Iran: Israel will not be on the map in 25 years

Iran: Israel will not be on the map in 25 years
Portraits of Bahraini King Hamad (top L), Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan lie on a US flag in flames during a parade marking al-Quds (Jerusalem) Day in Tehran on July 01, 2016. AFP PHOTO / ATTA KENARE

On Thursday, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they envisage a Jerusalem in 25 years from now when “no Israel would be present on the map,” Haaretz reported.

The Iranian military organization made the remarks in a statement quoted by Iran’s Mehr news agency.

The Revolutionary Guards also said the organization had devoted “37 years of unremitting support for Palestine” during Ramadan.

“Liberation of the beloved Al-Aqsa Mosque and Palestinians from under the occupation of Zionists by the courage provided by the Islamic Revolution and a globalized approach to systematically fighting dominance and Zionism on International Quds Day, have bestowed upon Resistance Front strength and unflagging spirit which had made of Resistance an iron fist against any compromise with illegitimate regime of criminal Zionists,” the statement said.

Iranians were urged to protest and “show again that Palestine is the first and foremost issue of the Islamic world and evil plots of the Zionists as well as the dominance in rendering a ‘new Middle East’ will be aborted by the waves of Palestinian intifada, which promises now that by 25 future years, there will be no Israel on the map of the world, as the Leader of the Islamic Revolution once had famously predicted.”

“In Lebanon alone over 100,000 missiles are ready at all times to fly … at the heart of the Zionist regime,” said General Hossein Salami, deputy chief of the elite Revolutionary Guards, in a speech before Friday prayers at Tehran University.

“Tens of thousands of other missiles … have been planted across the Islamic world and are awaiting orders so that with the push of a button a sinister and dark dot on the political geography of the world disappears forever,” he said.

Hundreds of thousands of Iranians have also staged anti-Israel rallies across Iran to mark al-Quds day, the country’s annual Palestinian solidarity day, which falls on the last Friday of Ramadan.

Footage from Iranian state television showed massive crowds demonstrating in the capital Tehran, chanting “Death to Israel”

In May, a senior Iranian military commander threatened Israel and claimed that his country can destroy the Jewish state “in less than eight minutes”.

Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has in the past threatened to “annihilate” the Israeli cities of Tel Aviv and Haifa.

In March, the Supreme Leader ruled out his country having ties with the United States or “the Zionist regime” – that is, Israel – claiming he had proof that the United States was planning a coup in Iran.

Iran’s former president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said in 2005 that Israel  should be “wiped off the map”.