Ahmadinejad Ups Ante: Calls for West to “Remove” Israel
For decades the mainstream demand coming from the Islamic world regarding Israel was for the West to pressure the Israelis to withdraw from the territory they occupied in 1967 and to recognize an independent Palestinian state. Jihadist groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas, and Qaeda al-Jihad have sought a larger goal, namely the elimination of Israel as a state. Iran, since its 1979 revolution, has followed the jihadist line, rather than that pursued by the Arab front-line states. Iran, of course, being neither Arab nor front-line, was not the major state player with regard to the Arab-Israeli dispute. But now, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, by taking the leading role in this crisis, is attempting to make the total destruction of Israel the goal, not only of the jihadist elements, but also of the region’s state players.
Ahmadinejad , apparently tired of tossing about the much overused terms “Zionist” and entity,” unveiled his latest euphemism in an attack on “the illegitimate, occupying and forged agent,” also known as Israel. According to a report from the Islamic Republic News Agency:
Ahmadinejad said the Zionist regime arrests and tortures defenseless people adding the powers, who claim to support democracy, independence and sovereignty are undermining all these cases in Lebanon and Palestine. He continued the powers who have created the Zionist regime in the region, must remove it themselves and (when it happens) the regional nations can also forgive the past. Otherwise the regional nations will take their final decision, Ahmadinejad added.
Note well that the stakes are being raised. If the Iranian head-of-state has his way, getting Israel back to the 1967 borders will no longer do. If the West wants peace and forgiveness, we have to pull a Czechoslovakia 1938-1939 on Israel.
Such is the new price of peace. Is there an American Neville Chamberlain out there?
