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Thirty Years of Tehran Rhetoric Blocking Road to Peace

[The National-UAE] Karim Sadjadpour - The Iranian government's feeling towards the State of Israel varies from utter contempt to visceral hatred. Why? After all, Iran is not an Arab country, has no direct land disputes with Israel, has no Palestinian refugee problem, has a long history of contentious relations with the Arab world, and is home to the largest Jewish community in the Middle East outside Israel itself. Why should Iran be a more strident enemy of Israel than Arab nations that have lost hundreds of their sons in wars fought against the Jewish state? One school of thought says that Iran and Israel are natural rivals for primacy in the Middle East. The other school of thought contends that opposition to Israel is a deeply held ideological tenet of Iran's 1979 revolution. Nothing less than the dissolution of the Jewish state would satisfy Tehran's hardline leadership. When I was based in Tehran with the International Crisis Group, I used to believe that Iran would be capable of altering its approach towards Israel in the context of a broader U.S.-Iran accommodation. I no longer believe this to be the case. A study I did on Supreme Leader Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khamenei, based on three decades' worth of his speeches, confirmed his consistent and disciplined opposition to Israel's existence. The writer directs the Iran Initiative at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.
2009-01-30 06:00:00
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