by Bassam Tawil, GATESTONE • July 10, 2023 at 5:00 am
- Iran’s mullahs are seeking to create a situation where Jews no longer feel safe in their own country and are forced to leave Israel. To achieve this goal, the mullahs have instructed their Palestinian terror proxies, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), to step up their campaign of terrorism against Israel and Jews.
- “Islamic Jihad & other Palestinian resistance movements have found the main key to fighting the Zionist regime. The continually growing authority of resistance groups in the #WestBank is the key to bringing the Zionist enemy to its knees, & this course must be continued.” — Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Twitter, June 14, 2023.
- The leaders of Iran, Hamas and PIJ share the same goal: eliminating Israel and killing as much Jews as possible. They do not differentiate between a Jew living in Israel and a Jew living in the West Bank. In their view, all Jews are settlers, regardless of where they live. For them, there is no difference between Tel Aviv and a Jewish settlement in the West Bank. They see Israel as one big settlement that must be removed from the face of the earth.
- “The Jews in other countries live in peace and prosperity. The only place where they’re being killed is in Palestine. Therefore, when we continue our fight, they will change their mind and realize that they made a historical mistake by coming to this place. They will realize that there is no chance of life for them and that they therefore should leave this country.” — PIJ Secretary-General Ziyad al-Nakhalah, al-vefagh.net, June 8, 2023.
- This statement by the PIJ leader is important because it shows that the Palestinian terror attacks against Israel are not being carried out because of checkpoints, settlements or harsh economic conditions. Instead, the purpose of these attacks is to force the Jews out of their country and replace Israel with an Islamic state controlled by Iran and its proxies, especially Hamas and PIJ.
- Those who believe that the Palestinian campaign of terrorism is a legitimate resistance against the “occupation” in the West Bank are totally clueless.
- Thanks to Iran, Nakhalah said, the Palestinian terror groups are now capable of manufacturing their own weapons.
- When Hamas and PIJ talk about “resistance,” they are referring to various forms of terrorism, including firing rockets at Israel, as well as shooting, stabbing and car-ramming attacks.
- Also on the instructions of Iran’s mullahs, PIJ is working to form “combat battalions” in all Palestinian cities in the West Bank to carry out terror attacks against Israel and Jews… in addition to militiamen affiliated with Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah. These terror groups, according to Nakhalah, are armed and funded by Iran through PIJ.
- If true, Nakhalah’s statements mean that Iran and PIJ have infiltrated the PA, which has long been receiving financial aid from the United States, European Union and other Western countries. Now that Fatah members are being funded and armed by Iran and PIJ, this means that’s it is only a matter of time before the entire Palestinian Authority is transformed into a terror organization.
- Mohammed al-Masri, Director of the Palestinian Center for Strategic studies, acknowledged that Fatah and the Palestinian Authority security forces are leading the recent terror wave against Israelis.
- The growing cooperation between Fatah and the Iranian-backed PIJ terror group should worry not only Israel and Mahmoud Abbas, but all the Western countries that continue to view the Palestinian Authority as a partner for any peace agreement with Israel. It should also serve as a warning to the Biden administration which continues to explore ways to appease Iran’s mullahs by reaching a new nuclear deal with them. This policy of appeasement, including the lifting of economic sanctions on Iran and rewarding it with billions of dollars in cash, is likely to further empower the mullahs and their proxies and encourage them not only to pursue their Jihad against Israel, but also to “export the Revolution,” as required by their Constitution.
- Presumably an additional $100 billion infusion would enable Iran to join China in escalating their military presence in Latin America and further their long-term goal of displacing the United States as the world’s leading superpower.
- If the Biden Administration is hoping to bribe the mullahs not to use their nuclear weapons — at least on the Biden Administration’s watch (after that would presumably be fine) — while at the same time permitting the mullahs to have as many nuclear weapons as they like, is this plan really in the best security interests of the United States?
Palestinian Islamic Jihad Secretary-General Ziyad al-Nakhalah, who recently visited Tehran and met with Iranian leaders, revealed that the main goal behind his organization’s increased terror attacks on Israelis was to make the Jews feel unsafe to a point where they would leave their country.<
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Iran’s mullahs are seeking to create a situation where Jews no longer feel safe in their own country and are forced to leave Israel. To achieve this goal, the mullahs have instructed their Palestinian terror proxies, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), to step up their campaign of terrorism against Israel and Jews.
The mullahs have also succeeded in recruiting to their Jihad (holy war) to destroy Israel members of the Palestinians’ ruling faction, Fatah, headed by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has repeatedly stated his intention to support any Palestinian terror group that seeks the destruction of Israel and kills Jews. On June 14, Khamenei wrote:
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The Mullahs should be very careful as Nasser and contemporaries tried exactly the same policy in the1950’s Fedayeen Campaign – remember? He was clobbered not just by the retaliation raids eg the Gaza Raid, but above all in the 1956 Sinai /Suez Campaign. Besides Israel was a lot weaker then both economically and in international politics.
As the song – and Giap of Viet Nam – say the israelis have nowhere else to go. If the US and others were not accepting half a million German Jews in the 30’s let alone three million Polish Jews, they are not going to accept SEVEN million Israeli Jews now. It is NOT the Israeli Jews who will disappear as the PLO and UNWRA teach their abused pupils, but the Palestine Arabs who will go back to Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Sudan.
Regardless of how Nasser tried to present 1956 as his victory he stopped the harrassment of Israeli borders and interior after the kicking he received in 1956.
Now the Ayatollahs may think they are beyond israeli geographical reach but in the same way that Nasser miffed too many so that even people like Tony Eden were willing to cooperate with Israel the same aplies to Iran. There are enough in the Gulf to give Israel even a temporary base to attack Iran which is inside Israeli drone range as was Soleimani. For that matter the leaders of Hamas and Hizbollah are on Israel’s doorstep.