Iran Claims Solidarity with Lebanon... And So Do the French

by Jim Kouri, CPP

Late Sunday night, Iran's top religious leader praised the Lebanese Shiite terrorist group Hezbollah for launching attacks on Israel.

"The [Israelis] want Lebanon to be a meat in their mouth, but the powerful Hezbollah has prevented their dream from being realized." Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a televised speech on Iran's state-controlled news.

"The crimes and the atrocities in the recent weeks in Palestine and Lebanon have proved again that the existence of Israel in this region is an evil and cancerous being and an infected tumor," he added.

Meanwhile, former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami hailed Hezbollah as "a radiant sun that emblazons and warms the all Muslims and free nations, including the Palestinians," Iran's Fars news agency reported.

 "What is going on in Lebanon today eliminates all the possible doubts about the necessity for the powerful presence of the resistance movement in that country," Khatami was quoted as saying.

The Iranian Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar stressed that Israel would "regret its crimes once [the] Muslim states resort to action," according to the Fars report.

Najjar condemned the Israeli aggressions against the Palestinian and Lebanese people, accusing Washington of indulging Israeli escalation. He also warned Israel of the consequences of invasion into Syria.

In an obvious show of unanimous support for the terrorists, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi also expressed support for Syria. "Iran [is] standing by the Syrian people and Israel [will] face unimaginable losses if it attacks Syria."

"We have offered and will still offer Syria and Lebanon [military] and humanitarian support," he added.

On Saturday, the Israeli army said that it had bombed the no-man's land laying between Lebanon and Syria. But Israel's head of military operations General Gadi Azincot told a news conference in Jerusalem that Syria was not an objective.

Israel launched its offensive Wednesday on Lebanon in retaliation for the capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah guerillas.  Over 700 rockets have been fired on northern Israel by Hezbollah since the intense and escalating battle broke out.

It's no secret that Iran wishes to see the Jewish State annihilated. It's been a constant theme for that terrorist-supporting nation. However, many American observers appear surprised that France said it is sending Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin to Beirut to express support for Lebanon's government and solidarity between the French people and the Lebanese.

De Villepin did not offer any praise or sympathy to Israel, but that shouldn't surprise anyone familiar with Frances history of anti-Semitism.

During the Nazi occupation of France, the French police and security forces were more than willing to help the Nazis round up Jews to send them to the concentration camps. In fact, the French were so good out apprehending Jewish people, the Nazis allowed them to operate practically unsupervised by the Gestapo and the SS.

Even in unoccupied France, under the Vichy government, Jews were rousted by the French police and military as a symbol of their allegiance to the Third Reich. But French anti-Semitism didn't end with their liberation from the Nazis. France has a track record of opposing Israel at every turn and voting for every United Nations resolution condemning Israel. In fact, according to United Nations observers, the UN has passed more resoultions condemning Israel than they have any other country including Iran, Cuba, North Korea, etc. And the Israel-haters could always count on the French vote.

In addition, the French have been experiencing a great deal of civil unrest on the part of their Muslim population, and France's leftist President Chirac was slow to act when riots broke out within the Islamic community and spread into the heart of Paris. It's believed de Villepin trip to Lebanon is a symbolic gesture of solidarity with France's own Muslims. Some may point out that in France, there is a very thin line between solidarity and appeasement; just as there's a thin line between appeasement and cowardice -- appeasers and cowards.
 

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