It is not just at Durban II that Iranians and Jews have clashed recently.

At a recent internal BBC conference, Iranian-born comedian Omid Djalili launched into a tirade against BBC3 controller Danny Cohen over the use of what he perceived as offensive material on the channel. Then Cohen retorted that he had been offended by a joke that Djalili had told about the Jewish Secret Service (What is it called? Answer: MI6, MI5, MI4, MI3...MI final offer?)

Said Djalili: “Danny Cohen and I shook hands at the end and I did say sorry if he felt I had confronted him on one or two of the issues that came up.”

This is not Djalili’s first double act with a Jew. He used to perform a routine called The Arab and The Jew with comedian Ivor Dembina.