DAR AL HARB/ISLAM - HOLY LAND/IRAN: KHOMEINI & 'ARABS IN PALESTINE'

Imam Khomeini's Viewpoints on Palestine and Intifadha

Dr. Fathi Shaqaqi, the head of the Islamic Jihad of Palestine who achieved martyrdom in Malta on October 26, 1995, was a person who was deeply influenced by the exemplary life of the Father of the Islamic Revolution, Imam Khomeini (may his soul rest in peace). Years before his martyrdom at the hands of the cowardly Zionist regime of Israel, he had stated in his book on the ideas and struggle of the late Imam, whom he had the honor to meet:

"Speaking of Imam Khomeini and Palestine means talking of the greatest man of the century and the most serious crisis of the century. Speaking of Imam Khomeini means talking of an arrow that was released a millennium and four centuries back with the advent of Islam and which pierced the enemy's heart with the intellect and leadership of Seyed Ruhollah Khomeini. Speaking of Imam Khomeini means talking of a man who is the nectar of justice that was suppressed in human history."

In the early 1960s after almost a decade and a half of the illegal birth of the Zionist state of Israel on Palestinian soil, Imam Khomeini explicitly exposed the intricate colonialist plot to plant an artificial entity in the midst of the Muslim world. The Imam had called for uprooting of this cancerous tumor from Palestine and said that if all the world's Muslims were to pour a bucket of water each, Israel would be drowned. In 1973, Imam Khomeini during his exile in the holy city of Najaf in Iraq, in response to a letter of Muslim students residing in the US and Canada, had expressed the colonialist objective behind the planting of Zionism in Palestine.

He said both the Western and the Eastern blocs had conspired to destroy and loot the assets and natural resources of the Muslim world by conniving to create the illegal state of Israel. The idea, he had warned, is to gradually colonize the Islamic lands through this monstrous and terrorist state. In those days, the Zionist regime had developed cordial ties with Shah's regime of Iran and with Turkey in order to break out of the isolation imposed by the Arab world. Imam Khomeini saw through the plot and despite the Shah's support for Israel, unfurled the flag of the political struggle against both the Pahlavi monarchy and the Zionist usurpers of Palestine. The Imam informed the world of the dangers posed by Zionism.

Although the US puppet Shah exiled Imam Khomeini and tried to suppress the sentiments of the Iranian Muslims against Israel, his plot failed. Fifteen years later, the Imam returned in triumph to Iran, and after overthrowing the Pahlavi tyrant declared Israel to be a non-entity which ought naught to exist in the Middle East. He announced support for the oppressed people of Palestine and was confident that one day, the Palestinian people will take leaf out of the book of the glorious Islamic Revolution of the Iranian Muslims and initiate an Islamic movement of their own.

Iranian people rallied to the call of the Father of the Islamic Revolution, and along with the vociferous cries of death to the US and the Shah, they cried death to Israel. Imam Khomeini then took a dynamic step by declaring the last Friday of the fasting month of Ramadan as the World Day for Qods. Iranian Muslims responded enthusiastically and vowed to liberate Palestine from the Zionist clutches. The World Qods Day had an instant impact on world Muslims, who have since answered Imam Khomeini's call to strive for the sake of Islam's third holiest site, Bait ol-Moqaddas.

Imam Khomeini thus created solidarity in the Islamic world on the issue of the ultimate destruction of the illegitimate state of Israel and salvaging of the Palestinian people from Zionist tentacles. Imam Khomeini announced Qods day as the day of Islam and the day of warning super powers so that they know that Palestine will not remain under the hegemony of the occupiers for ever.

These measures speeded up the struggle of the Palestinian people and soon the first sparks of the heroic Intifadha flashed in occupied Palestine with cries of Allah-o Akbar in the late 1980s. Islam was back in Palestine and the bare-fisted Palestinians demonstrated their fury against the might of the illegal state of Israel. Imam Khomeini and the Islamic Revolution of Iran were the principal factors of invitation and despite the frantic efforts of the Zionists, their Western backers and the compromisers in the Arab world, the heroic Intifadha could barely remain suppressed. It flared up once again on September 28, 2000 and is continued with all its vigor against the demoralized Zionist regime. This is ample proof of the insight and leadership of Father of the Islamic Revolution.


Pertinent Links:

1) Imam Khomeini's Viewpoints on Palestine and Intifadha