Aug 20, 2014

Alireza Panahian, a representative of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and one of the most conservative clerics in the country, compared Iranians who are “Westoxified” to the threat of the terrorist group Islamic State (IS), formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS).

“The Westoxified among us are no different from takfiris and ISIS,” Hojjat al-Islam Panahian said at a ceremony for Iranian documentary filmmaker Hady Baghbani, who was killed in Syria one year ago.

Westoxified — gharbzadegi in Persian — which literally means “West-struck,” is a term that became popular after the 1962 book by the same name by Iranian writer Jalal Al-e Ahmad. Essentially, it denotes an individual who sacrifices an Iranian identity for a Western one.

Panahian said that then-Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini “taught us that these criminal extremists [such as IS] are no different for us than liberals, and both are the blades of scissors to cut the middle path of resistance.”

Iran sees itself, Syria and Hezbollah as part of an axis of resistance against US and Israeli hegemony in the region. Panahian referred to Westoxified Iranians as “Zionist fifth columnists.”