Nasrallah: Iran is the last hope for region, Palestinians

In al-Quds Day speech, Hezbollah chief says road to Jerusalem passes through Syria, vows Iran will never recognize Israel as a state

Times of Israel

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said Friday that Iran is the only remaining hope for the Palestinians and that the road to Jerusalem passes through Syria

At his annual speech for al-Quds Day, Nasrallah linked Hezbollah’s role in the Syrian civil war on behalf of the Assad regime and of Iran to the Palestinians, claiming that those who oppose Iran also oppose the Palestinian cause.

Across Iran, Lebanon and Iraq, millions took part in anti-Israel and anti-US rallies on Friday, chanting “Down with America” and “Death to Israel” for the event, internationally observed annually on the last Friday of the month of Ramadan. The controversial holiday was proclaimed in 1979 by Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as a religious duty for all Muslims to rally in solidarity against Israel and for the “liberation” of Jerusalem.

“Our fighters who fall in Syria are dying for the sake of the resistance in Syria, Lebanon and Palestine. The road to Jerusalem does not go through Jounieh, but it goes through Qalamoun, Zabadani, Daraa and Hasakeh [Syrian battlefields], because if Syria is lost, Palestine would be lost,” Nasrallah said in the televised address.

“You can’t be a supporter of Palestine unless you are a supporter of Iran and Iran’s enemies are the enemies of Jerusalem. The only hope left for this region, after God, is the Iranian republic and its support for the resistance movements in the region,” the Hezbollah chief went on.

Turning his attention to the negotiations between world powers and Iran on the latter’s nuclear program, Nasrallah said even if all of Iran’s demands were met, “if the entire nuclear deal hinges on the precondition of recognizing Israel as a state, the Iranian Republic and its people would never accept such a condition, because they would be renouncing their religion if they accept such a stance.”

Iran represents the only real threat to Israel in the region, Nasrallah indicated.

Earlier Friday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani attended the al-Quds Day protests but did not speak at the main rally in Tehran, which coincided with seemingly deadlocked nuclear talks between Iran and world powers led by the United States.

Some protesters in Tehran burned Israeli and American flags. Posters showed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Saudi King Salman and US President Barack Obama in flames.

Using the al-Quds Day hashtag, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei tweeted: “There are two sides in oppression: oppressor & the oppressed. We back the oppressed and are against oppressors.”

At a mock checkpoint, several men and a woman dressed in Israeli army uniforms shouted at people who wanted to pass and pushed them back, threatening them with batons and guns.

“We are all here to see the freedom of Quds. The people of Palestine are oppressed and their lands occupied,” said Ahmad Moghadam, a 67-year-old clerk.

“We stand behind Palestine until its people are freed.”

Iranian military commanders also attended, with General Yahya Rahim Safavi, a senior adviser to Khamenei, saying the al-Quds march was different this year because of a worsening regional security situation.

Iran has backed Iraqi forces against IS and Syrian government forces against rebels including Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front.

“Terrorist groups such as Daesh and Al-Nusra, with the support of the Zionists and Saudi’s cruel war against the oppressed people of Yemen… have created a new situation in the region and the world,” the official IRNA news agency quoted Safavi as saying.

The rallies came as Iran and six world powers hold talks in Vienna aimed at working out a deal to limit Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for easing tens of billions of dollars in economic penalties on the Islamic Republic.

Earlier this week, a top Iranian general said Iran will never view the US positively, even if a deal is signed with world powers over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program.

The commander of the Iranian ground forces, Brigadier General Ahmad Reza Pourdastan, declared Sunday that a rapprochement was out of the question, as the enemy is “exploiting nations and putting them in chains,” the semi-official Iranian FARS News Agency reported.

“The US might arrive at some agreements with us within the framework of the Group 5+1 [the US, Russia, China, Britain and France plus Germany], but we should never hold a positive view of the enemy,” Pourdastan said.

“Our enmity with them is over principles and rooted in the fact that we are after the truth and nations’ freedom, but they seek to exploit nations and put them in chains,” he added.