TEHRAN: A former Iranian president warned the West yesterday that its support for Israel would backfire, as hundreds of thousands of people staged rallies in support of Muslim claims to the holy city of Jerusalem.
Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who is still considered influential in Iranian politics, said the US, Britain and France back Israel — and this is dangerous.
“They will put themselves in trouble, eventually,” Rafsanjani said during a Friday prayer ceremony in Tehran marking “Al-Qouds Day.” Al-Qouds is the Arabic word for Jerusalem.
Israel could “take tougher and more offensive action” than the US against Iran and the Arab world, warned Rafsanjani.
State-run television also aired clips yesterday featuring Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in New York. The president, who is in the US for the UN General Assembly meeting, said Israel does not have support among ordinary people in America.
He also chided hundreds of demonstrators who protested against him during his trip, calling it a “big failure for them.”
The latest anti-Israel remarks by Iranian leaders come as hundreds of thousands rallied in cities across the Persian country to protest Israel’s continued hold on Jerusalem, the city where Muslims believe Islam’s Prophet Muhammad began his journey to heaven.
In the capital, Tehran, demonstrators chanted “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” to commemorate “Al-Qouds Day.” Some protesters also burned American and Israeli flags.
Tehran’s Jewish community also participated in the rally, according to a statement by the Tehran Central Jewish Committee, a copy of which was made available to The Associated Press.
Since the Islamic revolution in 1979, Iran has observed the last Friday of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan as “Al-Qouds Day,” as a way of expressing support to the Palestinians and emphasizing the importance of Jerusalem to Muslims.
Meanwhile, a as a group of Iranian students unveiled a book mocking the Holocaust in an annual parade yesterday to show solidarity with the Palestinians.
Featuring dozens of cartoons and sarcastic commentary, the book “Holocaust” was published by members of the Islamist Basij militia.
Education Minister Alireza Ali-Ahmadi was present in the capital’s Palestine Square for the book’s presentation during the annual Qouds (Jerusalem) Day parade.
The cover shows a Jew with a crooked nose and dressed in traditional garb drawing outlines of dead bodies on the ground.
Inside, bearded Jews are shown leaving and re-entering a gas chamber with a counter that reads the number 5,999,999.
Another depicts Jewish prisoners entering a furnace in a Nazi extermination camp and leaving as gun-wielding terrorists from the other side.
