WASHINGTON – According to a prominent Muslim cleric and “Leader of the Islamic Revolution,” every single Muslim in the world must wage jihad against the state of Israel, not just those in the Middle East.
Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khamenei, who posts comments on an English language website, spoke recently at a gathering of “officials, people from all walks of life and the ambassadors of Muslim countries.”
In his speech, he said, “According to Islamic jurisprudence, once faced with the domination of the enemy over Islamic territory, all Muslims are duty-bound to campaign and carry out jihad in whatever possible form and, therefore, fighting against the Zionist regime is incumbent upon and mandatory for the entire Islamic world.”
Khamenei declared that the Palestinian issue was “the foremost problem of the Muslim world,” and he called for unity among Sunnis and Shiites to achieve this common goal.
“Division and dispute are harmful to Islam and the Muslim Ummah and conversely, Muslim countries pulling closer to each other and refraining from pitting [their military] forces against each other conforms to divine wisdom and benefits all Islamic countries,” he said.
The remarks already appear to be having an effect in the Middle East, where recently an Iranian flag was seen along with flags from the terrorist group Hezbollah in a threatening display on the Lebanon-Israel border.
Another poster portrayed Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the cleric who led the revolution to overthrow Iran’s Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in 1979. The poster shows Khomeini glaring at Jerusalem’s Dome of the Rock from above, and the words “We are Coming” are written in Hebrew and Arabic.
Iranian support for Palestine is nothing new, but such aggressive statements from Khamenei, who is Iran’s Supreme Leader and has even more power than its president, may give cause for concern that Iran as a nation will be more overt in its attempts to destroy the nation of Israel.
It was former President Obama who lifted sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, allowing Iranians to continue enriching uranium in return for vague promises that its nuclear ambitions were purely peaceful and economic ones.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu always was opposed to this deal, tweeting that it was “a historic mistake.”
PM Netanyahu: From the initial reports we can already conclude that this agreement is a historic mistake. »
— PM of Israel (@IsraeliPM) July 14, 2015
Should Iran acquire the ability to launch, and then detonate, a nuclear weapon, it would open the door to what its officials repeatedly have sought: an attack to decimate Israel.
Khamenei said, “The rally by the people on Quds Day provides hope to Muslims and the Palestinians and proves that right will be ultimately triumphant over wrong.”
The rally he referred to drew a crowd of “millions” on June 23, according to Iranian state media sources.
The Times of Israel reported that at this rally, a large digital clock showed that Israel had 8,411 days left to exist, as prophesied by Ayatollah Khamenei in 2015. They also displayed surface-to-surface ballistic missiles with the capability to hit Israeli and American bases in the region from Iran.
