Iran’s supreme leader rejected the Palestinians’ UN statehood bid on Saturday,
saying any deal that accepts the existence of Israel would leave a “cancerous
tumor” forever threatening the security of the Middle East.
“Slanderous
statements” regarding the intention to annihilate Israel that were issued
Saturday at the Palestinian conference in Teheran only serve to give credence to
Israel’s firm stance that its security needs must be met and its request to be
recognized as a Jewish state must be accepted, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu
said.
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“Israel will continue to strive for peace while ensuring that
conditions are in place to promise a secure future to Israeli citizens for
generations to come,” Netanyahu said in a statement released by his office on
Saturday night.
As leader of a country under a longstanding threat of
military action from Israel and the United States, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned
the Jewish state and its allies to expect “paralyzing blows” that a NATO missile
shield could not prevent.
“Any plan that seeks to divide Palestine is
totally rejected,” Khamenei told a conference commemorating the first
intifada.
The conference, first held in 1991, “focuses on the restoration
of Palestinians’ rights, including their rights to return to their homeland and
determine their own fate, and on the liberation of Palestinian territories
occupied by Israel,” according to Iranian news outlet PressTV.
“The
two-state scheme, which has been clad in the self-righteousness of the
acceptance of the Palestinian government and membership at the United Nations,
is nothing but a capitulation to the demands of the Zionists or the recognition
of the Zionist regime on Palestinian land,” he declared.
Khamenei’s
speech underlined Iran’s support for groups that oppose Israel’s existence,
including Hamas, which rejected the UN bid presented by Palestinian Authority
President Mahmoud Abbas as “begging” for statehood.
The 72-year-old
cleric also sought to portray Iran as the greatest defender of the Palestinian
cause, criticizing other countries in the region that have close ties to
Washington.
“Governments that host Zionist embassies or economic bureaus
cannot advocate support for Palestine,” he said in comments aimed, among others,
at post-Mubarak Egypt with which Tehran is seeking to restore the diplomatic
ties cut since 1979.
Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal said at the conference
that “resistance is the only remaining option” for the Palestinians.
“All
others have failed,” he said.
Also speaking at the opening of the
conference, Iranian parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani said that the Arab Spring
had presented a ripe opportunity for the Palestinians. “Very serious measures”
should be taken in order to not pass up those opportunities, he said, according
to IRNA.
Khamenei mocked Barack Obama’s support for Israel as a cynical
ploy to retain the US presidency at next year’s election.
“In order to
remain in power you have surrendered to humiliation and to the Zionists,” he
said.
The United States and Israel both say they do not rule out
preemptive strikes on Iran to stop it from getting nuclear bombs. Tehran says it
would hit back at Israel and US interests in the region and analysts say it
could use allies, such as Lebanese Hezbollah, to retaliate.
“The West
must either give up its bullying policies and recognize the Palestinians’ rights
and avoid pursuing the Zionist regime’s bullying schemes. Otherwise it will face
harsher blows in the near future,” Khamenei said.
He said a NATO
early-warning radar system being deployed to protect the Western alliance from
attacks by countries including Iran would be ineffective.
“What threatens
the Zionist regime is not Iran’s missiles or the resistance, under the pretext
of which they have set up the missile shield in the region.
The main
threat comes from the determination of those who no longer want America, Europe
or their lackeys to rule over them. Of course [our] missiles will carry out
their duties any time they feel a threat stemming from the enemy,” Khamenei
said. from the enemy."