Ayatollah: We will burn Tel Aviv 'into ashes'

by REZA KAHLILI August 21, 2012

If Israel attacks Iran's nuclear facilities, Tel Aviv - Israel's second-most-populated city - will burn to ashes, senior Iranian cleric Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami warned yesterday.

The threat was the latest in a series of verbal assaults that began last week when the supreme leader of the Islamic regime, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a speech to Iranian researchers and academics, said the world was on the verge of major political and social changes, with Islam playing a leading role.

Then on International Quds Day, every regime official from the supreme leader and president to military commanders openly called for the annihilation of Israel.

Quds Day is an annual event that began after the Islamic Revolution of 1979 in Iran. The founder of the revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, assigned the last Friday of the month of Ramadan as the day to support the Palestinians and damn the Israelis, stating that the movement would have two goals: the freedom of Palestine and destruction of Israel.

On this year's Quds Day, Khamenei said, "Light of hope will shine on the Palestinians, and this Islamic land will certainly be returned to the Palestinian nation, and the superfluous and fake Zionist regime will disappear from the landscape of geography."

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, calling Israel's existence "an insult to all humanity," said, "The Zionist regime and the Zionists are a cancerous tumor. ... The nations of the region will soon finish off the usurper Zionists in the Palestinian land. ... With the grace of God and help of the nations, in the new Middle East there will be no trace of the Americans and Zionists."

The chief commander of the Revolutionary Guards, Mohammad Jafari, stated that Iran is at the helm of worldwide enmity against Israel. Grand Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi called "Beitol Moghadas" (Jerusalem) an inseparable part of the world of Islam that will soon return to the Muslims.

As the Washington Times reported last week, the Revolutionary Guards warned that the terrorist groups Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad have been armed with chemical, microbial and other weapons of mass destruction and that once the order is given, they will attack Tel Aviv. It also hinted at a nuclear attack on Israel.

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