Posted on 06/02/2002 8:43:43 AM PDT by knighthawk
A two-day conference has opened in the Iranian capital, Tehran, in support of the Palestinian uprising against the Israelis.
Held in commemoration of the late Ayatollah Khomeini, father of the Iranian revolution, it brought together many figures regarded by both Israel and the US as hardened terrorists.
Among them were leaders from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas movements, and from the Lebanese Hezbollah.
There was also Ahmed Jibril, head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command, whose son Jihad was killed last month in Beirut in what was believed to be an Israeli action.
Martyrdom was indeed one of the main themes of the opening speeches.
Attacks 'to continue'
The conference organiser, Ali-Akbar Mohtashemi - who was instrumental in setting up the Lebanese Hezbollah in the early 1980s - said that the Palestinian intifada, and especially the suicide bombings, had achieved more than all the Arab wars and peace talks with Israel.
He referred to Israel as "a cancerous tumour implanted in the heart of the Islamic world which had to be uprooted before it took over".
Both Ahmed Jibril and the Islamic Jihad leader, Ramadan Abdullah, told the BBC that suicide bomb attacks would continue because they were the only weapon the Palestinians had in an unequal battle.
They regarded the latest peace proposals as nothing more than an empty trick to get the Palestinians to give up the intifada.
They said the Americans were trying to extinguish the flames in Palestine so that they could get on with their plan to strike other Arab countries and movements.
Diplomatic damage
The deputy leader of the Lebanese Hezbollah, Sheikh Naim Qasem, said that Palestine was the first line of defence for both the Arab and Islamic worlds, and if it fell, they would fall too.
It is not expected that anything practical will come out of this conference.
But it will certainly reinforce Iran's support for hardline elements within the Palestinian arena.
This could entail diplomatic damage for Tehran, coming as it does at a time when the European Union is debating whether to renew talks on trade and co-operation agreements with the Islamic republic.
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