Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called over the weekend for the destruction of Israel, stating that the “barbaric” Jewish state “has no cure but to be annihilated.”
A plan titled “9 key questions about the elimination of Israel” was posted on his Twitter account Saturday night, using the hashtag #handsoffalaqsa, in reference to the recent tensions on the Temple Mount.
The sometimes grammatically awkward list explained the how and why of Khomeini’s vision for replacing Israel with a Palestinian state.
The first point stated that “the fake Zionist regime has tried to realize its goals by means of infanticide, homicide, violence & iron fist while boasts about it blatantly.”
Due to the above, Khomeini argued, “the only means of bringing Israeli crimes to an end is the elimination of this regime.”
Khomeini charged the international community with overcoming the “usurper Zionist” objections to his “fair and logical plan.” Until the referendum, Israel should be confronted with “resolute and armed resistance.”
The Iranian leader also called for arming the people of the West Bank and Gaza to fight against Israel, and rejected “arbitration by UN or other international organizations” because “the fact that Yasser Arafat was poisoned and killed by Israel…proves that in the viewpoint of Israel ‘peace’ is simply a trick for more crimes and occupation.”
“This barbaric, wolflike & infanticidal regime of #Israel which spares no crime has no cure but to be annihilated,” Khamenei wrote in an earlier tweet on Friday.
“West Bank should be armed just like #Gaza. Friends of Palestine should do their best to arm People in West Bank,” he declared in another.
The Iranian supreme leader first called for the arming of Palestinians in the West Bank in July, during the summer’s 50-day conflict.
In late August, Iran said it was stepping up efforts to arm West Bank Palestinians for battle against Israel, with Basij militia chief Mohammad Reza Naqdi saying the move would lead to Israel’s annihilation, Iran’s Fars news agency reported.
“Arming the West Bank has started and weapons will be supplied to the people of this region,” Naqdi, who heads the nationwide paramilitary network, said.
“The Zionists should know that the next war won’t be confined to the present borders and the Mujahedeen will push them back,” he added. Naqdi claimed that much of Hamas’s arsenal, training and technical knowhow in the recent conflict with Israel was supplied by Iran.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking to a conference of Jewish leaders in Washington, on Tuesday sternly warned against a possible international deal with Iran that would end sanctions but fail to stop it from getting nuclear weapons.
Netanyahu spoke in an address to the assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America by satellite from Jerusalem as the United States and five other powers worked to try to reach a deal with Iran by a self-imposed November 24 deadline.
"It's obvious that Iran wants to remove the sanctions that have had such a devastating impact on its economy, but it should be equally obvious that Iran is not prepared to dismantle its nuclear weapons program in return," he said.
Netanyahu's remarks fed into a growing political debate in Washington over a possible deal, with many Republicans, who won power in the Senate in elections last week, suspicious about an agreement and considering imposing even tougher sanctions.
Netanyahu said it would be a huge mistake to end sanctions and then rely on intelligence and international inspections to make sure Iran did not go ahead and develop nuclear weapons.
Looking back at recent developments in the Middle East over the past month alone – the rise of the Houthis in Yemen, Bahrain revolution, the sentencing to death of Sheikh Nimr Al Nimr, ISIS advances in Iraq and Syria, and it has become blaringly apparent that political, social and religious fractures have appeared across the Middle East, all pointing and adding to the erosion of Al Saud empire.
As it happens, Saudi Arabia could soon face a dramatic economic U-turn. As noted by Nick Butler in the Globalist, Saudi Arabia appears to have lost control of the Oil market, at a juncture when prices have experienced an unparalleled drop due to stock piling. “The Saudis may no longer be in a position to reverse the price fall,” wrote Butler, adding that negative political and economic outlooks within the OPEC would make any global output restriction policy impossible to implement, thus putting Saudi Arabia under a great deal of pressure.
“It’s hard to think of any OPEC state, except perhaps Kuwait, in a position to accept a sustained cut in production and revenue. The Saudis are on their own. “
Victims of its own political and economic miscalculations, Al Saud could have actually started the very fire which soon could threaten to lay waste its house and crumble Gulf monarchies to the ground
As nations call for political emancipation while others have entered into a bitter fight against Islamic radicalism, the Middle East as we know it is undergoing a massive restructuration and power re-mapping.
As Zakani so eloquently put it, “Three Arab capitals have today ended up in the hands of Iran and belong to the Islamic Iranian revolution … and Sana’a has become the fourth Arab capital that is on its way to joining the Iranian revolution."
But unlike Saudi Arabia which has ruled as would a monarch over its political vassals, it is Iran’s non-interference policy, its keenness to advise and not direct, to support while not dictate which has made the Islamic Republic so appealing and its ideological umbrella so inclusive.
Just as Saudi Arabia has ruled through fear, playing the hammer and the sword against all those it views as its subject-nations, Iran has in perfect polarity presented itself the alternative.
All that made Saudi Arabia so formidable is slowly unravelling – Its standing as a religious guide has been tarnished by allegations it helped master-minded the evil which is ISIS, its economy stands on the verge of collapse, its society is imploding under the strain of sectarianism and social injustice and its position as the regional super-power has been challenged by Iran and Turkey.
“There are now two poles, the first is under the leadership of the United States and its Arab allies and the second is under the leadership of Iran and the states that joined the Iranian revolution’s project,” stressed Zakani.
Regardless of one might feel toward Iran or whatever prejudices one chooses to hold on to vis a vis the Islamic Republic, the Middle East of today is more Persian that it ever was.
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