Hello, Iran is the new Nazi Germany.

A century after Hitler, the West is still falling for dictators. When will we learn?

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei (center right) with other officials in 2011 (photo: khamenei.ir/Wikipedia)

Please consider supporting our mission to help everyone better understand and become smarter about the Jewish world. A gift of any amount helps keep our platform free of advertising and accessible to all.

---

This is a guest essay written by Jake Wallis Simons, author of “Israelophobia” (Telegraph Book of the Year). His new book “Never Again?” is out in September 2025.

You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.

---

In 1922, the New York Times opined:

“Several reliable, well-informed sources confirmed the idea that Hitler’s antisemitism was not so genuine or violent as it sounded, and that he was merely using antisemitic propaganda as a bait to catch masses of followers and keep them aroused, enthusiastic and in line for the time when his organisation is perfected and sufficiently powerful to be employed effectively for political purposes.”

“A sophisticated politician credited Hitler with peculiar political cleverness for laying emphasis and over-emphasis on antisemitism, saying: ‘You can’t expect the masses to understand or appreciate your finer real aims. You must feed the masses with cruder morsels and ideas like antisemitism. It would be politically all wrong to tell them the truth about where you really are leading them.’”

Fast-forward to last week and Sir Richard Dalton, His Majesty’s former ambassador to Tehran, appeared before me on BBC Radio 4’s “The Moral Maze.” His position left me almost speechless. Here was a flavour of it: “You can’t allege a threat is actual unless you can prove capability and intent,” the distinguished diplomat informed our country. “They have neither the capability nor the intent.”

In response, Giles Fraser, who was interviewing Sir Richard, made the obvious points, not least the fact that the supposedly peaceful Iranian nuclear programme was rather conspicuously concealed beneath a “bloody great mountain.” Did that not suggest a certain, I don’t know, lack of transparency? And should the clock in central Tehran counting down to Israel’s destruction not give us cause for concern?

But the most bizarre moment came when Fraser pointed out that, whereas uranium only needs to be enriched to 3.75 per cent for peaceful uses, the Ayatollah has a stockpile of weapons-grade uranium at 60 per cent, with traces approaching 90 per cent.

How did the diplomat explain that?

“They’ve done that in order to put leverage on the international community,” he said. Sir Richard was contributing remotely rather than from the studio, so I couldn’t tell if he managed to keep a straight face.

This, of course, was precisely the same argument made by the sagacious New York Times back in 1922. A monster might look, sound, behave, and smell like a monster, but deep down he is only a clever politician conducting a tactical masquerade. Above all, such reasoning points to a profound myopia born from a life of comfort. Would Sir Richard have been so intensely relaxed if his children were in the cross-hairs?

This brings me to the British and European establishment. This past weekend, London was disgraced by a rally in favour of the Ayatollah. “Choose the right side of history,” the placards implored, instructing us to side with the regime that executes homosexuals, tortures women who do not obey a morality code, represses all freedoms and bankrupts the economy by pouring billions into terrorism overseas.

Did any senior politician condemn these people, even on social media? Not that I saw. One bystander was even filmed being grabbed around the neck and bundled away by two plainclothes Iranian thugs, one with a hand over his mouth. I posted the video on X and tagged the Metropolitan Police. Did they respond?

What do you think?

Our indulgent attitude towards the subversives within our own societies is reflected in our stance overseas. Yesterday morning, after the magnificent American strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, the great David Lammy (Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs of the United Kingdom) took to social media to address the people of Britain.

Can you guess his message?

“Iran must never have a nuclear weapon,” he wrote. “The U.S. has taken action to alleviate the threat that would pose to the global community. The UK did not participate in these strikes. We urge Iran to show restraint and reach a diplomatic solution to end this crisis.”

I simply cannot think of another time when Britain was so irrelevant, emasculated, and out-of-touch with the movement of history. When it comes to matters of war and peace, literally the only message ever to emerge from the mouths of our leaders is one of “de-escalation.” That and condemnation of Israel.

With the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant (Iran’s “crown jewel” of its rogue nuclear program) in flames and the Iranian regime on the run, Israel is solving its problems. We, on the other hand, are allowing our own to fester through cowardice.

If it wasn’t for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump, we would still be in a deal with Iran that allowed the Ayatollah to enrich his cronies, fund his overseas militia, and quietly push forward his nuclear ambitions. Under the Obama agreement with Iran, the restrictions would start to be lifted in October, allowing Tehran to freely develop its nukes. Then what?

This Western naïveté is more than just a charming quirk of what British historian Simon Sebag Montefiore has aptly called the “comfort democracies.” It is a grave threat to national security. It is like driving a tank in one gear along an agreed route on a battlefield while making empty speeches about the importance of outmanoeuvring the enemy. It allows them to make their plans and carry them out.

It allows them, in other words, to take the piss.

More than that, it allows them to kill you — which brings me back to Britain and the West. For decades we have been forced to stand by while inexcusable levels of immigration have opened the door to great numbers of people who not only despise our values but actively mean us harm. Just a few weeks ago, it emerged that the Iranian mastermind of a mass casualty event (thankfully foiled by Britain’s security services) had arrived on our shores in a small boat.

Did this in any way affect our policies towards managing the flow of such people into Britain? Again, did it heck.

Neither, clearly, did it encourage the authorities to take a tougher line towards the deplorable Iran marches. In my upcoming book, “Never Again? How the West Betrayed the Jews and Itself,” I lay out the framework of an approach towards managing the jihadist threat within our societies in a manner that accords with the principles of liberal democracy. The first and most important measure: Ban the extremist groups.

Ban the Muslim Brotherhood. Ban, for God’s sake, Tehran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Ban the smaller extremist groups. These organisations have our Muslim communities by the throat, demanding fundamentalist beliefs at the risk of ostracisation and violence, yet our elites turn a blind eye to their radicalism, as the New York Times did a century ago.

Enough!

These extremist groups have been blacklisted across the Arab world, from the United Arab Emirates to Jordan. The West’s permissiveness is allowing their high command to relocate here. What are we thinking?

If we were to take that measure, and do it with a fraction of the conviction shown by the Israelis, it would allow everybody to breathe. My guess is that those marches in London would soon peter out. We’d find moderate Muslim voices being raised in public, tentatively at first and then more loudly. We might even find a Muslim figure condemning October 7th.

The destruction of Iran’s nuclear programme and the likely fall of the regime may very well herald the decline of global jihadism. With the head of the octopus gone, the tentacles will lack sustenance and can be easily demolished. This is the time to get our own house in order.

Israel has opened the door, all we need to do is gird our loins and step through it.

---