of IRGC Research at United Against Nuclear Iran