Haaretz
Kislev 19, 5767
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
urged visiting Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh on Saturday not
to bow to pressure to recognize Israel and to keep fighting it, local
media reported.
Haniyeh, on a four-day visit to one of the
strongest backers of his Hamas government, thanked Iran for its support
and vowed not to cede to Western demands that it renounce violence,
recognize existing interim peace accords and recognize the Jewish
state.
"The Iranian nation will stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the
Palestinian people until Jerusalem is liberated... and will never fall
short in any kind of support," Ahmadinejad told Haniyeh in Tehran, the
semi-official ISNA students news agency reported.
Iran's support
for the Palestinians has grown more vocal since Ahmadinejad came to power
in August 2005. The former Revolutionary Guardsman has called the Israeli
state a "tumor" which must be "wiped off the map".
Iran, like
Hamas, refuses to recognize Israel and has sent $120 million so far this
year to the Palestinian Authority towards a shortfall caused by a Western
financial blockade on the Hamas-led government.
The United States
and Israel accuse Iran of arming and training militant Palestinian groups
such as Hamas. Iran denies the charge.
"In addition to not
recognizing the occupying regime, the popular government of Palestine
should... support the resistance of the Palestinian nation until the
Palestinian ideal is realized," Ahmadinejad said.
"America as the
main supporter of this fake regime (Israel) is deteriorating and becoming
weak and the conspiracies of the enemies of Islam to break the resistance
of the Palestinian nation will fail," he added.
Haniyeh, who is due
to meet Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Sunday, said his
government had no intention of "recognizing the Jerusalem-occupying
regime" and would back the Palestinian people's right to "resistance and
to cancel the cruel and unfair (peace) agreements with that fake
regime."
"The brave position of the Iranian president in giving
reasonable and transparent support to the ideal of a Palestinian nation
has brought honor and dignity to Muslims and warmed the hearts of the
Palestinian warriors," he said, ISNA reported.