Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called over the weekend for the destruction of Israel, stating that the “barbaric” Jewish state “has no cure but to be annihilated.”
A plan titled “9 key questions about the elimination of Israel” was posted on his Twitter account Saturday night, using the hashtag #handsoffalaqsa, in reference to the recent tensions on the Temple Mount.
The sometimes grammatically awkward list explained the how and why of Khomeini’s vision for replacing Israel with a Palestinian state.
The first point stated that “the fake Zionist regime has tried to realize its goals by means of infanticide, homicide, violence & iron fist while boasts about it blatantly.”
Due to the above, Khomeini argued, “the only means of bringing Israeli crimes to an end is the elimination of this regime.”
However, he noted that destroying Israel would not mean the “massacre of the Jewish people in this region” but rather “the Islamic Republic has proposed a practical & logical mechanism for this to the international communities.”
The “proper way of eliminating Israel,” he suggested, is through a “public and organized referendum” for all of the “original people of Palestine including Muslims, Christians, and Jews wherever they are…” However, “the Jewish immigrants who have been persuaded into emigration to Palestine do not have the right to take part.”
The resulting government would then decide if the “non-Palestinian emigrants” can remain in the country or should “return to their home countries.”
Khomeini charged the international community with overcoming the “usurper Zionist” objections to his “fair and logical plan.” Until the referendum, Israel should be confronted with “resolute and armed resistance.”
The Iranian leader also called for arming the people of the West Bank and Gaza to fight against Israel, and rejected “arbitration by UN or other international organizations” because “the fact that Yasser Arafat was poisoned and killed by Israel…proves that in the viewpoint of Israel ‘peace’ is simply a trick for more crimes and occupation.”
“This barbaric, wolflike & infanticidal regime of #Israel which spares no crime has no cure but to be annihilated,” Khamenei wrote in an earlier tweet on Friday.
“West Bank should be armed just like #Gaza. Friends of Palestine should do their best to arm People in West Bank,” he declared in another.
The Iranian supreme leader first called for the arming of Palestinians in the West Bank in July, during the summer’s 50-day conflict.