Rallies cancelled for second year but Quds day shines on

The Quds day rallies were cancelled for a second year in a row, due to the COVID 19 pandemic. But that cannot cancel the Day and its significance.Quds day, the annual commemoration of the plight of Palestine, is held on the last Friday of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which fell on May the 7^nd this year.

The commemoration is not a passive ceremony, but to keep Muslims alert to action they may have to take, to help their brothers, and in self-help. 

Volumes and volumes have been written over the decades on the plight of Palestine yet things have only gotten worse for the Palestinians.

Is that because the international community lacks the will to do anything about it, or because it's failed in its efforts to resolve the Palestinian crisis?

Why on earth would all efforts fail with so many Arab countries on the world stage?

Perhaps it is due to there being too many artificially produced Arab states since the unconventional division of Arabia.

The past few years have been an era of provocation, ever since former US president Trump simply cherry-picked Jerusalem as the new capital of Israel in 2017.

But apparently it wasn’t enough to provoke all regional Muslim states.

By 2020, five Arab League countries had established diplomatic relations with Israel, instead.

Press TV visited the society for defending the people of Palestine in central Tehran, as a Quds session convened at the centre; and spoke with some of the attendees.

To what extent would you say the Arab states have helped the failure of any efforts in favor of the Palestinian people?

Unfortunately, due to the betrayal of the rulers and leaders of Islamic countries, the Islamic world has not been able to take a united stand about Palestine and the issue of al-Quds and the occupation.

Imam Khomeini said in his historical remarks that if all Muslims gather up and each pours a bucket of water, it would flood Israel.

This is a fact but why did it not happen?

Because the elements of arrogance and exploitation, throughout the history of Palestine, have tried to pit nations against each other and turn the Muslim nations’ leaders into their own mercenaries.

They tried to prevent the fierce resistance put up by the Palestinian people from bearing fruit.

Seyyed Mohsen Mahmoudi, Islamic Development Coordination Council of Tehran

The 5 Arab states defecting, so to speak, were Egypt, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Sudan, and Morocco.

Saudi Arabia didn’t have to do anything since it owes its very existence to secret deals consenting to the birth of Israel.

Saudi Arabia, having been founded as recently as 1932, is in fact one of the artificially-produced Arab states already mentioned.

Arab action, and inaction, must have helped international efforts for Palestine to fail.

Or perhaps those efforts have failed for the same reason Arabs felt they had to recognize Israel; US bullying.

Throughout history and since its founding, Saudi Arabia, Al Saud, and Wahhabi thought have shown their dependence on others.

Saudi Arabia has never been an independent country, it never had free-thinking rulers who would act in the interests of the Islamic world.

The British attempts, and later the US presence, led to their founding and the formation of the Wahabi thought as infiltrators among the Islamic community.

Seyyed Mohsen Mahmoudi, Islamic Development Coordination Council of Tehran

Mr RamezanKhani is the Palestine Committee Secretary and Deputy for the Presidency.

Some of these neighbors, and indeed small countries, have established ties with Israel, like the UAE and Bahrain. They are insignificant compared to the will of their people and the resistance. In any case, given the fragility we see in Israel today, they tried to establish ties and get into agreements with several countries, including the UAE, Bahrain, and Sudan, but in our opinion, this is nothing special and they will not lead anywhere. As long as Haj Qassem Soleimani’s soldiers are continuing down his path, we’ll pursue resistance stronger than before.

Safiallah Ramezankhani, Palestine Committee Secretary and Deputy for the Presidency

UN Resolution 3379, passed by the General Assembly in 1975 did determine that Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination.

But it was strongly opposed by US officials. In 1991, the General Assembly effectively negated Resolution 3379, by adopting Resolution 4686.

In 1991, the year since which the United States has been the world's dominant military, economic, social, and political power (not to mention hosting the UN Headquarters itself in New York City).

Call it a coincidence but the United Nations has been a factory of failures ever since. After all it was not designed for the uni-polar world we were left with after the fall of The Soviet Union.

That is about to change, as are the power dynamics in West-Asia. 

Why have efforts by the intentional community failed in resolving the Palestinian crisis or have efforts not been too determined?

As you pointed out, more than 100 resolutions have been issued by a majority vote against the Israeli regime, but have been vetoed by the United States and none of them has been implemented.

Sometimes they express regret that they don’t pass, but the power of the Israeli lobby in the United States and the United Nations is so great that it does not matter to the Israeli regime what position they take.

Because they say something, but take no action whatsoever.

See, for example, the 4-article plan submitted by the Islamic Republic of Iran calls for a referendum.

It demands that the Palestinian people participate in a general election by regulations that are being observed around the world, and anyone who garnered more support takes up office, based on the West’s framework of democracy, so they can live in peace.

But due to the dominance of the Israeli lobby, the inability of the United Nations, and an extremist American bias for Israel, everyone remains silent.

Hossein Akbari, Head, Palestine Affairs Coordination Headquarters

The US may have bullied and bribed the Arab cousins into turning their backs on Palestine. But to Iran, an atypically non-Semitic, non-Arab state in the region, standing up for Palestine is both a matter of pride and national security.

Iranians both sympathize and realize the depth of the Israeli dream of beginning with Palestine only to end up occupying from the Nile to the Euphrates; establishing direct Israeli control over most or all of what it calls "Judea and Samaria", namely,  the illegally occupied Palestinian West Bank.

In 1978 Imam Khomeini leader of the Islamic Revolution of 1979, proposed the naming of the last Friday of Ramadan as "Quds Day." This was welcomed by the Islamic world and all nations who see the loss of Palestinian rights as an undeniable fact.

How Duds day began and gained global recognition

Importantly, in the 1970s the Iranian resistance movement and Shiite factions in southern Lebanon further consolidated with Palestinian resistance organizations.

But the future also seems to be coming to the fore, with extreme measures speeding up historical change.

Is Israel overdoing it and moving toward self-destruction given that the resistance movement continues to stand firm, or will it actually succeed in implementing its dark plans for the Palestinians?

What amounts to Iran’s regional influence today, and its possible reviving of the JCPOA with America, has been cause for serious concern by Israel.

It was during the Vienna JCPOA talks that Israel, without a shadow of a doubt, sabotaged Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility.

That concern must obviously have arisen thanks to Iran’s military achievements and now the possibility of it returning to the world scene.

One should not forget that America is a ruling ground for Zionist elements working behind the scenes.

Israel is insignificant today, as you saw in the past weeks.

A missile hit an area near Israel’s Dimona nuclear plant where the most powerful batch of the Iron Dome air defenses is positioned.

They can’t do anything. They are yet to realize where the missile came from.

They initially said the missile was fired from Syria at an Israeli jet but overflew its target and landed in Dimona.

In a separate statement, they claimed the missile was Iranian.

Missiles fired from Syria would have to bypass Jordan. But that wasn’t the case.

They still haven’t found out where the missile was fired from.

Safiallah Ramezankhani, Palestine Committee Secretary and Deputy for the Presidency

To stop annexation by Israel, presently run by right-wing- extremists, is going to take a lot more than just a suggestion.

Netanyahu maneuvers on annexation

Annexation of the Jordan Valley was first proposed by Yigal Allon in the 1967 Allon Plan. The plan intended to partition the West Bank between Israel and Jordan, create a Druze state in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, and return most of the Sinai Peninsula to Arab control.

The plan was drafted by Israeli Minister Yigal Allon shortly after the Six-Day War in June 1967.

The broad aim of the plan was to annex most of the Jordan Valley from the river to the eastern slopes of the West Bank hill ridge, East Jerusalem, and the Etzion bloc, to Israel.

The remaining parts of the West Bank, containing most of the Palestinian population, were to become Palestinian autonomous territory, or would return to Jordan, including a corridor to Jordan through Jericho.

The Jordanian King Hussein rejected the plan.

Allon died in 1980, and the following year the Israeli government passed the Golan Heights Law, effectively annexing most of the governorate.

 But then in September 2019 it was announced by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as his plan, subject to the outcome of the September 2019 Israeli legislative election.

Looking at the desperate situation of dead-ends wherever Palestinians turn, it’s no wonder Quds day is in respite.

Mr. Ghodoumi is the Representative of Palestinian Hamas Movement in Iran, as well as a medical doctor.

What is the significance of Quds day 2021 given that Israel has taken its action up a notch to include bombing the Natanz site, among other nefarious actions undertaken by Tel Aviv?

When we talk about the day of al Quds, when we call each other to such a noble issue, to be united against the only enemy of the whole humanity and the only enemy in the region that is Israeli regime; then we can realize easily the importance of Quds day.

You mentioned Dr Fakhrizadeh, Natanz and general Soleimani peace be upon him , it is no more secret that Israel is directly accused of those crimes on the soil which is far away from what’s so called the Israeli regime.

Khaled Ghodoumi, Hamas Representative in Tehran

Referendum proposed by Iran

In 2020-Iran came up with a logical proposal that Palestinians be allowed, internationally, to hold a referendum to decide the fate of the occupied lands.

The poll would involve a vote by all the original and historical inhabitants of the occupied territories, inclusive of both those who are still in occupied Palestine as well as those who have been displaced.

This would include Muslims, Christians and Jews and their descendants; all original Palestinians.

Iran even presented its initiative entitled "National Referendum in Palestine" to the United Nations.

Today Jerusalem, Trump’s preferred capital of Israel, is not the only sore spot with the people of the region and the Muslim world in general.

The United States recognized the Golan Heights as part of Israel through a presidential proclamation signed by Donald Trump on March 25, 2019.

This made the United States the first country to recognize Israeli rather than Syrian sovereignty over the Golan Heights region.

Trump took a very hurried approach and tried to do a wide range of things in a short time. Israel has been pursuing the policy of expelling the Palestinians and latching on to power for the past 70 years but has tried to adapt its approaches to what has been needed over the course of time. This has been ongoing until today when they have proposed the two-state solution so they can lay the groundwork for achieving their goals. But Trump proposed the issue of the West Bank, the occupied Golan Heights, the Deal of the Century, and the relocation of the U-S Embassy to al-Quds simultaneously in a very short span of time.

Hossein Akbari, Head, Palestine Affairs Coordination Headquarters

Soon after, in 2020 came the notorious bound-to-fail “deal of the century”; what Iran calls “treason of the century”.

This Trump-Kushner plan was officially labeled "Peace to Prosperity: A Vision to Improve the Lives of the Palestinian and Israeli People".

It claimed to be the road to resolving the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, or Israel-imposed conflict with Palestine.

The great Arab sell-out of Palestine

The plan would have practically sold out the Palestinians for a measly set of paltry comforts; nothing even close to a realistic two-state solution.

Comforts in return for their country!

It was on 22 June 2019, that the Trump administration released the economic portion of the plan, titled "Peace to Prosperity".

The political portion was released in late January 2020.

They did not succeed in the deal of the century. And in the case of the occupied Golan Heights and the West Bank, they only incited the anger of Jordan, Egypt, and Syria.

More importantly, when Donald Trump adopted the policy, he thought he could have the support of many Arab nations.

He believed with strong Arab support, he could back Israel.

They believed that instead of negotiating with one percent of Arabs who’re Palestinians, they had to clinch agreements with the 99-percent so they support Israel.

Although some heads of state did so, opinion polls show the issue has only aroused the disgust and the opposition of Arab nations against the United States.

Hossein Akbari, Head, Palestine Affairs Coordination Headquarters

It is hardly surprising that even Palestinians who had been considering a two-state solution boycotted Trump’s peace plan which resulted in Trump cutting US funding for the Palestinian Authority (PA) in order to pressure them into allowing Israel’s expansionism.

The word expansionism used in relation to Israel highlights the fact that Israel is a modern-day invading power that has no business taking from, or sharing with, Palestinians.

Any west Asian nation accepting the notion is either doing it to take whatever it can get or out of sympathy for the fourth generation of Israeli occupiers.

The eyes of the world are now turned to the current US President, Joe Biden, and his role in the peace process or lack of process.

How much Biden can actually do is yet to be seen

Right-wing Israeli political parties, which dominate the country’s political arena, reject the two-state solution and call for the annexation of about a third of the West Bank.

The Jerusalem Post newspaper listed a rundown of 11 senior Jewish-American officials designated for top roles in the Biden administration.

The one low-casualty way to crisis resolution would be if Joe Biden realized the importance of keeping the UN alive by rising above America’s blatant misuse of its vetoing power.

The number of UN resolutions condemning Israel is more than the total number of UN resolutions, against the rest of the world!

By 2020 an incredible forty-three out of the forty-six anti-Israel UN Security Council resolutions ever presented to the UNSC had been vetoed by the US.

And so instead of Israel stopping in its tracks, it charges on with its agenda, with impunity, knowing full well that it has the unwavering backing of the US.

Biden no different from Trump on Israel

As history has shown, and as we have seen in the last 70 years, the American politicians have a common policy on the issue of Palestine and support for the Israeli regime, and that there is no difference between Democrats and Republicans except for the methods they adopt. They appear to have tactical differences but have the same goal in practice, which is supporting Israel.

Hossein Akbari, Head, Palestine Affairs Coordination Headquarters

All talk and no action         

What measures has been taken by the previous American administration trump, which has been changed by the current Biden administration?

Nothing.

They have not returned the embassy to Tel Aviv.

They did not surrender to the announcement of Jerusalem as an eternal capital of US to Israel.

They did nothing about settlement expansion inside west bank and Jerusalem.

They didn’t lift embargo over Gaza.

They did nothing.

Khaled Ghodoumi, Representative of Hamas in Iran

Even justifying the occupation of Palestine and burying it down memory lane by prolonging the process cannot whitewash what’s going on under Israeli occupation.

Even with COVID-19 on the rampage, there’s no respite for Palestinian kids behind bars with no charge!

No less than 4500 Palestinians are in Israeli jails. Of the thousands behind bars, 430 are administrative detainees held without charge or trial, including 180 children and 41 women and young girls

There are 550 prisoners suffering from various illnesses, including 11 with cancer, seven with kidney failure, and heart disease.

The irony or the racist issue is that Israelis are claiming that they are giving vaccines to Palestinians.

But on the other hand, they are giving vaccines to those Palestinians who are working in the occupied area where they are having interactions with Israeli citizens.

That’s the vaccinations there; they are showing a beautiful face that they are giving vaccines to Palestinians but it is not the reality.

In the same area like in al Quds; why do they allow vaccines to Israelis but not Palestinians?

They claim their own custody and they claim their own government over al Quds and Jerusalem, so what is this discrimination?

Khaled Ghodoumi, Representative of Hamas in Iran

Israel could be overdoing it with the expansion and inhumane pain it’s inflicting on Palestinians, as well as needling other countries, such as Iran, which may backfire on it, especially as the predominantly Muslim region is more determined in its resistance, with far greater military might and expertise, than ever before.

Today we see that Palestine and the resistance are stronger than ever. And we also see Israel, whose slogan used to be dominance from the Nile to the Euphrates, is now trapped within its own fence, unable to govern itself. We’re witnessing the events in occupied Palestine.

It has reached a point where Israelis and the Jewish residing in Palestine are getting fed up with the status quo.

Despite all the concerns and all the betrayals committed by some Muslim nations, the Palestinian Resistance is still strong.

Seyyed Mohsen Mahmoudi, Islamic Development Coordination Council of Tehran

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