Ahmadinejad again predicts Israel’s demise

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad predicted the demise of arch-foe Israel yesterday from Hizbollah’s stronghold in southern Lebanon, just miles from the border of the Jewish state.

“The whole world knows that the Zionists are going to disappear,” he said to thunderous applause before a frenzied crowd in Hizbollah’s bastion of Bint Jbeil, some four kilometres from the Israeli border.

“The occupying Zionists today have no choice but to accept reality and go back to their countries of origin,” he added.

Thousands of men, women and children crammed into an outdoor stadium and onto rooftops waving Iranian, Lebanese and Hizbollah flags and cheering the hardliner whose two-day official visit has been denounced by the United States and Israel as a threat to regional stability.

“Bint Jbeil is alive and well,” Mr Ahmadinejad told the crowd. “I salute you, people of the resistance. You are a solid mountain. We are proud of you and will remain forever by your side.”

Bint Jbeil was flattened during Israel’s devastating summer 2006 war with the Shiite Hizbollah, considered a proxy of Iran.

His visit to the south brought Mr Ahmadinejad the closest he has ever been to Israel and was seen as a joint show of defiance with Hizbollah.

Bint Jbeil resident Nabila, who attended the rally, said “Ahmadinejad is going to terrify the Israelis.”

“We hope to see (Hizbollah chief Hassan) Nasrallah with him here and to see them both one day on the other side of the border,” added the 36-year-old, who declined to give her last name.

Mr Ahmadinejad later went to Qana, which has earned a grim place in history after being targeted by Israeli shelling that killed 105 civilians who had sought shelter at a UN base in 1996 during the Jewish state’s “Grapes of Wrath” offensive on Lebanon.

The village was again the site of tragedy when a shelter collapsed on dozens of residents, including disabled children, during Israeli strikes at the height of the month-long 2006 war. Mr Ahmadinejad laid a wreath at a memorial for victims of the 1996 strikes and also paid homage to the people of Qana.

“Qana’s martyrs are alive and its enemies are dead,” he told a crowd near the memorial. “You are victorious and your enemies have tasted defeat.”

Israeli officials have slammed Mr Ahmadinejad’s visit as a sign that Lebanon had “joined the axis of extremist states”, while the United States said it was a “provocation”.

“It appears his intentions are blatantly hostile and he is coming to play with fire,” Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said.

The visit has underscored Iran’s reach in Lebanon through Hizbollah, the most powerful military and political force in the country.

However, the trip has drawn criticism from Lebanon’s pro-Western parliamentary majority, who see it as an attempt to turn the country into “an Iranian base on the Mediterranean”.

The visit comes at a sensitive time in Lebanese politics with Sunni Prime Minister Saad Hariri locked in a standoff with Hizbollah over a UN-backed probe into the assassination of his father, former Premier Rafiq Hariri.

The tribunal is rumoured to be set to indict members of the militant group over the 2005 assassination, and tensions have grown steadily in recent weeks, raising fears of renewed sectarian violence and the collapse of Lebanon’s hard-won national unity government.

Although Mr Ahmadinejad has trod carefully since his arrival in Lebanon in addressing domestic issues, he nonetheless rose to the defence of Hizbollah at a rally on Wednesday, saying the UN court was framing the Shiite party.