Liberating Jerusalem and toppling the “Zionist regime” are the Islamic world’s “number one issues,” Velayati said.
By: United with Israel Staff
The struggle against the “Zionist regime” is the top issue for the Muslim world and therefore Iran retains an unwavering policy of siding with the Palestinians against Israel, senior Iranian official Asidingar Velayati stated.
Addressing a gathering of scholars of the Islamic Awakening Supreme Council in Tehran on Monday, Velayati, an international adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, stated that the liberation of Jerusalem from Israel’s rule and fighting the “racist Zionist regime” are the “main and number one issue[s] of the Islamic world.”
“All sinister plots hatched by the US, international Zionism and reactionary Arab states aim to marginalize the Palestinian cause to make up for their defeats and failures,” he said, Iran’s Tasnim news reported.
Iran provides vast support to Palestinian terror organizations, including Hamas, which rules Gaza, as part of its global Islamic terror network.
Iran has long backed armed groups committed to Israel’s destruction, and its leaders have called for the Jewish state to be wiped off the map.
Addressing an annual Islamic Unity Conference on Saturday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that “one of the ominous results of World War II was the formation of a cancerous tumor in the region.” He also referred to Israel as a “fake regime” set up by Western countries.
Israel Knows How to Defend Itself
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to his remarks by calling on more countries to join the US’ sanctions against the “Iranian terrorist regime.”
“Israel knows very well how to defend itself from the murderous Iranian regime,” Netanyahu stated Saturday.
“Rouhani’s slander, which calls for the destruction of Israel, proves yet again why the nations of the world need to join in the sanctions against the Iranian terrorist regime which threatens them,” he added.
Iran does not recognize Israel and regularly calls for its destruction.
In a rally in Tehran last year, Iran unveiled a digital clock in the city’s Palestine Square counting down the days to what it says will be the destruction of Israel in 2040.
The time frame appears to stem from comments made in 2015 by Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who vowed there will be “nothing” left of Israel by the year 2040.
In September 2015, Khamenei proclaimed, “You [Israelis] will not see the coming 25 years and, God willing, there will not be something named the Zionist regime in next 25 years.”
He later tweeted in broken English, “Struggling, heroic and jihadi morale will leave no moment of serenity for Zionists.” Khamenei calls for Israel’s destruction almost on a weekly basis.
Most recently, Rouhani threatened Israel and stated that it can never feel safe, while calling for all Palestinians to “return to their homeland.”
“Israel can never feel that it is in a safe place,” Rouhani told reporters in June, as Iranians marked Quds Day by condemning Israel and chanting “death to Israel” and “death to America.”