Associated Press Published: 05.24.07, 18:54 / Israel News
Iran’s hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday warned Israel it would be uprooted if the Jewish state attacked Lebanon in the coming summer.
“If you think that by bombing and assassinating Palestinian leaders you are preparing ground for new attacks on Lebanon in the summer, I am telling you that you are seriously wrong,” Ahmadinejad told a crowd in the city of Isfahan.
“If this year you repeat the same mistake of the last year, the ocean of nations of the region will get angry and will cut root of the Zionist regime from its stem,” added Ahmadinejad, speaking live on state television.
Referring to the history of Israel, Ahmadinejad said that “60 years of invasion and assassination is enough. If you do not cease invasion and massacre, soon the hand of power of the nations of the region will rub you criminals with earth.”
“They think it is still time of some 60 years ago and the Palestinian nation is asleep,” said Ahmadinejad, speaking of Israel.
There has been no indication so far of any eventual new Israeli-Lebanese conflict but Ahmadinejad’s comments came as Israeli troops in the West Bank arrested more than 30 senior Hamas members early Thursday, including a Cabinet minister, legislators and mayors - pressing forward with an offensive against the Islamic militant group. (Article continues...)
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These comments appear to have little, if any context. As far as I know there is no conflict looming or even brewing between Israel and Lebanon. From what I gather, the trouble in Northern Lebanon has more to do with Al Qaeda than Iran or Hezbollah. However, I recall last winter when Iran's Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ominously predicted that "Lebanon would be the arena of defeat for Israel and America (CNS News)." It seems as though Iran is working against the backdrop of a master plan, a master plan that seems to involve Lebanon.
Even more significantly, Ahmadinejad uses language straight out of the book of Ezekiel:
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the ocean of nations of the region will get angry and will cut root of the Zionist regime from its stem
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soon the hand of power of the nations of the region will rub you criminals with earth
"Be prepared, and prepare yourself, you and all your companies that are assembled about you, and be a guard for them. After many days you will be summoned; in the latter years you will come into the land that is restored from the sword, whose inhabitants have been gathered from many nations to the mountains of Israel which had been a continual waste; but its people were brought out from the nations, and they are living securely, all of them. You will go up, you will come like a storm; you will be like a cloud covering the land, you and all your troops, and many peoples with you." Ezekiel 38:7-9 (NASB)