U.S. Rep. Steve Rothman (D-N.J.)  and 14 colleagues in the House of Representative have protested to the Iranian government a television drama which depicted Israeli officials feigning interest in Palestinian children in order to snatch their eyes and other organs for transplants.

"These inappropriate depictions of Jews are unacceptable and should be denounced by the 
Iranian government," Rothman  wrote to Ali  Jazini, Washington-based director of the Interests Section of the Islamic Republic of Iran "We urge you to  forcefully condemn this television series and its hateful message of anti-Semitism and  intolerance."

Rothman, in a Jan. 19 news release, said this particular episode of the Iranian TV series "Zahra's Blue Eyes" was not the only one filled with anti-Semitism.  Another one "even made outlandish references to Israelis importing 'artificial fetuses,' harvesting  'thirty-two beating hearts' for private use, and to the ancient and libelous canard that Jews desire to control all of the oil producing lands in the Middle East to gain influence in the world."

"The Middle East is currently in a critical period as the State of Israel and the Palestinian Authority take steps to return to the Road Map and finally adopt a peaceful, two-state solution to the conflict," Rothman said. "The indoctrination of Iranian citizens to hostility, bigotry, and prejudice against Jews and the State of Israel at this important time threatens the stability of regional relations in the Middle East."    

Rothman's complaint against Iran television followed by one day a complaint by Zionist Organization of America president Morton Klein about  anti-Jewish messages being broadcast over government controlled television in the Palestinian Authority, even after Mahmoud Abbas has become PA chairman.

Klein reported that "Sheik Ibrahim Madiras in a recent PA-TV sermon preached about the 'corruption' of the Jews, and blamed the tsunami disaster on the Jews and America. He also preached about the Palestinian longing for the destruction of Israel and America. Sheikh Madiras said, 'the Jews corrupted the land, the Jews are Jews. Their disaster and custom are the corruption of this land. The Jews are a cancer that spreads inside the body of the Islamic and Arab nation...They invest in the East Asian countries, which were destroyed by the tsunami because of the Jewish and American corruption and destruction.” 

The ZOA president said that "in another sermon the Sheikh proclaimed: 'No to the return of the 67 borders. We are interested in returning to our genuine borders. We want to return to the 1948 (Pre-Israel) borders, and we will yet return to them, by Allah, even if it will take time....

“'America today, America is the sponsor of terror on this land. America, who pretends for freedom and pretends for democracy, is the sponsor of terror on the face of this land. America has reached her peak, we admit in it, America has reached a peak but, by Allah’s will, is on the way to the abyss. America, led by its president now, [who is] leading it to the abyss, to destruction, to death, by Allah’s will. America, for whom Bush dug a grave the day he invaded Afghanistan, and prepared the grave for burial the day he invaded Iraq, by Allah, America will be buried the day the American embassy will be moved to Jerusalem, and it will be the last nail in her coffin.'"                                                  —Donald H. Harrison