Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei calls for destruction of Israel, Jews

By Catholic Online (NEWS CONSORTIUM)
2/7/2012
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

Allegedly Holy leader says nation has 'jurisprudential justification' to kill Jews, annihilate Israel

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is calling for the death of all Jews and the destruction of Israel. On the Web site, called Alef, Khamenei says the opportunity must not be lost to remove "this corrupting material. It is a "'jurisprudential justification' to kill all the Jews and annihilate Israel, and in that, the Islamic government of Iran must take the helm."

In order to attack Iran, the article says, Israel needs the approval and assistance of America, and under the current passive climate in the United States, the opportunity must not be lost to wipe out Israel before it attacks Iran.

Facebook Delicous MySpace

Twitter Stumble Digg

More Destinations

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Using a lexicon of hate and racism, the Iranian government has laid out the legal and religious justification for the destruction of Israel and the slaughter of its people on the Web site.

The Web site goes on to call Israel a danger to Islam. Alireza Forghani, one of the site's authors, is an analyst and a strategy specialist in Khamenei's camp.

The article states that because Israel is going to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, Iran is justified in launching a pre-emptive, cataclysmic attack against the Jewish state, the doctrine argues.

In a major speech at prayers, Khamenei announced that Iran will support any nation or group that attacks the "cancerous tumor" of Israel.

There is some substance behind the idle boast. Iran's Defense Ministry announced that it test-fired an advanced two-stage, solid-fuel ballistic missile and boasted about successfully putting a new satellite into orbit. It served as a potent reminder to the West that its engineers have mastered the technology for intercontinental ballistic missiles even as the Islamic state pushes its nuclear weapons program.

The commander of the Revolutionary Guards, Brig. Gen. Seyyed Mehdi Farahi, said last August that the Safir missile, which is capable of transporting a satellite into space, can easily be launched parallel to the earth's orbit, which will transform it into an intercontinental ballistic missile.

Many Western analysts say they don't think this would happen until 2015. Historically, orbiting a satellite is the criterion for crediting a nation with ICBM capability.

Forghani details the Islamic duty of jihad as laid out in the Quran for the sake of Allah and states that "primary jihad." According to some Shiite jurists, this jihad can only occur when the Hidden Imam, or the Shiites' 12th Imam Mahdi, returns. Shiites believe Mahdi's return will usher in Armageddon.

In the absence of the hidden Imam, Forghani says, "defensive jihad" could certainly take place when Islam is threatened, and Muslims must defend Islam and kill their enemies.

In order to attack Iran, the article says, Israel needs the approval and assistance of America, and under the current passive climate in the United States, the opportunity must not be lost to wipe out Israel before it attacks Iran.

� 2012, Catholic Online. Distributed by NEWS CONSORTIUM.

- - -

Pope Benedict XVI's Prayer Intentions for January 2013
General Intention: The Faith of Christians. That in this Year of Faith Christians may deepen their knowledge of the mystery of Christ and witness joyfully to the gift of faith in him.
Missionary Intention: Middle Eastern Christians. That the Christian communities of the Middle East, often discriminated against, may receive from the Holy Spirit the strength of fidelity and perseverance.

Keywords: Iran, nuclear capabilities, Israel, Jews, annihilation

NEWSLETTERS »

Rate This Article

Was this helpful to you? Very Helpful Somewhat Helpful Not Helpful at All

Would you be interested in more articles like this? Yes, I am Interested No, I am not Interested

Rate Article

1 - 10 of 17 Comments

Curls
3 months ago
@Pancho - here's a translation of Iran's government's ANNUAL conference on "A World without Zionism." Over the years, their goals of eliminating Israel is easy to see. It doesn't rely on a translation of "wipe out." Add to it, that Iran supports Hizbollah & Hamas as aggressors in their military attacks on Israel, including leaders & charters of both's flat out statements of intent to conquer Israel & make it into an Arab Muslim run country.
http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/1510.htm

@Mohammad
Jews in Iran are badly harassed. No more than one in a family can leave the country at a time, so they can not escape. They can not speak honestly & openly or their family will be harmed. Internationally well known, thirteen were arrested, several hanged, as they were charged & put through mock trials. Iranians complained during their protested that Hizbollah Arabic speakers were brought in to beat them up, because the Iranian guard couldn't beat up fellow Iranians badly enough & Bahia are known to be at risk for being wiped out there. So thinking the Iranian gov't is not so kind to it's Jews based on the known facts...

Israel is hoping for peace with Iran. However, if the Iranian rulership continues to build nuclear reactors inside mountains to hide them from inspectors they are flexing muscles of threat that they've already made for years. Hopefully no innocent Iranian or Israeli people will be harmed. But Israel will need to defend itself. Major American Iranian lobby organizations are not suggesting that the current Iranian gvn't is sane, & I'll take their word for it.
Stewart McGill
9 months ago
My comment to my Mother Church is that we love the House of Israel and recognize the unique bond between the chosen people and our Lord. We pray for peace but recognize the existence of evil. I pledge that when the time comes we shall stand and be counted in the defense and protection of the People of the Lord.
Bro John Storms BSP
1 year ago
The holocaust truly happened. I am retired on the Miss. Gulf Coast as I am in the fall of my life. But I was born and raised in Kansas City, MO.. During the last 20 years there I lived in a predominately Polish section of the City. St. Stanislaus Catholic Church was my Parish Church back then. I not only saw the German Waffen SS tatoo's on the inside left forearms of many of the immagrant Polish older people there. They told me of stories too horrible to describe in this format. But the many tatoo's I saw. I also worked as a County Law Officer wiht a brown-tan uniform shirt with Sgt. stripes and dark brown pants with tan stripes down the outside of the legs. I was told by my Parish Priest that many of my Polish neighbors were arfraid of me because my uniform was too simular to "Hitler's Brown Shirt" gang that was his original group prior to officially using the NAZI name to their forces. So yes I saw the faces of former Auswitch Death Camp Polish prisioners with their tatoo's. It was real enough for me and I felt so very sorry for these people I begin to wait untill I got to work to put my uniform on. Then when I went home at night I left it in a locker at work. God Bless Isreal and the Jewish people as well as others who died at the hands of Hitlers Waffen SS. May God Have Mercy on all the lost souls of that horrible time in World History. To say there were no Jews murdered in the death camps all over Europe during Hitlers reign is to say that WWII never happened. We Americans know it did. God bless all the lost souls of that period in time.
Meysam Tehranchi
1 year ago
The West Passive Position, the Best Time to Attack Israel[2] Weblog:Tarof.blogfa.com

The west abundant blunders (The US and The European Union) in confrontation with Iran have made this country to command enormous capabilities against its enemies and to find out their weak points more than ever. Examining the present circumstance and the European Union program regarding Iran’s oil embargo shows that, contrary to the west claims, the Europe and its allies shall be sunk in more passive position so that in the event of Iran’s attack on Israel, they have no power to accompany this country. We have surveyed the different scenarios to be painted, which have been presented as follows:

The questions surveyed in this approach:

Why is oil embargo against Iran hazardous for the West?

What will be Iran’s probable reactions towards the oil embargo?

Will Saudi Arabia be able to compensate the shortfall occurring as a result of oil embargo against Iran?

Will the US be able to reopen the Straits of Hormuz and outbreak war against Iran?

Why will the US and the West be merely observers in the event of Iran’s attack on Israel?

Why does Iran’s Supreme Leader regard Iran in the situation of Badr and Kheibar?

Weblog:Tarof.blogfa.com
Mohammad Ali Shariati
1 year ago
@Kevin,

Kindly verify your new Observations and Statistics -- with Wikipedia or World Court
at Hague? When you are equating the Situations of the Jews in Iran with the Jews in
1940s Germany -- this is a very serious claim and needs investigations!

By now this would have been reported in TVs and Internet all over the world for sure.
Especially in this moment in History where all the Cameras and Attentions is on Iran!
There are reporters who go to War Zones in Middle East and send reports -- so sending
a report on your recent observations would not be impossible!

Iran is a nation of 75 millions and there are millions of Digital Cameras in Iran and I am sure in your own hand which could have shown this Dresden Looking Situation of Jews that you observed in your recent visit to Iran. It is great to know that you managed to visit to Iran!

I know for a fact 10s of Millions of Muslim Iranians that are very poor and barely can
make ends meet. Perhaps the Jews that you saw were poor people too living among their fellow Muslim Iranian poor who are in Millions.

I am sure Wikipedia, United Nations, World Court at Hague would love to get this new
information from you and Objectively Analyse them and present them to the World
Community. You are responsible for this -- Verify otherwise it is a lie which can contribute
to hate and violence. Misinformation is the greatest Sin -- Peace!
Kevin
1 year ago
@Mohammad Ali Shariati, Either you're quoting figures out of Wikipedia or you haven't been to Iran in many years. Of the six hundred churches that you state are in Iran I would say well over 75% have been severely vandalized to the point of being unsafe as well as useless. Christian clergy are treated like 5'th class citizens and are typically referred to as 'believers in the pig'. The only people treated worse are Iranian Jews who are frequently spat upon along with a multitude of other human degradations such as public beatings. Most of the Jewish Temples our group visited looked like pictures of Dresden, Germany circa 1945. My tour of service with Doctors Without Borders ended in mid Jan. 2012. so these hate filled images are still fresh within my memory. My experience with belief in the Mahdi [the 12'th Imam of the Holly Well] was that only about 10% of Iranians actually believe this, sadly the majority of those 20% come from the ranks of Iran's elite ruling class and Revolutionary Guard. I can say that the group noticed for themselves, something many of Iran's' citizens admitted to most of us..... The Iranian Government, despite its' bellicose rhetoric espoused by the Regime, is totally and completely terrified of the Americans and what they are capable of doing to Iran if provoked. Many Iranians take strength in this little publicized fact.
greg
1 year ago
@Pancho, I guess the other 2 points I would like to make is that 1) the Iranian president has frequently stated that he doesn't believe in the holocaust. I believe that he is just trying to insult the Jews. Evidence is overwhelming that it happened. 2) And that his words may not come right out and say it, but I believe that this regime would jump at the chance to annihilate Israel if they could get away with it. There is a vivid and dominating hate to there rhetoric.

Personally, if I were in Israel's shoes, I would be planning some sort of strategy against them. They say they are not creating the bomb. If they do, why do they need it? Secondly, Israel then has a huge threat sitting on their doorstep. Nuclear annihilation might be considered martyrdom in their eyes?

Peace to you brother.
Francisco (Pancho) Delgado
1 year ago
@greg - Thank you very much for your calm and reasoned argument. I don't speak Farsi, and rely on others for the translations. The two sources Juan Cole (http://www.juancole.com/2009/09/ahmadinejad-spews-raving-lunatic-anti.html) and Arash Narouzi gives a very similar interpretation at http://antiwar.com/orig/norouzi.php?articleid=11025. Assuredly, my desire to believe one source over another is heavily biased by my desire for peace.

I also strongly contend that "The Imam said this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time." is radically different than "wipe Israel off the face of the map". To quote Narouzi from the site referenced above "Imam (Khomeini) ghoft (said) een (this) rezhim-e (regime) ishghalgar-e (occupying) qods (Jerusalem) bayad (must) az safheh-ye ruzgar (from page of time) mahv shavad (vanish from). " One is quite active and threatening, while the other is passive and (looking for a good adjective, but the best I came up with is "hopeful")

So, there seem to be two 'bones of contention'. The first being the correct translation of what was said, and the second being that the passive voice of Narouzi's version indicates lack of threat. I'd sure like to continue this discussion, but hopefully the previous commment I made will be approved by the mods, and you will hopefully comment on my critique of this source and article. Peace. PD
greg
1 year ago
Pancho, I think you argue semantics.

In a June 11, 2006 analysis of the translation controversy, New York Times editor Ethan Bronner stated:

[T]ranslators in Tehran who work for the president's office and the foreign ministry disagree with them. All official translations of Mr. Ahmadinejad's statement, including a description of it on his website, refer to wiping Israel away. Sohrab Mahdavi, one of Iran’s most prominent translators, and Siamak Namazi, managing director of a Tehran consulting firm, who is bilingual, both say “wipe off” or “wipe away” is more accurate than "vanish" because the Persian verb is active and transitive.

Bronner continued: "..it is hard to argue that, from Israel's point of view, Mr. Ahmadinejad poses no threat. Still, it is true that he has never specifically threatened war against Israel. So did Iran's president call for Israel to be 'wiped off the map'? It certainly seems so. Did that amount to a call for war? That remains an open question."[13] This elicited a further response from Jonathan Steele, who noted that Bronner agreed that "map" or any other place noun had not been used and criticized this Wikipedia entry (as it was on June 14, 2006) for "claiming falsely" that Ethan Bronner had "concluded that Ahmadinejad had in fact said that Israel was to be wiped off the map".[23]

At a gathering of foreign guests marking the 19th anniversary of the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 2008, Ahmadinejad said:

"You should know that the criminal and terrorist Zionist regime which has 60 years of plundering, aggression and crimes in its file has reached the end of its work and will soon disappear off the geographical scene."[24]

The Iranian presidential website states: that "the Zionist Regime of Israel faces a deadend and will under God's grace be wiped off the map," and "the Zionist Regime that is a usurper and illegitimate regime and a cancerous tumor should be wiped off the map."

Either way you look at it Pancho, there is a threat regarding Israel's security. Would you sit back and wait for them to produce a nuclear bomb if you were in Israel's position? Do you think that Iran is a threat to world peace? Guess we'll have to wait and see.
Mwansa C. Kaluba
1 year ago
I am disapointed that such hateful words can come from a spiritual leader who should be preaching reconciliation. The Ayatollah should be advising his Government to stop developing nuclear facilities aimed at destroying other Nations and bring suffering to humanity. What profit is Iran going to get by wasting large sums of money on Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles(ICBM) or by destroying Israel?. Please Ayatollah Ali Khamenei WE WANT PEACE in Iran and Israel.

Prev12 Next

Comments submitted must be civil, remain on-topic and not violate any laws including copyright. We reserve the right to delete any comments which are abusive, inappropriate or not constructive to the discussion.

Though we invite robust discussion, we reserve the right to not publish any comment which denigrates the human person, undermines marriage and the family, or advocates for positions which openly oppose the teaching of the Catholic Church.

This is a supervised forum and the Editors of Catholic Online retain the right to direct it.

We also reserve the right to block any commenter for repeated violations. Your email address is required to post, but it will not be published on the site.

We ask that you NOT post your comment more than once. Catholic Online is growing and our ability to review all comments sometimes results in a delay in their publication.

Name *

Email *

Comment *

Send me important information from Catholic Online and it's partners. See Sample

Post Comment