AFP: Iran’s influential former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani on Friday criticised the international condemnation of the deadly anti-Israeli bombings in Egypt that he said were acts of retaliation. “How come there is no noise about the shedding of Palestinian blood but a retaliatory act is expected to be condemned so much?” Rafsanjani asked during the weekly Muslim prayers in Tehran. AFP
TEHRAN – Iran’s influential former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani on Friday criticised the international condemnation of the deadly anti-Israeli bombings in Egypt that he said were acts of retaliation.
“How come there is no noise about the shedding of Palestinian blood but a retaliatory act is expected to be condemned so much?” Rafsanjani asked during the weekly Muslim prayers in Tehran.
“In Taba some angry people blew up a place they believed Israelis were staying. It is not known yet who has taken revenge … and now all countries are lining up to condemn it in the media,” he said.
Three suspected car bombs ripped through beach resorts packed with Israeli tourists on the Red Sea coast of Egypt’s Sinai desert late Thursday.
A blast at the Hilton Hotel killed at least 24 people and caused a 10-storey wing of the building to collapse. Another two people were killed in attacks on another Red Sea resort south of Taba.
Rafsanjani hit out at the world’s silence over the deadly Israeli attacks on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, where more than 90 Palestinians have been killed in an army offensive since September 28.
“We oppose terrorism, we have suffered from that more than any other country but we do not accept that one side commit as much crime as it wishes and the other side be all submissive and have its hands tied,” he said.
He referred to Tuesday’s US veto of an Arab-sponsored draft resolution in the United Nations Security Council against Israel’s military operation in Gaza as “the best evidence of how cruel the world justice system can be”.
