Ahmadinejad predicts the removal of ‘Zionists’ from the world

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– September 3, 2010Posted in: World News

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has predicted the failure of the Middle East talks and the removal of “the Zionist regime from the world scene”. 

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Photo: REUTERS

The hardline leader told the annual Palestinian solidarity day rally in Tehran that a popular revolt by the people of the Middle East would extinguish the Jewish homeland even if the governments reach a peace agreement.

“If the leaders of the region do not have the guts, then the people of the region are capable of removing the Zionist regime from the world scene,” he said.

In response the pro-government crowd chanted “Death to America. Death to Israel.”

President Ahmadinejad said that direct peace talks which Western-backed Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas relaunched with Israel in Washington on Thursday after a 20-month hiatus were “doomed” to fail.

“What do they want to negotiate about? Who are they representing? What are they going to talk about?” the Iranian president said of the Palestinian leadership.

“Who gave them the right to sell piece of Palestinian land? The people of Palestine and the people of the region will not allow them to sell even an inch of Palestinian soil to the enemy.

“The negotiations are stillborn and doomed.”

Iran is implacably opposed to the new peace talks and has given strong support to the Islamist Hamas movement which controls Gaza and which carried out two shooting attacks against Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank in the run-up to their relaunch that killed four and wounded two.

Pro-government militiamen had attacked the home of an Iranian opposition leader with homemade bombs and beat one of his bodyguards unconscious to kim him from attending the rally.

Mehdi Karroubi’s guards had to fire gunshots in the air to clear crowds that broke down the door of his home on Thursday night after days of gatherings outside.

Members of the plainclothes Basij militia that led the crackdown on the protests that swept the country in response to allegations of fraud in President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s June 2009 re-election. Mr Karroubi was one of the pro-reform candidates who ran against Ahmadinejad.

While the government uses the occasion as an anti-Israel outpouring and to show its support for the Palestinians, Karroubi and other opposition leaders used the day last year to gather tens of thousands of their own supporters into the streets, and violent clashes broke out with security forces.

Mr Karroubi, a cleric, and Mir Hossein Mousavi were the two pro-reform candidates who ran against Ahmadinejad in 2009. Mousavi claims he won the election but that it was stolen from him through massive fraud.

Mr Mousavi condemned the attack on Karroubi’s home, saying it proved the government’s “enmity against Israel is an excuse” for attacking opposition figures. “Karroubi and figures like him and other freedom-seekers are the real enemies of authoritarians.”

The opposition has not held any street demonstrations since February and canceled plans for a rally on the anniversary of the election.

Since the vote, authorities have detained thousands and tried scores on charges of fomenting postelection unrest. More than 80 of them were sentenced to prison terms from six months to 15 years. Ten were sentenced to death, and their cases are being appealed.

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