Ksenia Fomina exclusively to Vestnik Kavkaza
Ahead of the inauguration of the new president of Iran, Hassan Rouhani, an official representative of the Iranian foreign ministry stated that Tehran stood against a restoration of Palestinian-Israeli negotiations. “Iran supports the Palestinians who are against the suggested plan and is sure that the occupational Zionist regime won’t agree on withdrawal from the occupied territories,” said the chairman of the ministry, Abbas Arakchi. It was the reaction of the foreign ministry of IRI to the statement by the U.S. State Secretary John Kerry that talks between the confronting sides can continue.
The Palestinian direction of the Iranian Middle East policy is based on a rejection of Israel’s right to exist. Iran urges a redistribution of Palestinian lands and establishing a united state which would include the population of Israel. Mahmud Ahmadinejad’s policy toward the Arab-Israel conflict correlated to the general position of Iran on the problem. Moreover, when he was the president, Iran took a radical position toward opportunities of the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations and mutual concessions. Official statements of Iranian leaders made it clear that Tehran didn’t accept any variants of peaceful settlement of the Middle East crisis.
Along with the traditional ideological line, the reason for providing such a policy by Iran is the following: a possibility of shifting the peacemaking process between Palestinian Arabs and Israelis from the dead point would cause wide-scale geopolitical changes in the region not in favor of the Islamic republic. That is why Tehran supported forces of Islamic resistance in the south of Lebanon and in Palestine. One of the key forces of the resistance was pro-Iranian Shiah movement Hezbollah which was established right after the victory of the Islamic revolution in Iran for being a new “weapon” against Israel in the Palestinian direction. The political and ideological principles of Hezbollah have been based on the idea of jihad against Zionism and imperialism.
Soon Hezbollah accumulated its power in the region and turned into a base for training terrorists aimed at destabilization of the political situation in the Middle East. Methods used by Hezbollah included direct military actions, terrorism, sabotage, and so on. The organization actively involved suicide bombers.
By the beginning of the 21st century activity of Hezbollah reduced, but the organization continued staying the Iranian outpost among participants of the multisided Middle East conflict. At the same time, the movement of Hezbollah had no unity at the period – it included both radical and moderate members. Syria and Lebanon where Hezbollah located its bases treated the movement ambiguously. As for Iran, it supported Hezbollah in all spheres, providing finances, diplomatic support, staff, arms, and defense technologies.
Moreover, Iran also expressed the support and approval toward radical Palestinian groups which denied peacemaking and even simple cooperation with Israeli – HAMAS, Islamic Jihad, the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades. All these groups prevented approaching between the Palestinian and Israeli sides of the conflict.
Iranian help for Hezbollah and other anti-Israeli organizations of the region was traditionally concentrated on several directions: the political and ideological support in the form of struggle for legitimating of the groups in eyes of the international society; the propaganda support, i.e. spreading Hezbollah’s ideas; the support in the sphere of social supply which is arrogated to radical Islamic organizations; direct financing; the military support in the form of military training of militants for Islamic radical organizations.
A clear example of cooperation between Iran and Hezbollah is Iranian influence on the second Lebanese war, in which Israel actually fought against Hezbollah. One of the longest wars of Israel didn’t bring a victory to any of the sides, but caused significant losses. The war was a result of the sabotage activity of Hezbollah when the clash between Shiah militants and Israel appeared to be unavoidable. There are few doubts that the military campaign against Israel in 2006 started due to a direct order from Iran. The war was beneficial for Tehran because it enabled to divert attention from its nuclear program and dispelled hopes for peacemaking between Arabs and Israeli.
