Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said on Monday that Iran and Israel have only one thing in common: neither believes in a “two-state solution” for the Palestinians.
Other Iranian officials jumped in to clarify that Tehran believes all of Israel should be given to the Palestinians, annihilating the Jewish state.
Amirabdollahian told a forum in Doha devoted to the Israel-Hamas war that a state of “Palestine” should be created via referendum, with “only descendants of those who lived there prior to 1948 being permitted to vote.”
The Iranian foreign minister was not referring to the descendants of Jews who have lived in the area since ancient times — he meant holding a “referendum” in which only the Palestinians would be allowed to vote. Iranian state media portray this proposal as a “peaceful” resolution to the Palestinian problem, but in practice, it would amount to the Palestinians voting to dissolve the state of Israel.
Amirabdollahian underscored this point by sarcastically observing that neither Iran nor Israel truly believes in a “two-state solution.”
“Israel is occupying the Palestinian land, and we believe that a two-state solution will not help to resolve the Palestinian issue,” he said.
On Monday, Amirabdollahian confirmed his government had received messages from the Biden administration asking it to rein in allied militia attacks on U.S. forces in the Middle East. The foreign minister repeated Iran’s claim that it has no control over the militia groups.
“I would like to be very transparent — every week, we get messages from the Americans that their bases in Iraq and Syria are being targeted by some groups. They have nothing to do with Iran. They are merely defending the people of Gaza,” he said.
In a recent interview with Al Jazeera News, Iranian Expediency Council member Mohsen Rezaei — a former member of the terrorist Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) — bluntly stated that Tehran envisions only one state existing between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea and that it would not be a happy place for Jews.
“Talking about two states is over,” Rezaei growled. “Once Israel wants to enter Gaza, this issue is no longer relevant.”
“The era of normalizing relations (with Israel) has ended, and a new order will be created in the region,” he said.
During a later interview with Iranian state television, Rezaei said the war in Gaza had laid the groundwork for a new “Islamic Army” that could be strong enough to eliminate Israel and force the United States out of the Middle East.
“An international anti-Zionist movement will awaken in the world, and the people will be its organizers. This movement will be created across the nations due to the tremendous crimes that took place — even Hitler did not do such things,” he said.
“Since the beginning of the victory of the Islamic Revolution, Iran has had a clear opinion about the rights of the Palestinian people, and on the other hand, it has always regarded the Zionist regime as a fake, usurping, and identity-less regime,” Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said at a November meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).
Raisi pushed a package of “ten solutions” to the Palestinian situation, including the “referendum” proposal, designating the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) as a terrorist organization and putting Israeli and American leaders on trial for war crimes.
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