Window of Anguish (Panjareh Eltehab)

In Preparation for Confronting Israel

Following the strikes on the Gaza strip in Palestine, once again locations in Iran are ‎witnessing volunteer registrations for suicide operations against Israel. ‎

Jame Rohaniyate Mobarez (Association of Militant Clergy, AMC), the key forum of ‎conservative clerics in Iran, announced yesterday through a long Internet message its ‎readiness to fight with Israel, and referenced the message to a call from the supreme ‎leader of the country. The reference is to ayatollah Khamenei’s strongest ever message on ‎Sunday in which he said, in response to Israel’s strikes at Gaza, after announcing two ‎days of morning, “All pious people of the Islamic world have a duty to defend the ‎women, children and defenseless people of Gaza and anyone who dies in this justifiable ‎and holly defense is proclaimed a martyr.”‎

In addition to the AMC, Ali-Reza Zahedi, a leadership member of student para-military ‎group Basij also announced that it was registering students in its suicide stations at ‎universities across the nation. Fars news agency too announced that 271 students from ‎Amir Kabir University had already registered to engage in suicide operations against the ‎Zionist regime. Islamic Republic of Iran News Agency (IRNA) too quoted yesterday a ‎leadership member of the Student Islamic Association that some 7,000 of its students in ‎Isfahan had registered themselves for suicide missions.‎

In a related news, Ali Motahari, the son of the MP in Tehran spoke on Sunday about a ‎‎“direct war with Israel”, while other military and political officials of the Islamic ‎Republic joined in the call. Speaking at a rally in Tehran in support of the people of ‎Palestine yesterday, Abdullah Araghi, commander of the Mohammad Rasoolallah ‎brigade of the Passdaran Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) of the greater Tehran area told ‎Fars news agency that there was a large pool of Basij volunteers (to fight with Israel) “to ‎fight along with the innocent people of Palestine and liberate Palestine”. ‎

Also, General Mirfeisal Bagherzadeh, the head of the Foundation for the Preservation and ‎Dissemination of the Values of the Holly Defense (a group advancing the ideals of the 8-‎year Iran-Iraq war) told Fars news agency, “The most important task is to provide ‎military assistance to the defenseless people of Gaza and the time is now come for ‎Islamic countries to put the military option on their agenda.”‎

The naval wing of the IRGC too issued a statement on the subject in which it condemned ‎‎“the crimes of the usurper Zionist regime” and wrote, “Freedom loving people of the ‎world and the innocent people of Palestine will not leave the crimes of Israel ‎unanswered.”‎

In addition to the reactions of military authorities, some political personalities too joined ‎those protesting Israel’s military strikes against Gaza. The secretary of Iran’s State ‎Expediency Council, Mohsen Rezai said, “If there were no political considerations in ‎place and my presence was in the interest of Palestinians, I would have resigned from all ‎my government posts and I would have gone to Gaza in 48 hours and would have carried ‎out jihad in the name of God.”‎

In addition to these, a number of other agencies and organizations announced their ‎readiness to fight with Israel. According to Shahab News website, at the end of a joint ‎session of a meeting of the provincial planning and deputy administrators from the ‎Ministry of Islamic Guidance on Monday issued a statement in which they announced ‎their readiness to give their life for “the holly defense of the innocent people of Gaza”.‎