In the wake of news that Israel will send a delegation to Washington, D.C. to influence the Obama administration’s international negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program, the Islamic Republic is stepping up its attacks on the Jewish state.
“This vicious temperament of dogs and pigs is you (Israel),” said Ayatollah Mohammad Imami Kashani, a member of the Assembly of Experts, the body that appoints the supreme leader, at Tehran’s interim Friday prayer. “The Quran has marked on your foreheads that you will be humiliated. The Zionist officials are like animals, and truly as rogue thugs they do whatever they want, killing people, creating bloodshed and destroying whatever they want.”
Kashani said at this week’s Friday prayers sermon in Tehran that whenever Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears on television, “all of the world hates you. You are hated, humiliated and despicable and,” the ayatollah added in a putrid insult to make to a Jew, “have been immersed in the flesh of rabid dogs and pigs.”
Kashani also had harsh words for the Obama administration: “Nations of the world are the enemies of the Zionists and (America’s support of Israel) will have you share the misery of the Zionists.”
Kashani stated that uranium enrichment is Iran’s right and that America, Britain and Israel lie when they say Iran wants the nuclear bomb.
Last Sunday, Iran and the 5+1 world powers — the five permanent U.N. Security Council members plus Germany — reached agreement in Geneva over Iran’s illicit nuclear program.
Under the agreement, Iran, in return for billions of dollars in sanctions relief, will keep much of its nuclear infrastructure, is limited to enriching uranium at the 5 percent level for six months, will convert its stock of highly enriched uranium of 20 percent to harmless oxide and will allow more intrusive inspections of its nuclear plants by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which will be limited to only agreed-on facilities.
Netanyahu has called the agreement a “historic mistake,” and after a telephone call from President Obama, the two agreed that Israel would send a delegation, headed by Israeli National Security Adviser Yossi Cohen, to Washington to discuss strategy for a permanent agreement.
This in turn has angered the clerical establishment in Iran, with several officials speaking against such a prospect.
“What is visible is that Obama has agreed to include the fake Zionist regime [Israel] in future negotiations,” said Ayatollah Ahmed Khatami, a member of the Assembly of Experts. “However, we firmly believe [Israel] must be wiped off the face of the earth and we don’t recognize [its existence].”
Khatami said America cannot be trusted and it wants to break the promises it made at the Geneva meeting. “Already, when the ink of the Geneva agreement is not yet dry, the lie is reflected on websites that Iran does not have [uranium] enrichment rights,” he said.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Friday that all further discussions will have to leave out Israel, IRNA reported, because Iran would not attend a meeting with a state that occupies Jerusalem.
“We consider the Zionist regime as the biggest danger to the region and the world,” Zarif said.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, told thousands of Basij militia forces during the Geneva negotiations that the Iranian strategy was an “artistic maneuver and the use of different tactics [that would be used] to reach different goals and ideals” of the Islamic regime. Stalling tactics for more than a decade have allowed Iran to greatly enhance its nuclear capability to the point it could become nuclear-armed within weeks. (RELATED: Iranian leader: Nuclear negotiations merely a maneuver to reach Islamic goal)
Khamenei also called Israel a “rabid dog,” “unclean,” “illegitimate” and “a bastard.”
“The Zionist regime is destined for destruction because this miserable regime was imposed (on the Middle East) based upon force, and no imposed phenomenon can last,” he told the Basij forces.
Reza Kahlili is a pseudonym for a former CIA operative in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and author of the award-winning book “A Time to Betray” (Simon & Schuster, 2010). He serves on the Task Force on National and Homeland Security and the advisory board of the Foundation for Democracy in Iran (FDI).
