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October 14, 2010

Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad has taken his strident anti-Israel message to the Jewish state’s doorstep by predicting its imminent demise while speaking just across the border in Lebanon.

He told a 15,000-strong crowd in the Lebanese border town of Bint Jbeil — only four kilometers from the Lebanon-Israel frontier — that the Israeli state faced collapse in the face of continued “resistance.”

“The whole world knows that the Zionists are going to disappear,” he told the crowd, many of whom waved Iranian flags. “The occupying Zionists today have no choice but to accept reality and go back to their countries of origin.”

He added: “The world should know the Zionists are mortal…Today the Lebanese nation is alive and is a role model for the regional nations.”

‘Provocation’

His comments — in a town that was heavily bombarded during Israel’s brief 2006 war with the Iranian-backed Shi’a Islamist group Hizballah — came after Israeli, U.S., and some pro-Western Lebanese politicians denounced his trip to southern Lebanon as a “provocation.”

They followed a tumultuous reception by Hizballah supporters in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, on October 13 at the start of his two-day tour, his first to Lebanon.

Iran’s state-owned English language news channel, Press TV, reported that Israeli helicopters flew over the stadium in Bint Jbeil as Ahmadinejad spoke.

Although the Iranian president was on an official state visit that saw him meeting politicians from Lebanon’s different religious factions, his arrival was promoted by Hizballah, which credits Iran with funding the rebuilding of its wrecked strongholds following the war with Israel.

Ahmadinejad was also due to visit the border town of Qana, the site of deadly Israeli air strikes that killed more than 100 civilians who had sought shelter at a United Nations base during the conflict.

Reports said he may also go to Maroon al-Ras, a few hundred meters from the Lebanese-Israeli frontier. There was some speculation that he might toss a few stones into Israel in a controversial act of symbolism certain to provoke Israeli outrage.

Stepped-Up Patrols

Ahmadinejad’s arrival was greeted with suspicion and protests on the Israeli side of the border, with demonstrators pinning banners to a border fence that carried slogans like, “Ahmadinejad, the new Hitler,” and  “Wake up Assad, Ahmadinejad is on his way to Damascus.”

There were unconfirmed reports that the Israeli Army had stepped up its patrols of the border region in preparation for the visit.

Ayub Kara, an Arab-Israeli Druze politician, said the Iranian president should “leave the region.”

“Unfortunately, this person is a catastrophe for the world and the world must know this,” Kara said. “The Israeli government does not want to do anything, but I personally, because I speak Arabic, I know how to tell Ahmadinejad in Arabic, ‘Leave the region. We want peace in the region. We do not want wars in the region.’”

Yigal Palmor, a spokesman for Israel’s Foreign Ministry, accused Ahmadinejad of carrying a message of extremism.

“Ahmadinejad is coming to Lebanon with a domineering attitude, with a message of violence and extremism,” Palmor said. “It is a deeply concerning development that he is transforming Lebanon into a platform for his aggressive plans against Israel and against other countries in the region.

“I think that all those who want to see peace and stability in this region should be worried and should try to do something in order to rein in the Iranian expansive and aggressive ambitions in this area.”

with agency reports