Iran celebrate Jerusalem Day

Every year on the last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan, Iran and its supporters throughout the Arab world observe Jerusalem Day to express their ambition “to liberate Jerusalem.” Jerusalem Day was instituted by the late Ayatollah Khomeini and the Iranian Islamic government in 1979.

As it does every year, Hezbollah exploited Jerusalem Day for a show of military might accompanied by strongly-worded anti-Israeli and anti-American propaganda. The topics prominent in the speeches given by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and others were incitement for the annihilation of the State of Israel; encouragement for the continuation of the armed Palestinian insurrection; the call for increased aid, particularly financial, for the Palestinian insurrection; total rejection of any political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; and fomenting hatred for the United States .

The above reflect the Jerusalem day events in Iran , which also included a mass procession in Iran's capital, Teheran (attended by the leaders of the Iranian régime), displays of military-style activities, and strongly-worded radical Islamic-oriented speeches expressing deep-seated hatred for Israel and the United States. ( See Appendix A .)

This year, for the first time there were Jerusalem Day demonstrations in the Iranian-oriented Shiite-populated areas in Iraq , during which anti-Israel placards and pictures of Khomeini, Khamenei and Nasrallah were displayed, and calls for the annihilation of Israel were chanted ( See Appendix B ).

Jerusalem Day in Lebanon: The main events in Beirut -- a speech by Hezbollah leader Nasrallah, a procession and a display of military arms

This year as well, Hezbollah celebrated Jerusalem Day throughout Lebanon with processions, prayers in the mosques, rallies and speeches. The main events were a speech by Hassan Nasrallah, a procession and a demonstration of military arms which took place in the Shiite neighborhood in the southern part of Beirut. They were broadcast by the Hezbollah TV station Al-Manar on November 21, 2003, the same day the events took place, and were exploited by the organization both as a way of demonstrating its military might and for purposes of anti-Israeli and anti-American propaganda.

The main ceremony in Beirut was attended by Masoud Idris, Iranian Ambassador to Lebanon; Hezbollah top officials; Osama Hamdan, the Hamas representative in Lebanon; and Lebanese army officers . The three most senior figures of the Lebanese government (President Antoine Lahad, Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and Parliament Chairman Nabih Berri) were represented by three members of the Parliament. The ceremony was also attended by Bassam Kantar, the brother of Samir Kantar , who murdered the father and daughter of the Haran family in a devastating terrorist attack in Nahariya, in northern Israel near the Lebanese border, in 1979. ¹

¹ Samir Kantar's release from Israeli jail was recently demanded by Nasrallah as a condition to finalizing a deal in which three Israeli soldiers and one Israeli civilian held by Hezbollah would be released.

The speech given by Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah leader

Since his election to Hezbollah leadership in 1992 (following assassination of Sheikh Abbas Mussawi) Hassan Nasrallah has given an annual rabble-rousing speech. This year as well (November 21, 2003, broadcast by Al-Manar television, as noted), standing behind a panel of bullet-proof glass, Nasrallah praised the Palestinian intifada (insurrection) at great length, gave details of what he called its achievements compared with what he represented as the weakness of Israeli society and stressed the need for the continuation of the armed Palestinian insurrection as a means of annihilating the State of Israel . He repeatedly stressed the need to increase the aid provided to the Palestinians, especially financial aid .

The high points of his speech were the following:

He began his speech by quoting anti-Jewish verses from the Qur'an. He praised Allah and blessed the prophet Mohammed and all his followers with the addition of blessings to the shaheeds and the jihad warriors who had died for the sake of Allah [i.e., suicide bombers] . He then quoted one of the Qur'an verses in which Allah promised Mohammed he would vanquish the Jews and that the Jews would be humiliated and miserable because they had rejected the Qur'an, killed the prophets without cause, defied Allah and became aggressive. He also quoted the verses dealing with the destruction of the Jewish Temple and the possibility that it would be destroyed again if the infidel Israelites did not repent.

The intifada , he said, had seriously damaged Israel's image:

	“… For the first time since the Zionist entity came into being, it has had to face a historic event directly influencing its continued existence . Much has been said about the influence of the intifada on Israeli security, economy, politics, culture, psychology and national morale, and about its implications for the people of this invading entity…”
	“…We see that Israel's image, on which millions of dollars have been spent to improve, rehabilitate and prettify, and to which end most of the news media, research centers and intelligence bodies have been enslaved – that image has begun to falter because of the Palestinian blood , the injustice done to the Palestinians and Palestinian suffering…”
	“… The last public opinion poll taken in the European Union shows that most of the European nations view Israel as the number one threat to world peace . The change in the western world came about through no cultural, informational or political effort on the part of the governments, régimes or peoples in the Arab and Moslem world, with the exception of a few… and to that, the image of the United States should be added, which has become greatly distorted as a result of its support for the cancerous, oppressive [Zionist] entity which commits war crimes and kills children…”

The intifada , he continued, revealed the weakness of Israel and its leaders, who are piloting the country toward extinction:

	“… More important than anything I have said so far is the increase in the number of voices heard within the Zionist entity… Inside the Zionist entity there are voices which are beginning to say that Sharon has failed … From the first day, if you remember, we told you that Sharon was impotent. If Netanyahu can be compared to a mosquito's wing, or something even weaker, Sharon is nothing more than a toad . He looks frightening but nothing he does has stood in the way of the will of the jihad [holy war] and of the istishhad [suicide bombing attacks] or changed the situation in the slightest …”
	“…It is not only a question of a few journalists or members of the political elite. It now includes high ranking officers in both the Israeli army and the Israeli security service. My brothers and sisters, pay close attention to what four Israeli generals, who one after another headed the internal Israeli security force, did… They joined together and raised their voices and said that Sharon's policy of continued Zionist conquest of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and that the continued existence of the Zionist settlements on the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip would lead to the destruction of the State of Israel …”
	“…Two days ago, according to the official statistics in one of the [Israeli?] newspapers, 760,000 Zionists emigrated from Palestine , most of them between the ages of 22 and 42, that is, young people, the element of the country's strength, the most vital element is emigrating… One of every five Israelis is willing to leave the country if he can find a way of making a decent living anywhere else in the world …”
	“… Indeed, we told you years ago what our Palestinian brothers say today… namely, that this entity will no longer exist, will cease to be, will not survive, that this entity has been problematic from the beginning and will continue to be riddled with problems until it ceases to exist . These are no longer the words of [radical] Islam… but a fact which is noted by Israeli generals. And they warn their politicians of it …”
	“… This Israeli voice, calling for a retreat from the lands conquered in 1967, will grow louder … And you all know that we believe that Palestine is not the lands of 1967. Palestine is all of Palestine. Every bit of earth. Every drop of water in the river and sea of Palestine is Palestine . Actually, there is nothing on earth morally, ideologically or historically called Israel…”

It is their duty, said Nasrallah, to aid the Palestinians in continuing the intifada , and they [the Palestinians] must receive financial aid:

	“… We must continue giving aid to the intifada … You see, my brothers and sisters, the United States besieged the intifada financially and economically… and forced the rest of the world to put the jihad movements, especially Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and others, on their lists of terrorists…”
	“… money was confiscated, institutions were closed, the activities of the various charitable associations were outlawed , and even in the Arab world many régimes obeyed the American dictate and revoked the aid they were giving to the Palestinian people and forbade the collection of donations for the Palestinian people. I say to you, it is the duty of [all] Arabs and Moslems, it is the duty of every man and woman, young and old, the first thing we must do is to provide money for the Palestinian people and the jihad forces …”
	“…We can all contribute money… We must not treat this matter lightly. All the institutions, committees, parties, private and collective initiatives throughout the Moslem world must be spurred on to collect money, everywhere in the world, and to bring that money to Palestine . With it they will buy bread and rebuild their houses. The money will bandage their wounds. With that money they are assured of the ability to buy weapons , for the men and women of Palestine will not be weakened. The [challenge] of our era is found today in Palestine… If we cannot give them arms, we can give them the money to buy them …
	“… People contact us from the four corners of the Arab and Moslem world and say, ‘I want to go to Palestine to fight.' In Palestine there are thousands of would-be suicide bombers ( istishhadiyyun ) and hundreds of thousands of holy warriors. There are tens of thousands of young men and women who desire only to die a martyr's death . If you have money, give it to a young Palestinian, to a Palestinian family to rebuild its house, so that some of them may study and continue living. Buy weapons . Train a would-be suicide bomber or fighter . Do you think Israel can prevent the money from reaching the Palestinians? [No.] The money can reach [them] …

According to Nasrallah, the Israeli army is weak and cannot respond to the actions of the suicide bombers :

	“…First of all I want to say something to the Lebanese, the Syrians and all the other people of this region: Don't be afraid of the Israeli army … According to what we see in the field and research done by Zionist enemy experts in Israeli centers for military and strategic matters, the Israeli army is no longer able to invade or remain in any Arab country . It has become helpless, and I am talking about facts and not slogans or empty words to raise your morale. The only choice the Israeli army was left with in Lebanon was to admit defeat …”
	“…I am talking about the same army that recaptured the West Bank in what they called Operation Defensive Shield, but which could not prevent young Palestinian men and women from carrying out spectacular and extremely important actions immediately after the West Bank had been occupied … The most important actions were those carried out by the Palestinian suicide bombers ( istishhadiyyun ) who came from the West Bank after the Israeli army invaded and reconquered it. Isn't that the way it happened?
	“…The Israeli army and all the security forces and the Israeli police were on alert on the eve of the day they call Yom Kippur [the Day of Atonement, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar], but they could not prevent a young woman from Jenin from entering Haifa and carrying out a spectacular suicide bombing attack ( istishhad )[at the Maxim Restaurant, October 4, 2003, carried out by a female lawyer 29-year old Hanadi Jaradat]. Isn't that what happened? Can that army reenter south Lebanon, the Bekaa Valley, the mountains of Lebanon and Beirut? That is nonsense!... Can that army invade Syria? Damascus?...”

Nasrallah boasted of the ability of Iran and Hezbollah to deter Israel:

	“… Israel's air force is powerful and can bomb anywhere but what is new is that no matter where they drop their bombs, there will be reprisals … And when we come to deal with that, it will be our legitimate right to strike not only forward positions, as the enemy expects, but at targets at any range and depth we so desire …”
	“… The top officials and leadership of Syria , the top officials and leadership of Lebanon and the top officials and leadership of Iran as well, all state that any act of aggression by Israel against Iran will be countered with a missile attack by Iran on the enemy entity …”
	“…That willingness… is what constitutes the deterrent force for the enemy. It prevents him from thinking about attack and makes him reconsider an act of aggression a thousand times...”

Nasrallah preached hatred for the United States, which he claimed was [solely] responsible for all the injustice in the Middle East and in the world:

“…This whole region is a seething cauldron. Hatred for the United States is about to boil over. Today the United States sings a pretty little song calling for democracy. There might possibly be some naive person in Latin America or Africa who believes it. But we of the Arab and Moslem world all know that the most dictatorial régimes are those the United States planted in our region and in our world. Sounding the slogan of democracy did not justify the American conquest of Iraq on moral, political or humanitarian grounds and did not in any way lessen its responsibility for all the tension, instability and killing in this region and in the [whole] world …”

“…Whatever happens in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iraq and everywhere else, the first one to look at and the first one to condemn is the United States . Before we start disagreeing among ourselves, as to who is to blame [for our idleness], the conquest of Iraq [by the Americans], like the Zionist conquest of Palestine , is a serious threat to the security and stability of the region…”