Vice President Mike Pence said Thursday that Iran is plotting a “new Holocaust” to obliterate Israel.
At a two-day summit in Warsaw on the subject of peace and security in the Middle East, Pence said that “the Iranian regime openly advocates another Holocaust and seeks the means to achieve it.”
“The authoritarian regime in Tehran … openly advocates the destruction of the State of Israel,” Pence told European and Middle Eastern leaders during his remarks at the conference organized by the United States and Poland. “Iran endlessly spews hatred against Israel, our most cherished ally.”
He added that Iranian leadership also “represses the freedom of speech and assembly, persecutes religious minorities, brutalizes women, [and] executes gay people.”
“The ayatollah Khamenei himself has said, ‘It is the mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to erase Israel from the map of the region,’” Pence said of Iran’s supreme leader.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who is also attending the conference, declared hours earlier, “You can’t achieve peace and stability in the Middle East without confronting Iran.”
“The three Hs — the Houthis, Hamas, and Hezbollah — these are real threats,” Pompeo told reporters, referring to Iranian-backed armed forces operating throughout the Middle East.
Pence’s comments come as Democratic lawmakers are under fire for anti-Semitic statements. Freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., said this week that pro-Israel groups pay politicians to take pro-Israel stances.
[Read more: Netanyahu holding rare public meetings with Arab leaders at Warsaw summit]
