Iran's Ahmadinejad tells Israel to pack up and go

[Human]

http://www.hemscott.com/news/latest-news/i...=35199404532498

 

TEHRAN (AFX) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told arch-foe Israel to 'pack up' and move somewhere outside the Middle East, the state news agency IRNA reported.

 

'I advise them to pack up and move out of the region before being caught in the fire they have started in Lebanon,' said Ahmadinejad, who has repeatedly called for the Jewish state to be relocated elsewhere on the planet.

 

Iran refuses to recognise Israel and opposes any two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Ahmadinejad has in the past called for Israel to be 'wiped off the map' or relocated as far away as Alaska.

 

Israel launched its offensive in Lebanon on July 12 after Shiite Hezbollah militiamen captured two Israeli soldiers and killed eight others in attacks on the Israel-Lebanon border.

 

The Jewish state is also continuing with its attacks on the Gaza Strip, with the aim of retrieving a soldier snatched by Palestinian militants and stopping rocket fire.

 

'Zionists have launched their own destruction by attacking Lebanon,' Ahmadinejad added, while accusing Britain and the United States of being 'accomplices in this regime's crimes'.

 

Iran, like Syria, has been accused of financing and arming Hezbollah but has always maintained it only gives 'moral' support.

[Guest human_*]

It should be noted that Iran is the MAIN culprit in these instigative attacks against Israel.

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http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/742060.html

 

Hezbollah envoy in Iran says will leave 'no place' safe for Israelis

 

By Yoav Stern, Haaretz Correspondent and Reuters

 

The Hezbollah representative in Iran struck a defiant tone Monday, warning that his militant group plans to widen its attacks on Israel until "no place" is safe for Israelis.

 

"We are going to make Israel not safe for Israelis. There will be no place they are safe," Hossein Safiadeen told a conference that included the Tehran-based representative of the Palestinian group Hamas and the ambassadors from Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinian Authority.

 

"You will see a new Middle East in the way of Hezbollah and Islam, not in the way of Rice and Israel," Safiadeen said.

 

 

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made a surprise visit to Beirut on Tuesday while en route to Israel.

 

Safiadeen reinforced earlier threats by Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah to widen their attacks, which have included unprecedented missile strikes deep into northern Israel.

 

The comments by Safiadeen reflected the deep opposition within Hezbollah to the efforts to broker a truce to halt the two-week fighting, including apparent attempts by Arab powers to pressure Syria into ending its support for Hezbollah and leave Iran as its lone major backer.

 

Iran and Syria are the main sources of funds and equipment for Hezbollah, which was founded in the early 1980s and took inspiration from Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution.

 

Syria said Sunday it was willing to work with the United States and others to press for an end to the worst Arab-Israel battles in 24 years - but set conditions that Israel is unlikely to accept. They include a broader regional peace initiative that would discuss return of the Golan Heights, which was captured by Israel in 1967.

 

Arab powerhouses Egypt and Saudi Arabia also were pushing Syria to end its support for Hezbollah fighters, Arab diplomats in Cairo said.

 

Safiadeen told The Associated Press he "had no news" about Syria considering withdrawing its support for Hezbollah, which touched off the crisis July 12 with a cross-border raid that captured two Israeli soldiers.

 

"We will expand attacks," he said. "The people who came to Israel, (they) moved there to live, not to die. If we continue to attack, they will leave."

 

Israel claims Iran has supplied Hezbollah with long-range missiles, which have hit the port of Haifa and other places. Iran denies the charges, but it does not hide its high-level support for Hezbollah. Among those attending Monday's conference was a top Foreign Ministry official and Gen. Mirfaisal Bagherzadeh of the powerful Revolutionary Guards.

 

"This war will be remembered as the beginning of the end for Israel," Safiadeen said.

 

The Palestinian ambassador, Salah Zavavi, said he believes the chances for a comprehensive political solution have passed. Israel is also battling in the Gaza Strip against militiamen backed by Hamas, which claims to hold an Israeli soldier following an ambush last month. Hamas won Palestinian parliamentary elections last month, but has been snubbed by Israel and many Western countries.

 

"The resistance groups will not accept a political end to this," he said. "They will not put down their weapons."

 

Nasrallah: IDF incursions won't stop rocket fire

Israel Defense Forces incursions in south Lebanon would not stop Hezbollah from firing rockets into northern Israel, the Lebanese guerrilla group's leader, Sheikh Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, said in remarks published on Monday.

 

"Any Israeli incursion will not have political results unless it achieves any of the announced goals, most importantly to stop the bombardment of Zionist settlements ... and I assure you that this will goal will not be achieved," he told Lebanon's As-Safir daily newspaper.

 

Nasrallah was also quoted as saying Hezbollah would not object if the Lebanese government were to negotiate a prisoner swap, under which Hezbollah freed the two IDF soldiers it captured two weeks ago in return for Lebanese and Arab prisoners in Israeli jails.

 

Peres visits family of captured IDF soldier

Vice Preimer Shimon Peres on Monday visited the Nahariya family of IDF soldier Ehud Goldwasser, one of the soldiers abducted by Hezbollah on July 12. After the visit, Peres said all signs within the Israeli government indicated that the three soldiers captured in Lebanon and Gaza seem to be alive and well.

 

Lebanon's Foreign Minister Fawzi Salloukh said on Sunday that the two Israel Defense Forces soldiers abducted July 12 by Hezbollah were in 'good' condition.

 

Goldwasser's father, Shlomo, dismissed Salloukh's statement as "baseless claim."

 

"He doesn't know anything. Even if we are talking about a foreign minister, he hasn't seen them or met them, so I doubt the authenticity of this declaration," said Shlomo Goldwasser.

 

Salloukh commented on the two soldiers' health after a meeting with Peter Witting, special envoy of the German government to the region, saying: "Like the Hezbollah secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, said the two prisoners are in good health and are safe."

 

In reality, however, Nasrallah has not discussed the condition of the two soldiers in public since their abduction, and therefore that statement may not be entirely accurate.

[Guest human_*]

http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/art...7/API/607270885

 

Iran Negotiator Reportedly in Syria Talks

 

By ALBERT AJI and ZEINA KARAM

Associated Press Writers

 

DAMASCUS, Syria

A top Iranian negotiator reportedly visited Damascus on Thursday for talks on the Lebanese crisis with the Syrian and Hezbollah leaders, highlighting the three-way alliance arrayed against Israel.

 

The reported meeting underscored the Israeli and U.S. insistence that Syria and Iran have a powerful influence with the Shiite Hezbollah organization and its guerrillas.

 

White House spokesman Tony Snow said Syria and Iran "are playing leading roles" in the conflict in Lebanon "and need to step up" to the task of finding a solution.

 

"We have already made it clear to both parties what is necessary, and what is necessary is for Hezbollah to lay down arms and choose a political rather than a military track," he said Thursday.

 

Snow's remarks reinforced those of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice after the Syrians held out their diplomatic hand to the United States this week. But Rice said there already were sufficient contacts with Damascus and the Syrians were aware of what they need to do - stop supporting Hezbollah and press it to disarm.

 

Thursday's meeting in Damascus was reported by Iranian news agencies as well as Kuwait's Al-Siyassah newspaper, known for its opposition to the Syrian regime.

 

Al-Siyassah said the talks were to discuss ways to maintain supplies to Hezbollah with "Iranian arms flowing through Syrian territories."

 

Citing "well-informed Syrian sources" it did not identify, the newspaper said Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah was moving through Damascus with Syrian guards in an intelligence agency car. He was dressed in civilian clothes, not his normal www.google.com garb, it said.

 

The Mehr news agency in Iran said Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, was in Damascus for the meeting. Similar reports were carried by the Iranian Labor News Agency and the Fars agency. Al-Siyassah said Larijani was to have met Syrian President Bashar Assad and Nasrallah.

 

Hezbollah officials reached by The Associated Press in Beirut on Thursday said they did not know if Nasrallah had traveled to Damascus.

 

Iranian state-run media did not mention Larijani's travels. A spokesman for Iran's Foreign Ministry, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media, said there "was no information" on a trip.

 

In Damascus, Iranian Embassy No. 2 Ghazanfar Rokn-Abadi would neither confirm nor deny the reported meetings, telling The Associated Press: "We, too, heard and read in the media this report."

 

Syrian Foreign Ministry officials did not return telephone calls seeking comment.

 

Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki made a hastily arranged visit to Malaysia for talks on the Lebanese crisis with other foreign ministers in Kuala Lumpur.

 

Rice was also in Kuala Lumpur, but a U.S. official rejected any possibility Rice would meet him.

 

Because of its strong alliance with Tehran and Hezbollah, Damascus can serve as a link through which the Bush administration could talk to Hezbollah and Iran about ending the Lebanese crisis.

 

Rice said this week that America's poor relationship with Syria had been overstated, noting the U.S. still has a diplomatic mission and State Department officials working in the Syrian capital.

 

"The problem isn't that people haven't talked to the Syrians. It's that the Syrians haven't acted," Rice said. "It's not as if we don't have diplomatic relations. We do."

 

The U.S. ambassador to Syria was recalled last year after the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Syrian officials have been blamed for the murder; Damascus denies any role.

 

The U.S. has also imposed sanctions on Syria, blaming it for fueling the insurgency in Iraq and supporting Islamic militant groups in the Palestinian territories, such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Syria denies the charges but hosts exiled leaders of those groups in Damascus.

 

Regardless, Syrian officials have said they are ready to talk with Washington.

 

"If the United States wants to involve in Syria's diplomacy, of course Damascus is more than willing to engage," Syria's ambassador to Washington, Imad Moustapha, said Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation."

 

But Syrian officials said Damascus would cooperate only within the framework of a broader Middle East peace initiative that includes a return of the Golan Heights, captured by Israel in 1967 and annexed in 1981.

 

Analysts said Syria's role could not be ignored if a solution to the crisis is to be found.

 

"Syria is a major player in regional politics. After being sidelined and isolated for a long time, it now holds the keys to many of the region's crises," said Amin Kammouriyeh, a political analyst with Lebanon's leading An-Nahar daily.

 

At a meeting Wednesday of key Mideast players in Rome, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said a lasting end to the conflict would "require the constructive engagement of the countries in the region, including Syria and Iran."

 

---

 

Associated Press writer Zeina Karam reported from Beirut, Lebanon. AP writer Brian Murphy in Tehran, Iran, also contributed to this report.

[Guest human_*]

At this rate Israel may have no other choice than to tell Iran Directly to stop. Since it is very clear that Iran is using Hezbollah to fight for them "Iran".