Iranian
Officials Ratchet Up Genocidal Anti-Israel Rhetoric After Nuclear Deal
by Steven Emerson
IPT News
August 18, 2015
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A video shows
the Revolutionary Guard Corps massing on a hill overlooking Jerusalem.
A conference of religious scholars features speaker after speaker
calling Israel's annihilation inevitable and promising that a "new
phase" in that effort is about to begin.
While some in the United States and among its Western allies may hope
that a nuclear weapons deal with Iran might steer the Islamic Republic in a
new, more responsible direction, hardliners draw new lines and issue new
threats.
On Monday, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei took to social media to
attack the United States and Israel. "We spare no opportunity to
support anyone #FightingTheZionists," wrote the ayatollah, whose
regime supplies Hizballah and Hamas with rockets and other weapons of
terror.
Perhaps more chilling is an animated video from the Islamic Revolution
Design House, a media outfit associated with Iranian hardliners. It shows a soldier preparing for battle. He puts on a
Revolutionary Guard patch, and then a Qassam Brigades headband, followed by
a ski mask and a Palestinian scarf around his neck, while arming himself
with a machine gun and a pistol. As he puts on a helmet, we see him looking
over Jerusalem's Temple Mount, home of the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa
mosque. The image pulls back, showing the soldier amid a sea of conquering
troops.
A concluding message invokes Ayatollah Khomeini's threat that Israel
must be wiped off the map and promises that day is coming soon.
A conference held in Beirut late last month reinforced that message over
and over again. The General Assembly of Islamic Resistance Ulema (Scholars)
held its first gathering under the banner "Unity for Palestine."
The weekend meeting included fiery rhetoric from an Iranian ayatollah and
Hizballah's leader Hassan Nasrallah.
"Annihilation of the Zionist regime is a sure thing and Quranic
pledge," Ayatollah Mohsen Araki told the assembly. Araki is secretary general of the
World Forum for Proximity of Islamic Schools of Thought, emphasizing the
importance of unifying "Muslims in countering the regime of Zionism
and the arrogant World."
Many of the speeches were uploaded to YouTube and translated by the
Investigative Project on Terrorism.
Nasrallah called Israel a "cancerous tumor" and said "It
is only a matter of time" before it is defeated.
"We believe with certainty that Israel, this cancerous tumor, is
headed for extinction, and that Palestine and Jerusalem will be returned to
their people. It is only a matter of time and [this outcome] is linked to
the will, action, jihad, and sacrifices of the Ummah, according to the
principle: If you achieve victory for Allah, Allah will lead you to achieve
victory." Nasrallah said it was Allah's will for Muslims to achieve
"final victory over the Zionist scheme" and urged the assembly not
to waste the opportunity.
"The day in which we will all pray in Jerusalem, Inshallah (God
willing) is inevitably coming Inshallah. All of these calamities,
conspiracies, and crises are merely trials to strengthen and make fit all
those who believe in this project and in this path to enable them to be
worthy of the coming victory. Some people may gain victory but then waste
it.
Allah Almighty wants our Ummah (nation) in its final victory over the
Zionist project and in restoring Palestine and Jerusalem to be worthy of
this huge historic victory and to be worthy of preserving this victory and
not to lose it as many victories have been lost."
Muhammad Hasan Zamani, a former Iranian cultural counselor in Egypt who runs the Department of International Islamic Madrasas
for the General Assembly of Islamic Resistance Ulema, maintained the theme,
insisting there is no peaceful resolution that would end in Iran's
acceptance of a Jewish state.
"Israel must be erased from the map of the world. These are the
golden words Imam Khomeini (may God have mercy on him) uttered. Why do we
assert the obligation of erasing Israel from the world, and not speak of
erasing America and other unjust countries from the world? We in Iran say
slogans in marches, Death to Israel, Death to America, Death to the
English, and so forth and so on."
Iran considers America the "greater Satan," Zamani went on to
say, but the Islamic Republic respects other governments which were chosen
by their people. By contrast, he claimed Israel is not legitimate: "I
say that the example of the rule of the Zionists is the example of thieves
who attack a house and occupy the house and the people of the house defend
their house."
Sheikh Abdel Halim Qadhi, a professor at Zahidan University, explained
that the conflict is inherently about religion. "[T]he Holy Quran makes
it know that Jews are the enemies of Islam and the Muslims, and their holy
places and rites," he said.
"Jihad is the most powerful and only way to liberate Palestine and
defend Jerusalem," he added, saying "God loves those who fight in
his way."
In a final statement from conference attendees, the group emphasized
"the first and most important obligation is to unite the Umma to
liberate the holy Al-Aqsa Mosque" in Jerusalem, reported Al-Manar, a Lebanese news outlet considered
close to Iran's proxy Hizballah. The group also said "resistance"
was the way "to achieve victory in Lebanon and Palestine, despite the
unlimited support received by the Zionist enemy and continuing inaction of
the countries in the region."
Meanwhile, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, published a 416-page book earlier this month outlining
the destruction of Israel, referring to the Jewish state as an ally of
"The American Great Satan."
The book features a long-term strategy that entails terrorizing Israel
in a war of attrition that would lead to Jews leaving Israel for other
countries.
Supporters of the nuclear deal say it's a fantasy to expect a better
outcome should Congress override President Obama's expected veto of a vote
to defeat the agreement. The combined statements of Iran and its supporting
clerics makes clear, however, that the true fantasy is any expectation Iran
will turn away from terror as a result of its engagement with world powers.
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