Ahmadinejad to Al-Manar: Arabs Can Do A Lot to Support Gaza

Source: Al-Manar TV, 14-01-2009

Twenty days have passed on the beginning of the deadliest offensive against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, more than one thousand Palestinians have been martyred and other thousands injured, and the war doesn't seem close to an end.

While Arabs, always divided even on the martyrs' blood, were still divided over the "principle" of holding an "urgent" summit over Gaza, with some of them seeming to "seek" to "obstruct" Friday's Qatari-suggested summit, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad renewed his full support for the Palestinian nation and resistance, calling on Arabs to move immediately to "action" to back their brothers in Gaza.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with Al-Manar on Wednesday, Ahmadinejad stressed that the Resistance in Palestine was an independent movement. "We have a strong and warm relation with the Palestinian nation and its Resistance movement," he said, but stressed that the Palestinian Resistance was and will always be independent.

"They take their own decisions and don't ask for any permission," he affirmed, saying that the Zionists couldn't admit the idea that they were defeated by a minority, "and thus, they are seeking to say that other People were backing Palestine and helping it achieve victory."

The Iranian President said that what happened previously in Lebanon and is currently happening in Gaza aims at changing the political circumstances in the region. "However, this change will not be like the Americans and Zionists want but, rather, in the interest of the region's peoples," he announced.

Ahmadinejad expressed belief in the Resistance's strengths and capabilities, hoping it would achieve victory against the Zionist enemy very soon. "The Resistance is strong and it's able to prevent the Zionists from achieving their goals," he stressed.

The Iranian leader, meanwhile, called Arabs to move into action in dealing with the Gaza crisis. He called on Egypt, for instance, to open Rafah crossing with Gaza. "If the Egyptian leadership wanted really to protect Palestinians, it would have dared real efforts to halt the aggression and allowed the Palestinians to defend themselves," he said.

Ahmadinejad also told Al-Manar that Arabs can, if they want, do a lot for their brothers in Palestine. "They can break off all kinds of relations with this entity, they can make use of their political abilities and pressure the supporters of the Zionist entity, they can threaten the US, England and other countries, they can also benefit from their economic strength to make the change," he explained. "They can, at least, allow their people to interfere and express themselves," he added.

Ahmadinejad concluded his interview with Al-Manar by stressing that the battle wasn't merely between Hamas and the Zionist entity. "It's a battle between two complete fronts," he explaining, noting that the first front was that of fairness, humanity and truth while the second that starts by US and ends with the Zionist enemy was that of oppression and injustice.