Mahmoud “Wipe out the Jews” Ahmadinejad a Jew?

Feb. 4, 2009

Could it be? The son of a leading Iranian authority alleges that the Iranian president, who has called for the destruction of the Jewish state, is himself Jewish.

Mahdi Khazali apparently wrote in a blog that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has Jewish roots. The story was picked up by the Hebrew-language Omedia website and Radio Free Europe. He said Ahmadinejad changed his name, attacks Israel and the Jews and expresses strong Muslim religious beliefs in order to hide his Jewish roots.

The name under scrutiny is Saburjian and A’jad hails from the Aradan region of Iran. The accusations appear in an article Khazali wrote entitled, “The Jews in Iran” where he says the time has come to “reveal the truth” about the Jews’ role in Iran. Not sure what that means.

A'jad's relatives once told the The Guardian that the family had changed its name for "a mixture of religious and economic reasons."

Of course this could be a political strategy: A'jad is up for re-election five months from now. Perhaps his opponents think they can defeat him by using his own rhetoric against the Jews.