Iran: Revolutionary Guard Backs President Over Israel

Adnkronos International:

In a gesture of support for Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Islamic Revolutionary guards on Thursday joined his recent and controversial call for Israel to be "wiped off the map". "If this cancer (Israel) is not removed from the Islamic world, Muslims will sustain immense harm," said their spokesman, Seyyed Massoud Jazayeri. Ahmadinejad made his remarks at a Palestinian solidarity conference in Tehran on Wednesday, provoking angry condemnation from Western nations.

"This wound was opened more than half a century ago and has still not been healed, because in the Islamic world, some leaders and regimes, which have not been democratically elected by their own people, continue to rule, with the help of Western imperialism," Jazayeri continued.

"A world without Zionism, and the obliteration of Israel from the face of the earth, is not only the objective of Iran, but of the whole Muslim world," he added, pointing out that these goals had been underlined by the country's revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, more than 20 years ago.

"At the time, many thought they were just propaganda slogans, but by reiterating them now, president Ahmadinejad has reminded us that they involve a strategy shared by most of the Islamic world," Jazayeri noted.

Iran's foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki has sent a circular to the country's diplomats - many of who have beeen summoned by the Western nations to provide explanation for Ahmadinejad's comments - to "go on the offensive". READ MORE

"You should present yourselves to the authorities in the countries where you live, to strongly protest against the indifference shown by Western nations to the suffering of the Palestinian people and urge Europe's condemnation of Israel," the circular read.