Thursday, May 17, 2012

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei: "Israel Must Be Burned to the Ground"

No ambiguity here.
Iran's leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said that Israel must be "burned to the ground," according to Spain's former prime minister, Jose Maria Aznar.
"In a private discussion we held in Tehran in October of 2000, Ali Khamenei told me that Israel must be burned to the ground and made to disappear from the face of the Earth," Aznar told [a Jerusalem] audience. The former Spanish prime minister went on to say that Iran's spiritual leader also said that "Iran's war against the United States and Israel is inevitable."
Since Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said in a 2005 speech that Israel must be "wiped off the map," a chorus of defenders have twisted his remarks, suggesting they were not to be taken literally or they were a mistranslation of the Persian.

Despite all evidence to the contrary -- Iran's persistent and violent rhetoric, its sponsorship of terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah -- this argument persists.

To sharpen the point, when asked if Khamenei's statements were to be taken literally, Aznar said:
"He meant physical termination through military force." The former Spanish leader also told the crowd that Khamenei described Israel as "an historical cancer, an anomaly," and said that he was "working toward Iran defeating the United States and Israel in an inevitable war against them."
Stay tuned for how Israel-haters respond to this latest bit of irrefutable evidence on Iran's intentions.