Iran’s Ahmadinejad says liberation of “all Palestine” looms

Iran Focus: Tehran, Feb. 20 – Iran’s hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Monday that the recent victory by the Islamist group Hamas in the Palestinian elections brushed aside the Oslo Peace Accord and the Roadmap to Peace in the Arab-Israeli conflict, and expressed hope that “soon all of Palestine will be liberated”, Iran’s official news agency reported.
Iran Focus

Tehran, Feb. 20 – Iran’s hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Monday that the recent victory by the Islamist group Hamas in the Palestinian elections brushed aside the Oslo Peace Accord and the Roadmap to Peace in the Arab-Israeli conflict, and expressed hope that “soon all of Palestine will be liberated”, Iran’s official news agency reported.

Ahmadinejad told senior Hamas leaders visiting Tehran that the Islamist group must not “give in” to Western pressures, including the threatened cut-off of funds to the Palestinian Authority.

“Don’t worry about economic problems, because God’s treasures are endless and if you work for Him, He will meet your needs from where you had not foreseen”, Ahmadinejad told the Hamas delegation led by the group’s political bureau chief Khalid Mash’al.

Ahmadinejad repeated his stance on the need to liberate “all of Palestine” just a few hours after Iran’s foreign minister told reporters in Brussels that the Iranian president had been “misunderstood” when he said Israel should be “wiped off the map”.

“Nobody can remove a country from the map. This is a misunderstanding in Europe of what our president mentioned,” Manouchehr Mottaki said. “We do not recognise legally this regime”.

In Tehran, Ahmadinejad struck a different tone.

“In this election, the people of Palestine voted for the liberation of all of Palestine through continuing the resistance”, Ahmadinejad said.

“The vote of the Palestinian people set aside the Oslo agreement, the Roadmap, and all the previous suggestions”, he said.

“The Zionist regime (Israel) was set up when Muslims were asleep. For 60 years, this regime was allowed to move forward to secure Western interests. But today, the wave of Islamic reawakening is eclipsing the Global Arrogance and the occupying regime (Israel) has no security and prosperity in the occupied lands”.

Ahmadinejad said that the “raison d’etre” of the Jewish state was now being questioned.

The Revolutionary Guards commander-turned-President warned Hamas’ leaders that the “enemies” would resort to “political games” to try to “take the opportunities away and stop the succession of victories by Islamists”.

“Despite all the hardship, pay attention that the God who gave you victory has given you the perseverance to pass through these challenges. The only way to victory is to remain steadfast on your principles”, Ahmadinejad said.

In January, while in Damascus, Ahmadinejad told Mash’al, “If the occupiers stay on even one inch of Palestinian soil, the goal of Palestine will not be realised”.

“We must not let our guard down now for even one moment against the enemies’ plots. Belittling the goal of Palestine is a great plot that the enemies are after”, he said.

Mash’al also met on Monday with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.