TEHRAN, 16 December 2005 — Radical Palestinian group Hamas vowed yesterday to step up attacks against Israel if the Jewish state takes military action against Iran, and praised Iran’s president for his “courageous” anti-Israeli outbursts.
“Just as Islamic Iran defends the rights of the Palestinians, we defend the rights of Islamic Iran. We are part of a united front against the enemies of Islam,” Hamas political chief Khaled Meshaal told reporters in the Iranian capital.
“Each member of this front defends itself with its own means in its region. We carry the battle in Palestine. If Israel launches an attack against Iran, we will expand the battlefield in Palestine,” he told a news conference.
“We are part of a united front, and if one member of this front is attacked it is our duty to support them.” Israel and the United States accuse Iran of using an atomic energy drive as a cover for weapons development, a charge the Islamic republic denies.
Ahmadinejad has increased alarm in the West after calling for Israel to be “wiped off the map” and labeling the Jewish state as a “tumor” — comments that have earned him a rebuke from the UN Security Council.
On Wednesday he drew fresh condemnation for describing the massacre of millions of Jews during World War II as a “myth” and saying Israel should be moved as far away from the Islamic world as Alaska.
“We congratulate Iran for its position in the Islamic world and in particular the statements of the supreme leader (Ayatollah Ali Khamenei) and President Ahmadinejad,” said Meshaal, who is based in Damascus and has been in Iran since Tuesday.
“What Iranian officials say may not please some people, but these are just courageous declarations,” he asserted.
“The Muslim people will defend Iran because it voices what they have in their hearts, in particular the Palestinian people.”
On Iran’s nuclear program, he said: “Even if Iran’s program is military, what is the problem? Why do other countries like Israel have the right to have a nuclear weapon?” Meshaal met on Tuesday with Iran’s supreme leader, who urged Palestinians to continue resistance against Israel and not bother negotiating.
“The only way to guarantee the liberation of Palestine and the future of its people is to continue resistance,” Khamenei said. “The past 50 years’ experience shows the situation will not be improved by giving into the Zionist regime and negotiating.”
Brotherhood Says Israel a ‘Cancer’
The leader of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s largest opposition force, called Israel a “cancer” in the Middle East and said its peace treaty with Egypt should be submitted to a referendum.
“I declared that we will not recognize Israel which is an alien entity in the region. And we expect the demise of this cancer soon,” Mohammed Mehdi Akef told the state-owned English language Ahram Weekly in an interview published yesterday.
Egypt became the first Arab country to establish diplomatic relations with Israel when it signed a peace treaty in 1979.
But Islamists opposed to the treaty assassinated President Anwar Sadat in 1981 for signing the Camp David accord, and hostility towards the Jewish state remains strong among Egyptians.
Akef stopped short of demanding the peace treaty be scrapped but suggested it should be submitted to a popular vote.
“That is for the people to decide... If I had the power I would put it to the people,” he said.
“The Muslim Brothers do not recognize Israel... 70 million Egyptians, 300 million citizens in the Arab world and 1.5 billion Muslims across the world do not recognize Israel,” Akef said in another interview with the London-based Al-Sharq Al-Awsat published on Sunday.
