Member of the editorial board of Iranian regime’s mouthpiece Kayhan, Sa’adollah Zarei and Ramazan Sharif, who heads the Intifada and Quds Central Headquarters of the Islamic Propaganda Coordination Council and is spokesman of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have expressed opposition to the “two-state solution” for Israel and Palestine proposed by countries in the West for after the Israel-Hamas war is over.
According to MEMRI, in a November 1, 2023 article titled ‘Establishing the Palestinian Resistance’s Right To Arms’, Sa’adollah Zarei argued that raising the possibility of two states is irrelevant and aimed at thwarting the path to forcing a ceasefire on Israel. Discussing the meaning of Palestine, he noted that Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei defined its territory as “from the river to the sea”, and said that “this is in line with the Palestinian cause and the destruction of Israel”.
He called for arming the Palestinian resistance, i.e. Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), with advanced air, ground, and sea weapons systems so that they can carry out the vision of Tehran’s Islamic Revolutionary regime: annihilating the state of Israel.
Warning Qatar, as a representative of Hamas, not to consent to political negotiations that will legitimize the two-state solution as part of its negotiations with the US, Zarei went on to state that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is not a legitimate representative of the Palestinians, and that the leaders of the Palestinian resistance are Hamas and the PIJ – which are proxies of Iran.
Sa’adollah Zarei wrote:
…Another issue is the ‘Palestinian cause.’ Palestine, put simply, is bordered by Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt, and as the Leader [Khamenei] said, [its territory stretches] ‘from the river to the sea’ (the Mediterranean to the Jordan River). This is in line with the Palestinian cause and the destruction of Israel – the issue that is sought by the resistance front, including jihadi groups and the Palestinian masses.
This [definition of] Palestine is historical and has sources. There is the Palestine of the UN Resolution of 1948 [sic – he is referring to the Partition Plan of 1947] which encompassed [only] 43% of its land, with that territory being noncontiguous. This Palestine is legal, as was of course emphasized in UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338. There is [also] the Palestine of the Oslo Accords, which encompasses approximately 22% of the territories, noncontiguously, and of course, the usurper regime [i.e. Israel] did not accept this, violating the Oslo Accords, and this is the political Palestine. When international forums and major Arab governments talk about ‘occupied Palestine,’ they are talking about this 22%.
Now, during the war to aid the Palestinians and face [Israel’s] aggression, some are talking about reviving the Oslo plan to administer Palestine, which is really a betrayal of the Palestinian ideology. The Oslo [plan] outline of 1993, which was translated in the 2002 Beirut Summit into the ‘Arab [Peace] Initiative’, was defeated and lost its relevance with the rise of the resistance [created by Iran]. What is being heard about now in the Biden administration and in the governments of Europe, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, Qatar, and so on is political Palestine, not Palestine in its full sense as we know it.
The political process is the unavoidable fate of the war that was launched with extreme cruelty against Gaza by the usurper [Israeli] regime. In addition, this process began in Doha a few days ago, where the Qatari government and the American administration are negotiating on either side of the table. During the discussion of the Gaza war and the ceasefire, the Americans want to drag the process towards the Oslo Accords, using this to prolong Israel’s shameful life.
Of course, the Palestinians did not permit Doha to continue the talks to revive this process. According to them, negotiations should focus only on stopping the war and exchanging the imprisoned Palestinians for the [Israeli] hostages. The Palestinians have almost 6,000 prisoners [in Israeli prisons] who are serving lengthy sentences, including dozens of women and hundreds of children. These are people from the West Bank imprisoned for crimes connected to the resistance movement over the last two decades. This is even though there is no general or specific legal ruling permitting the usurping regime to [arrest and imprison] them. On the other hand, hundreds of Israelis, about half of whom are soldiers, were captured by Hamas under the legal principle of ‘the right to self-determination’ – one example of which is resisting the occupier [Israel]…
Ramazan Sharif, Head Of The Intifada and Quds Central Headquarters of the Islamic Propaganda Coordination Council And IRGC Spokesman in an editorial titled ‘The Two-State Solution Is Never The Right Solution’ wrote:
At a special meeting of the Intifada and Quds Central Headquarters of the Islamic Propaganda Coordination Council, the headquarters director and IRGC spokesman Ramazan Sharif similarly called for rejecting the two-state solution. He echoed the call of Supreme Leader Khamenei for a “democratic” referendum of all Palestinians, inside and outside Israel, and of the segment of Israel’s Jewish population that was present under the British Mandate. This referendum would be to decide on the future of the State of Israel, the “cancerous growth”, thus ensuring its elimination through purportedly democratic means.
Sharif said: Over the last 60 days, public opinion worldwide has borne witness that the strategy of the founder of the Islamic Revolution [Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini] was correct, accurate, and logical, and that this strategy is today shared by millions of free people across the world. The Imam [Khomeini] said: ‘Israel is a cancerous growth, and until this growth is destroyed, we will witness terrible crimes’.
We have all seen Westerners and international organizations who claim [to call for protecting] human rights remain silent over the past two months, in pursuit of their evil goals. In the Al-Aqsa Flood [operation], the failure for the Zionist regime was historic and unprecedented, and can never be rectified.
There is no doubt that the losses of the Zionist regime, as it progresses to southern Gaza, are much heavier than what it sustained in northern Gaza, because the resistance movement in southern Gaza has better maneuverability. Today the whole world bears witness that Hamas, which is a liberation organization, is fighting a regime that is armed to the teeth and has the full support of America and Europe – but it [Hamas] will triumph.
“Hamas is all of the Palestinian people. Indeed, Hamas is a way of thinking which cannot be destroyed with bombs and rockets…
These two articles written by top-haunches of Iranian regime evidently proves – Tehran is willing to see continuation of terrorist acts targeting Israel by Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and other terrorist groups in Gaza Strip. On the other hand – Qatar, which is a major funder of Hamas too is willing to put Israel under continuous threats.
