Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini “We must all rise, destroy Israel…” “It is incumbent on every Muslim to arm himself against Israel.” “We shall reject Israel and shall have no relations with it for it…
There is no mistaking that Israel has been in Iran’s gunsights since the Islamic revolution in 1979 that brought the extremist fundamentalist Ayatollah Khomenei to power. Khomeini’s call for the destruction of Israel has been a central policy of Iran ever since.
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Why Calls to “Destroy Israel” Cannot Be Ignored
Repeated studies over the years have shown that the Iranians are not trying to hide anything. Iranian leaders say what they mean, and mean what they say, with an emphasis on what the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs calls “genocidal themes” that imply the death of Israel’s population of more than 8 million people.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Israel is destined for destruction and will soon disappear.
The destruction of Israel is the idea of the Islamic Revolution in Iran and is one of the pillars of the Iranian Islamic regime. We cannot claim that we have no intention of going to war with Israel.
Ahmad Alamolhoda, senior cleric, member of Iran’s Assembly of Experts, 2013
We have manufactured missiles that allow us, when necessary to replace Israel in its entirety with a big holocaust.
The analogy stated by Iran’s founding “supreme leader” Khomeini that Israel is like “degenerative tumor” is a recurrent theme used by successive Iranian leaders.
Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of Iran
Israel is a “cancerous tumor that should be cut and will be cut”
Long-serving supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has repeated that statement over the years, showing the Iranian obsession to destroy Israel is constant and clear. Since 1979 every Iranian administration has called for Israel’s destruction with Iran’s top military leaders making it abundantly clear that the destruction will be total.
The Iranian nation is standing for its cause that is the full annihilation of Israel.
This sinister regime must be wiped off the map and this is no longer … a dream (but) it is an achievable goal.
Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami, 2019
Language specialists have shot down attempts to blame the rhetoric about destroying Israel on allegations of translation errors from Persian to English. The Iranian military itself explicitly used the English expression “Israel must be wiped off the map” on a banner during a parade of its long-range ballistic missiles, leaving no doubt about any translation errors.
Iranian TV footage showing a military parade with a banner on an Iranian missile saying in English “Israel must be wiped off the map.” (Photo credit: MEMRI)
Woeful Human Rights Record
Since 1979 Iran has developed a reputation as a dangerous nation. Perennially ranked as a country with one of the worst records of human rights abuses, the organization Reporters Without Borders labels Iran “one of the world’s most repressive countries.”
Iran has compiled a horrific record of abuses against its own citizens based on religion, sexual orientation, or against Iranians who simply want free speech and a free press. The 2019 report by the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights in Iran reads like an encyclopedia of human rights abuses ranging from religious persecution and suppression of women’s rights to the execution of children. It led to a United Nations resolution that condemned Iran for its systematic policies of “discrimination and other human rights violations.”
Former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, known for his virulent anti-Israel statements and Holocaust denial, showed the Iranian regime’s hatred of LGBTQ Iranians by denying that they exist in his country.
In Iran, we don’t have homosexuals like in your country. We don’t have that in our country. In Iran, we do not have this phenomenon. I don’t know who’s told you that we have it.
The violent, hate-inspired rhetoric calling to destroy Israel is official Iranian policy. There are no calls for dialog or peace. However, Tehran’s aggressive foreign policy position “death to Israel” differentiates from its calls for “death to America.” Iranian leaders simply do not call for destroying the United States anywhere near as often as they state their desire to “wipe out Israel.”
In a rare attempt to mollify critics, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei once tried to downplay the Iranian calls for destruction saying Iran wasn’t against the Jews, just the Israeli regime. However, he failed to refer to Iranian government and military leaders’ repeated calls for the physical destruction of Israel’s major population centers.
If Israel commits the smallest mistake against Iran … we will destroy Tel Aviv…
General Morteza Ghorbani, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander, 2019
If they attack us, we will raze Tel Aviv and Haifa to the ground.
Brig. Gen. Yadollah Javani, senior commander in the IRGC, February, 2019
The population of the Tel Aviv metropolitan area is 3.8 million people, and the population of Haifa metropolitan area is 1 million people. Far from being subtle or subliminal, the Iranian policy of violence directed at Israel is direct, upfront and openly stated by Iranian government and military leaders.
Experts on Iran note that the repeated incitement to genocide by Iran showed “the consistency of the regime’s rhetoric, the clarity of its intentions, and the certainty of its beliefs.”
Iran’s Dream to Destroy Israel is Shared by Hezbollah
The danger is not confined to Iran, but is found in its militant proxies like the Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon, armed and funded by Tehran. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in 2016 threatened that a Hezbollah attack on chemical storage tanks in Haifa would be his “atomic bomb,” laughing that he could kill tens of thousands of Israelis.
Hezbollah, which has attacked Israel on numerous occasions from neighboring Lebanon, parrots Iran’s goals and does not hide the antisemitic nature of the hatred.
Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah
If they [Jews] all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide.
Israel is our enemy. This is an aggressive, illegal, and illegitimate entity, which has no future in our land. Its destiny is manifested in our motto: ‘Death to Israel.’
The same Iran-inspired genocidal rhetoric and incitement is found in Yemen, where the Houthi rebels, also armed and funded by Iran, adopted Khomeini’s “death to Israel” slogan and one-upped it to add anti-religious incitement. The Houthi motto is “God is great, death to the US, death to Israel, curse the Jews, and victory for Islam.”
There appears to be little hope on the horizon. Every year Iranian political, religious and military leaders add to the mountain of direct quotes stating their intention is to wipe out a country of over 8 million people.
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Paul has a long career in both journalism and high-tech in Israel, most recently serving as head of research and content for The Israel Project. He rose to the position of Bureau Chief in charge of operations for United Press International in Jerusalem and has done production work for TV news networks as well as stringing and blogging for various newspapers, magazines and websites. With a background in engineering and computing Paul worked at Israeli tech companies ranging from startups to multi-nationals like IBM and Cisco and is currently a research consultant to an autonomous driving technology startup. His first job in Israel was working at Israel's first ice skating rinks and he is the founder of Israel's national ice sports associations.
