(Huffington Post) Charlotte Alfred - Meir Javedanfar, who lectures on contemporary Iranian politics at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, said, "Since the Iranian revolution in 1979, the Iranian regime has been calling for the elimination of Israel and has been supporting Israel's enemies. The relationship took a psychological dive when Iran denied the Holocaust....When Iran holds a Holocaust cartoon contest...Israelis do not trust the Iranian regime." Meir Litvak, director of Tel Aviv University's Alliance Center for Iranian Studies, noted that "Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, held very strong anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist views....Most recently, Supreme Leader Khamenei declared that the only solution to the Middle East crisis is the elimination of Israel. Since the early 1980s, Iran has also supported organizations such as Hizbullah, Islamic Jihad and Hamas, which have fought Israel and called for its elimination." "Most Israelis feel that the U.S. had given the Iranians too much, and they fear that the U.S. will make more concessions in the upcoming negotiations." David Menashri, founding director of the Alliance Center for Iranian Studies and a visiting fellow at Princeton, said that "Israel's concerns are real. The possibility of a country with such a radical ideology having nuclear arms is something very, very difficult to live with."
2015-04-17 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive