On Wednesday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addressed large and adoring crowds in the southern Shiite suburbs of Beirut, which had been intensively bombed by Israeli fighter jets in summer 2006, and then subsequently rebuilt, in part with Iranian aid. Ahmadinejad pledged that Iran will support Lebanon in any future case of aggression against the small Levantine state of 4 million persons.
Americans who are surprised at Lebanese appreciation of Iran should remember that when the Israel-Hizbullah war broke out in summer 2006, the Bush administration initially actively opposed a ceasefire that could have saved hundreds of Lebanese civilian lives and could have spared billions of dollars in infrastructure. When someone is being intensively bombarded from the air and you attempt to put off a ceasefire, you are not a friend of the country being bombed.
Reuters has video on Ahmadinejad in Beirut:
Member of the Israeli parliament or Knesset, Aryeh Eldad, called Wednesday for Ahmadinejad to be assassinated, likening such an act to killing Hitler in 1928.
Eldad said, “If the Iranian President were in the Israeli army’s line of fire the day he chooses to throw rocks against Israel then he should not be allowed to return home alive.”
Israel’s vice premier, Silvan Shalom, distanced himself from Eldad’s remarks, saying that Israel does not kill heads of state.
The USG Open Source Center translates or transcribes other reactions from Israel:
Israeli Sources Comment on Lebanon Visit; MK: IDF Should Kill Ahmadinezhad
Israel — OSC Summary
Wednesday, October 13, 2010 …
PM Bureau Source: Ahmadinezhad Visit Completes Lebanon’s Transformation Into Iran Protectorate. Nir Yahav reports in Tel Aviv Walla! in Hebrew, website of leading news service, at 1515 GMT: “‘Ahmadinezhad’s visit to Lebanon completes the process of Lebanon’s transformation into an Iranian protectorate,’ a senior prime minister’s bureau source said today in reaction to the Iranian president’s visit to Lebanon. The source added that ‘Lebanon has thereby joined the axis of radical states that oppose the peace process and support terrorism. The Iranian president is there in the capacity of a supreme commander reviewing his troops, the Hizballah terrorists, who are Iran’s military arm in the region.
“Netanyahu’s bureau sources further said that ‘anyone concerned about peace and freedom should be worried about Iran’s brazen display of power. Lebanon, which has the right to peace and prosperity, has become the Iranian aggressor’s lackey.'” …
Deputy Minister, Mayors Fly Balloons on Border, Protest Ahmadinezhad’s ‘Warmongering’ the Jerusalem Channel 1 Television Online in English reports at 1126 GMT: “Several dozen people demonstrated near the northern border in Metula to protest Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit in Lebanon. Ynet reports that Knesset member Ayoub Kara (Likud) was among the demonstrators. He called on the Lebanese people to prevent an Iranian takeover of their country.”
Walla! further reports at 1138 GMT: “In anticipation of the Iranian president’s arrival in Lebanon, Israeli mayors came to the Fatma Gate (near the Lebanese border) to fly blue and white balloons in the air. Deputy Minister Ayyub Qara, who participated in the event, said: ‘The world should remember that the state was established following 2,000 years the Jews spent in the diasporah.’
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