Chief Commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Major General Hossein Salami made the inflammatory remarks in a televised address to the Islamist-Hamas controlled Gaza Strip.
By Jonathan Hessen and Erin Viner
Iran’s Mehr News Agency (MNA), owned by the Islamic Ideology Dissemination Organization (IIDO), reported that the IRGC leader was addressing a ceremony held to commemorate “International Quds (Arabic for “Jerusalem”) Day.
The “Palestinian people have come to realize that they will not achieve their goals except through resistance and struggle in the path of Jihad” (Islamic Holy War), he was cited as saying,
The anti-Israel event is held on the last Friday of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. It was inaugurated by the Ayatollah Regime after seizing power in Iran during the 1979 Revolution, and held to issue a yearly to call for an Islamic Jihad to reconquer Jerusalem.
The date deliberately coincides with Israeli celebration of its own Jerusalem Day, marking the city’s reunification under Jewish authority after the 1967 Mideast war.
Hailing International Quds Day as a gift from Ayatollah Ali Khomeini, the late founder of the Islamic Republic in Iran, Gen. Salami said the timing places Palestine a top priority for the entire Muslim world.
“All Muslims around the world are united with Palestinians in the struggle against the Israeli regime. Al-Quds and al-Aqsa Mosque are symbols of unity among Muslims in support of Palestinians,” he reportedly insisted.
In 2918, former US President Donald Trump withdrew from the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) over the belief that Tehran had violated the pact in pursuit of developing atomic bombs. The following year, the White House officially designated the IRGC as an Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO in 2019 on accusations that the powerful faction controls a business empire, elite armed and intelligence forces to actively engage in a global terrorist campaign.
Current negotiations to revive the nuclear deal in Vienna have stalled over the Islamic Republic’s demand the IRGC be removed from the FTO blacklist.
General Salami also seized the opportunity to slam any accords brokered by the US as only a means to “buy time for Israel and weaken the Palestinian resistance front,” stressing that, “the so-called peace treaties like the Camp David Accords, the Oslo Accords, the Sharm El Sheikh Memorandum etc. have never been and will never be able to result in the liberation of Palestine,” said Mehrs.
In blatant disregard of Israel’s well-established qualitative military edge (QME) in the region, the MNA quoted Salami as claiming that the “Palestinian people are close to victory as the Zionist enemy is growing weaker.”
Opposition to Israel is a fundamental stance adopted by Shi’ite-led Iran. The Islamic Republic ardently supports Palestinian and Lebanese Islamic terror groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas, which are opposed to peace with the Jewish state – which Tehran refuses to recognize.
Iranian officials have repeatedly called for Israel’s annihilation.
Thousands of pro-regime Iranians flooded the streets of towns and cities across the country today to participate in Al Quds Day rallies aimed at generating support for an armed conquest of Jerusalem.
During an address at the opening event in Tehran, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi attempted to further promote the recent deceptive campaign against Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem.
Alleging that the presence of Israeli security services on the Temple Mount to quell Muslim riots during Ramadan constitute “desecration of Al Aqsa Mosque,” the firebrand Iranian leader said such actions would “undoubtedly cause the anger and rage of nearly two billion Muslims worldwide to rise up.”
Throughout the day, Iranians held multiple activities aimed at slandering Israel, the United States, the United Kingdom, as well as the Shi’ite country’s regional Sunni-Muslim rivals such as Saudi Arabia, in addition to Israel’s new peace partners, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.