By Mansoureh Tajik for the Saker Blog

Today, Palestine is the calibration reference with which people and nations of the world must compare and standardize the accuracy of their beliefs, behaviors, and attitudes with respect to justice, human liberty, dignity, and morality. It is the standard with which they must true-up and adjust their moral and ethical campus. To adjust accurately means to actively fight using all means available (pens, missiles, talks, and walks) against aggressions and atrocities of the Zionist entity and its backers and handlers, the Anglo-Zionist West, Inc. led by the United States of America.

The Zionist regime was established on an utterly obscene false meme of “a land without people for a people without a land.” For nearly 75 years, what heinous crimes and nefarious acts were not exacted upon the People of Palestine. In all crimes and transgressions of the Zionist regime against the People of Palestine, the collective West and their regional puppets have directly and indirectly aided and abetted. They all share the responsibility and must answer in this world and in the Day of Judgment.

In the words of Ayatullah Khamenei, the Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, in a speech delivered last year on the occasion of Quds Day:

“The Zionists, from day one, converted the usurped Palestine into a base for terrorism. Israel is not a country but a terrorist camp against the people of Palestine and other Muslim nations. Fighting against this ruthless and vicious regime is equivalent to fighting against injustice and fighting against terrorism. And this is a duty and responsibility of everyone.”[1]

During these 74 plus years, the People of Palestine first fought with their words, then with their shoes, then with their closed fists, then with stones and sticks, then with their bodies strapped with explosives, then with rocks, and now with missiles. Meanwhile, their so-called leaders and their so-called Arab brothers in ethnicity and their so-called Muslim brothers in religion “closed it” with the godfathers of crime and wretchedness and sold them out in one accord after another. Thusly, they helped establish and brutally maintain the largest and longest lasting concentration camp known to humanity in all of human history.

Forty four years ago, God’s blessings came in the form of an eighty-year-old man of God, Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini, who had led a revolution to re-introduce the Words of God back into the politics of man. He made Qods and Palestine the one and only issue of greatest importance for the Muslims all over the planet and designated the last Friday of every Ramadan, the day of Al-Qods. His reasoning was quite clear and straight forward. His words were exact:

Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim

I have warned for many long years the danger of despotic usurper Israel to Muslims. Nowadays, it has intensified its barbarous attacks on the Palestinian brothers and sisters. Specifically in southern Lebanon, it aims to exterminate the Palestinian resistors by incessantly bombing their homes and livelihoods.

I ask all Muslims of the world and the Islamic governments to join together and cut off the hands of this usurper and its backers. I invite all Muslims of the world to choose this last Friday of the blessed Month of Ramadan, which is also one of Nights of Power (Laylat ul-Qdr) and could have detrimental effects on the fate of the People of Palestine, as the Qods Day and through some functions and observances, openly announce their international support of legitimate rights of Muslim People. I ask God Almighty the triumph of Muslims over habitual non-believers. Wasalaam Alaykum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuh.

Ruhollah Mosavi Khomeini”[2]

Aspirations and ideals cannot be realized without real, tangible, and practical means and tools, strong determination and will, and an authentic trust in God. In 1369 [1990] the Qods Force was formally established within the Islamic Revolution Guards Corp with a direct order from Ayatullah Khamenei putting Sardar Qasim Soleimani in charge and as its Commander.

To have a realistic assessment of the progress, it is useful to do a short interim assessment and a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation based on facts on the ground. And that, we shall try.

On September 9, 2015, when JCPOA agreement had just been reached and in response to some Zionist propaganda, we were promised by Imam Khamenei that an entity called “Israel” will seize to exist. He said,

“Some Zionists have said, ‘considering the outcome of the nuclear negotiations, we will be free of pestering by Iran for 25 years.’ But we tell them, ‘you will not see the 25 years in the future, in fact and, with God’s Blessings, by then, nothing of the Zionist regime will exist in the region.”[3]

So far, 6 years, 7 months, and 20 days are gone and 18 years, 4 months, and 10 days are left on that 25-year deadline. How are the Zionist entity and its backers holding up, so far? Let’s first hear a clean and bare bone report of events directly from the horse’s mouth, the big and powerful US on whose unshakable support and protection the Israeli decision makers have opened a special account. Nothing could be more revealing than a short Q&A session between a senate panel and Antony Blinken (See short video here) this last Tuesday (April 26th). It is too interesting to leave it unscripted:

Ted Cruz: Is it true that IRGC is actively trying to murder former senior officials of the United States?

Antony Blinken: I’m not really sure what I can say in an open setting but let me say generically that there is an ongoing threat against American officials both present and past.

Ted Cruz: Is it true the state department is spending roughly two million dollars a month to protect those officials?

Antony Blinken: We are making sure and we will make sure for as long as it takes protecting our people present and former if they’re…if they are under threat.

Ted Cruz: And I am assuming you agree if attempting to murder a secretary of state or a former secretary of state is a pretty damn big deal?

Antony Blinken: I would certainly agree with that. Yes.

Ted Cruz: There have been multiple public reports that we asked them to make a simple promise not to murder a former secretary of state and they refused. There is nothing classified about that. If they are actively refusing, saying, ‘no we are going to keep trying to murder your former secretary of state,’ the idea that our negotiators are sitting in Vienna saying, ‘okay, that’s great, how many more billions we can give you.’ That doesn’t make any sense. So, I just want to know the factual question. Did you ask them stop trying to murder the former secretary of state and they sit there and tell you, ‘NO. No, we are going to keep trying to murder him.”

Antony Blinken: Of course, within the context of any engagement we have directly and indirectly with the Iranians, one of the strong messages we send to them is they need to stop targeting our people. Period. And here are the facts as I mentioned a few minutes ago.

Ted Cruz: But, did they tell you no?

Antony Blinken: Again, I am not going to characterize what they said. They know what they would need to do to address this problem and that’s pretty straight forward. But we’ve seen these attacks go up 400% from 2019 to 2020 after we got out of the nuclear agreement, after we designated IRGC, after we killed Soleimani for whom no one is shedding any tears. Those are the facts. We have to deal with the facts in terms of what represents a threat to our people and how we can…[cut off by Ted Cruz]

Ted Cruz: Let me ask about Nord Stream 2…”

I would like to open a parenthesis and say that there is a very simple solution here that you are overlooking Mr. Blinken. Extradite every single one of those criminals to the Islamic Republic of Iran. We promise to conduct a fair trial (fairer than any trial you will ever offer any of your own journalists) here in Iran in a very open, transparent, live, and public to the world. We give our words of honor to be fair and, unlike you, our words and pledges mean something to us. Close parenthesis.

Anyway, the Zionist regime’s enabler regime cannot even guarantee the safety of its own officials let alone the security of an illegitimate entity suffering from Aggressive Compulsive Savagery Disorder (ACSD). Even when they provide their state of the art protective shield, its sub-par performance is unimpressively costly. How many more “concussions”, refinery fires, pin-point hits on your bases, spy dens, and sensitive locations do you need to have in order reach a sober and wise conclusion? What will it take?

Perhaps a simple math from your own books is more useful. In the 6-day fire exchange between Hamas and the Zionist regime less than a year ago, estimated cost of the short-range Qassam rocket fired by Hamas was somewhere between $300 to $800 each. In contrast, estimated cost of Iron Dome’s interceptors was between $50,000 and $100,000 each. According to Benny Gantz, the regime’s defense minister, the Iron Dome missile defense system had recorded more than 1,000 interceptions since the start of the military operation in the Gaza Strip on May 10. [4] That averaged to $75 million dollars in 6 days with great many rockets hitting their intended targets. I know money is not everything but don’t you do all these for your love of material wealth?

Or, perhaps we should add a little oomph to the mix. I tried to make a very simple conceptual drawing of the facts on the ground in and around the occupied Palestine based on a short video made in Hebrew (see here) and released by the Nojaba Movement of Iraq. As the saying goes, a picture says more than 1000 words. This is 1000 + 36:

In the short clip, Nojaba poses an excellent and noteworthy question to the occupiers of Palestine. It asks: “Hamas and the Islamic Jihad alone brought about the Saif al-Quds [The Sword of Al-Quds]. In an expanded war, how are you going to protect your “protective shield?!” Touché, Nojaba!

The clip closes by a very real and truthful announcement: “War with Israel will no longer be a war limited to a country in the east of the Mediterranean Sea. Rather, the Zionists will face a front consisting of warriors whose limits are heavens and of non-Palestinian nations. In that, it will be astounded and overwhelmed.”

Yesterday, Ayatullah Khamenei, in his speech [5] for Al-Quds Day on Friday (April 29, 2022), gave a very concise and hopeful prognosis. He announced: “today, an ‘undefeatable will’ in Palestine and the entire West Asia has replaced the ‘undefeatable army’ of the Zionists. And this criminal military has been forced to re-structure its tactical formation from offense to defense.” In his speech delivered in Arabic, he directly addressed the Palestinians and all in the Islamic and Arab world, he made several critical and noteworthy points that are important to review as they relate to global current affairs and illuminate the path in the near future. Below, I have translated specific segments for your study:

“We are spending the Qods Day this year while all signs point to the emergence of a new equation in today and tomorrow of Palestine. Today, the ‘undefeatable will’ in Palestine and all regions of West Asia has replaced the ‘undefeatable army’ of Zionists. Today, that criminal army has had to change its formation from offensive posture to a defensive one. Today, in the political arena, the biggest supporter of the usurper regime, that is [US] America itself has suffered consecutive defeats: defeat in Afghanistan, defeat in maximum pressure against the Islamic Iran, defeat against Asian powers, defeat in controlling the world economy, defeat in managing its own internal affairs, and a deep divide in the [US] American ruling establishment.”

“The polls indicate that nearly 70 percent of the Palestinians in 1948 and 1967 areas and in external camps encourage the Palestinian leaders to take military actions against the usurper regime. This is an important phenomenon because it means the Palestinians are now fully prepared to oppose the usurper regime and this now keeps the fighting organizations’ hands open so that any time they determined necessary, they could enter into action.”

“The Zionist regime, even though it is out of breath, continues its crimes and is attacking the oppressed and killing unarmed women, children, the old, and the young. It imprisons and tortures them. It destroys homes, farms, and belongings of people. But the liars and false claimants of human right in Europe and [US] America who are making such fuss in the matters of Ukraine have sealed their lips with silence about all these atrocities and crimes in Palestine. They not only do not defend the oppressed, they help this blood thirsty wolf. This serves as a great lesson for the affairs of the world of Islam and on the top of that the issue of Palestine. You cannot rely on these racist and hostile powers and you must not rely on them. Only with the power of resistance rooted in the teachings of the Quran Al-Kareem and the rules of beloved Islam, we can solve the problems of the Islamic World and on the top of that the issue of Palestine.”

“The Islamic Republic of Iran is the supporter and on the side of the Resistance front. It is the supporter and on the side of the Palestinian resistance. We have always said this and we have acted upon it and we have insisted on it. We condemn the “normalization” movement as treason and we condemn the naturalization policy. That some Arab governments have told [the US] America to speed up the resolution of the Palestinian issue, if by that they mean [for the US] to remove all obstacles in stabilizing the usurper regime before departing from the region, then, firstly, they have committed treason and have brought shame to the Arab world. Secondly, they have shown their stupidity because a sightless cannot serve as lead for another sightless.”

I would like to take a moment and make a few specific points about what the above statements in bold might mean. These are my thoughts based on observations and overall evaluation of different developments here. As with any human thought, the possibility of error is always there.

• Regarding the US’s “defeat against Asian powers” (1st paragraph in the above quote), it indicates the Islamic Republic of Iran has already determine the United States to be the loser of its proxy war against Russia in Ukraine regardless of how things develop further. That is decidedly a shared view among great many different thinkers here.

• Regarding the statement, “this now keeps the fighting organizations’ hands open so that any time they determined necessary, they could enter into action” (2nd paragraph), it means the Resistance can move from a position of solely defensive (defense and retaliation whenever attacked) to offense. This is a key development in the direction of escalation. To clarify this important point further, I need to refer to a segment in another speech by Ayatullah Khamenei, delivered a few months back before the staff and the commanders of the army and the air force. He said (I translate):

Our enemies, the enemy front –because the enemy is a front, a gigantic front—today has grasped onto a hybrid offensive. The enemy’s offensives are a hybrid offensive. That means, it includes economic dimensions, political dimensions, security dimensions, media dimensions, diplomatic dimensions – from all directions they have begun a hybrid mass offensive. In response, we, too, must have a hybrid movement. Our movement must be a hybrid movement. We must try hard in all dimensions. Of course we must defend but we cannot always remain in a defensive posture. Our enemy conducts offense. We must conduct offense as well, in all fields: in media, in economy, and in security arenas. The thinkers are responsible in here. Those who are thinkers and are of responsibility and action, especially the officials, in any of these arenas that they can perform, they must.”[6]

So, this shows an official shift for the activists and all those in the Resistance camp.

Yesterday, Sardar Qa’ani, who became the Commander of Quds Force after Sardar Soleimani’s martyrdom, too, lifted a bit of curtain and revealed corners of the Zionist regime’s shaky position with minimum touch-ups or prettification. He dared them to tell the truth to their own people:

“The criminal regime is disgraced and is not ready to man up and tell the truth even to its own people. A few months ago, news got to the regime that two unknown drones were coming towards them. They began to fly 41 military fighter aircrafts and reconnaissance drones and they had them circle around for hours from dusk to dawn. The aggressor entity in its entirety and all its people got discombobulated. They kept on asking what was going on. They weren’t man enough to give any answers about what happened, whether the drones had come or not, to whom they belonged, or what the purpose was. They lied to their people and said, ‘we had a drill.’ So, from where did they receive the information and the operational capacities later on? Be a man and give an answer to your own people. Besides, the heroic Hizbollah sent a drone for about 100 kilometer into a land that has the most concentrated defense and detection equipment and systems. It circled there. It took films. It took photos and finally returned. Why do you claim then that if a mosquito flies over, we could hit it?! Can’t you answer your own people and others?”[7]

And he had this advice to the people in the occupied Palestine:

“To the people who do not belong to this land and we consider all of them usurpers and criminals, we have only one message: Get your brain working. The regime’s life is almost up. Before your houses in Europe and [US] America, where you used to conduct your wretched lives, get too expensive and sold and before the houses you’ve usurped get dirt cheap, I advise you to sell your houses in the Occupied Land and return to your original place.”

May they hear and obey before it is too late for them. May God grant us prayers in freed Al-Aqsa Mosque very soon. Amen and والسلام

References:

[1] Sayyed Ali Khamenei, “Televised Speech on the Occasion of Quds Day,” Last Friday on Ramadan, 1442; Ordibehesht 17, 1400 [May 7, 2021]. Accessed online at: https://khl.ink/f/47798

[2] Ruhollah Mosavi Khomeini. “Message to Muslims of Iran and the World about choosing the Qods Day.” Sahifehye Noor, Vol. 9, Page 267. Accessed online at: https://emam.com/posts/view/1850

[3] Qods News Agency, “Why the Zionist Regime will not see the next 25 years.” News Code: 345824. Available online: http://qodsna.com/fa/345824

[4] Abdel-Raouf Arnaout. “Israel incurs heavy costs intercepting Hamas rockets: Cost of Iron Dome’s interceptors estimated between $50,000 and $100,000 each.” Anadolu Agency, May 17, 2021. Accessed online at: https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/israel-incurs-heavy-costs-intercepting-hamas-rockets/2244205

[5] Sayyed Ali Khameni, “Televised Speech on the Occasion of Quds Day,” The Last Friday on Ramadan, 1443; Ordibehesht 9, 1401 [April 29, 2022]. Accessed online at: https://khl.ink/f/50118

[6] Sayyed Ali Khameni, “Speech on the visits of the commanders and staff of the Air Force and the Air Defense of the Army.” Bahman 19, 1400 [February 8, 2022]. Accessed online at: https://khl.ink/f/49572

[7] Mehr News Agency. “Sardar Qa’ani’s advice to the Zionists: Return to your previous lands.” Ordibehesth 9, 1401 [April 29, 2022] @ 12:08 pm. News Code: 5478238. Accessed online at: https://www.mehrnews.com/xXzFN