RSS
Iran’s Khamenei Urges Allies to Step Up Struggle Against Israel
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks during a meeting with a group of students in Tehran, Iran, Nov. 2, 2022. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appeared in public on Friday for the first time since Iran’s missile attack on Israel, describing it as legitimate punishment for what he called Israeli crimes and calling for more anti-Israel struggle.
Delivering his first Friday prayers sermon in nearly five years, Khamenei said Israel’s adversaries in the region should “double your efforts and capabilities… and resist the aggressive enemy.”
The deputy commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the country’s most powerful military force, said meanwhile that Iran would strike Israeli energy and gas installations if Israel attacked it.
“If the occupiers make such a mistake, we will target all their energy sources, installations and all refineries and gas fields,” the semi-official Iranian news agency SNN quoted Ali Fadavi as saying.
Iran launched a barrage of missiles against Israel on Tuesday in what it said was retaliation for the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut on Sept 27, and the assassination of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July.
Iran blames Israel for Haniyeh’s killing. Israeli officials have not claimed responsibility.
Speaking alternately in Arabic and Persian, Khamenei eulogized Nasrallah, Iran’s top paramilitary ally in the region, and said the focus of the US and its allies was to preserve the security of Israel as a cover for seizing the region’s resources.
“Our resistant people in Lebanon and Palestine, all these testimonies and spilled blood will not shake your will, but rather strengthen your steadfastness,” Khamenei said.
“Israel pretends to win through assassinations, destruction, bombing and killing of civilians. This behavior increased the resistance’s motivation,” Khamenei added. “This reality shows us that every strike launched by any group against Israel is a service to the region and to all humanity.”
Every now and then his hand grasped the barrel of a rifle that stood to his left, a custom that has been followed by Friday prayer leaders across the country for decades.
Khamenei said Iran’s attack on Israel on Tuesday was “legal and legitimate” and was the minimum punishment for what he called Israel’s crimes.
Khamenei told the large crowd that Iran will not “procrastinate nor act hastily to carry out its duty” in confronting Israel, adding that the missile attack on Israel was “legal and legitimate.”
The post Iran’s Khamenei Urges Allies to Step Up Struggle Against Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Treasure Trove: An Israeli stamp reflects the complex mix of emotions about Oct. 7
Michelle Shalmiev was born in a village in the Caucasian mountains and immigrated to Israel and settled on a kibbutz when she was 14. Her series “Putting Your Stamp on History” […]
The post Treasure Trove: An Israeli stamp reflects the complex mix of emotions about Oct. 7 appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
RSS
Download a special Oct. 7 print edition of The Canadian Jewish News
Printable obituaries of eight Canadian victims and more of our original coverage.
The post Download a special Oct. 7 print edition of The Canadian Jewish News appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
RSS
The Jewish People Perform Another Miracle
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is seen addressing supporters, in Beirut, Lebanon. Photo: Reuters.
JNS.org – This Oct. 7 will not only be an anniversary of tears, of pure contrition, even if the memory is burning as the people of Israel live. As to how, it wasn’t at all obvious. Our whole history is made of miracles—from the splitting of the sea to escape from the Egyptians to the Inquisition to the pogroms to the thousand other genocidal attacks to which the Jews have been subjected. In every case, the results are always incredible and surprising, especially for how we have emerged active, faithful to our Torah tradition and committed to the return to Jerusalem until we made it happen.
The War of Independence in 1948 was fought by concentration-camp veterans, yet we defeated all the Arab armies, united in hatred, who marched against us. Later, in 1967, 1973 wars were won by a hair’s breadth with miraculous strokes of imagination and leaders who gave birth to ideas that people would have expected. No one would have ever bet a euro, penny or shekel on the idea that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and his entire hierarchy could be eliminated, petrifying Iran, especially since we have already reduced its other favorite proxy, Hamas, to pieces. And now we have bombed Iran’s other proxy, the Houthis, some 2,000 kilometers away, destroying the airport from which they receive their weapons and aid from the ayatollahs. The Islamic Republic’s leader, Ali Khamenei, is reportedly hiding underground, the Iraqi and Syrian Shi’ites are waiting to see if they are next, and cities controlled by Tehran are shaking.
As President Joe Biden said, it is a measure of justice, but one that Israel has undertaken in an impossible fashion, defending its citizens amid a thousand prohibitions with determination and without fear. Only in this way can a 76-year-old young state, which has been attacked from all sides, defend itself. The country’s existence is the latest chapter in the history of a people born many millennia ago in the Land of Israel, who are finally back home and defending their state.
The war is certainly not over, as Hezbollah reportedly had 100,000 fighters. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knows that he must see this fight through to the end, despite the international pressure to which Israel has been subjected for nearly a year. Israel’s leadership understands that its very existence is at definitive risk if there is no “new Middle East” in the aftermath of Oct. 7.
While previous generations and Israeli leaders hoped that peace agreements would establish peace in the region, today’s leaders know that there is also a need for battle to stop those who, dominated by absurd fanatical and religious beliefs, wish to kill you. (After all, what do the Houthi rebels in Yemen have to do with the Jews and Israel?)
This is the lesson of our time—not just for Israel and the Jewish people but for everyone. The Jewish people are writing a new page in history, one in which the free world must write and fight alongside them, as it is a battle for the survival of Western ideals. Israel has eliminated the two most dangerous terrorist groups in the world—Hamas and Hezbollah—with operations that will set a precedent for decades. And it challenges Iran. I would like to hear the applause, please.
The post The Jewish People Perform Another Miracle first appeared on Algemeiner.com.