User:Jalapenos do exist/Sandbox/destruction

The destruction of the State of Israel is a end declared as theoretically desirable or actively planned by various individuals and entities.

Arab world
According to Professor Yehoshafat Harkabi (writing in 1972), the declared objective of Arab leaders in the Arab-Israeli conflict is "the liquidation of the State of Israel". Harkabi organizes the expressions of this objective into two major categories. (1) Undisguised expressions of objective, characterized by the terms "liquidation" or "ending", "wiping out", "purification" or "cleansing", "removal", "throwing into the sea", "death-sentence", "throttling", "crushing", "destruction", "ruination", "pulling up by the root", "eradication", "overthrow", "sweeping out", "bringing to an end", "elimination" and the like; (2) ambiguous expressions of objective, which include positive terms that imply the aim to create a situation incompatible with Israel's survival, such as "the liberation of the Homeland", as well as negative expressions such as "the annulment of Israel's existence". Harkabi 1972, pp. 2-4

Arab League
Before the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, which began with the invasion of Israel by the armed forces of five Arab League countries, Arab League Secretary Azzam Pasha declared on Cairo radio: 'This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades.'

Algeria
According to Egyptian newspaper al-Ahram, Algerian President Ahmed Ben Bella declared on 1 May 1965: There is a need for Israel to disappear, for it is an artificial creation and it is necessary to put an end to it.

Egypt
In the years preceding the Six-day war, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser and figures in the Egyptian media and academia repeatedly advocated or predicted the destruction of Israel. According to a comment in the January-March 1959 edition of Egyptian Political Science Review, "The fate of this State [Israel] is extinction, for it was born dead".

In 1960, Director of Cairo Radio Ahmad Sa'id wrote in his introduction to Sabri al-Majd's book, The End of Israel, The collapse of Israel, this is the hope in which we live. The time has come for us to consider it, to discuss and map out the road to this collapse.

On 3 July 1962, President Nasser declared: The victory over the power of colonialism in Algeria was a brilliant step for the overthrow of the base in the Maghreb, so that it should be a prelude to the overthrow of another base of colonialism in the East-- I refer to Israel.

The statement was reflected by a commentator on Cairo Radio on 20 April 1963: Israel is the cancer, the malignant wound, in the body of Arabism, for which there is no cure but eradication... There is no need to emphasize that the liquidation of Israel and the restoration of the plundered Palestine Arab land are at the head of our national objectives.

On 22 February 1965, Nasser declared at the Festival of Unity: Arab unity means the liquidation of Israel and the expansionist dreams of Zionism.

On another occasion in the same year he said: We aim at the destruction of the State of Israel. The immediate aim: perfection of Arab military might. The national aim: the eradication of Israel.

On 18 May 1967, following Nasser's expulsion of a UN emergency force from the Sinai Peninsula, Voice of the Arabs declared: As of today, there no longer exists an international emergency force to protect Israel. We shall exercise patience no more. We shall not complain any more to the UN about Israel. The sole method we shall apply against Israel is total war, which will result in the extermination of Zionist existence.

On 26 May 1967, several days before the outbreak of the Six-Day War, Nasser announced in a speech to Arab trade unionists : If Israel embarks on an aggression against Syria or Egypt, the battle against Israel will be a general one and not confined to one spot on the Syrian or Egyptian borders. The battle will be a general one and our basic objective will be to destroy Israel.

On the following day, Nasser repeated, "Our basic objective will be the destruction of Israel. The Arab people want to fight..."

Iraq
Before the Six-Day War, Iraqi President Abdur Rahman Aref joined Egypt and Syria, saying "The existence of Israel is an error which must be rectified. This is our opportunity to wipe out the ignominy which has been with us since 1948. Our goal is clear -- to wipe Israel off the map." On 4 June, Iraq joined a military alliance with Egypt, Jordan and Syria.

Arab Higher Committee
In 1958, the Arab Higher Committee issued a pamphlet in Cairo titled "No Arab Unity Without the Disappearance of Israel".

Palestine Liberation Organization
Yasser Arafat, Chairman of the PLO and later President of the Palestinian Authority, declared the destruction of Israel as the goal of the PLO and as the organization's definition of "peace". In 1972, Arafat proclaimed, The end of Israel is the goal of our struggle, and it allows for neither compromise nor mediation... We don't want peace. We want war, victory. Peace for us means the destruction of Israel and nothing else.

In 1980 he declared, Peace for us means the destruction of Israel. We are preparing for an all-out war, a war which will last for generations.

Hamas
Hamas, a militant Palestinian Islamic movement, is dedicated to the destruction of Israel. The group's founding charter calls for Israel's destruction; specifically, the quotation section that precedes the charter's introduction provides the following quote, attributed to Imam Hassan al-Banna: "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it."

Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades
The al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, the Fatah's military wing, expressed in a leaflet published in June 2005 its identification with a recent remark by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who called to "wipe Israel off the map." The Palestinian news agency Maan reported that in the leaflet, the Brigades stressed its "Identification with and overall support of the position and declaration of the Iranian President, who called with all honesty to wipe Israel off the map of the world." The leaflet also said that "We stress our support of the Iranian president's position toward the fictitious Zionist state, which will disappear with the help of Allah."

Syria
On 20 May 1967, during the tense period leading up to the Six-Day War, Syrian Defense Minister Hafez Assad said: Our forces are now entirely ready not only to repulse the aggression, but to initiate the act of liberation itself, and to explode the Zionist presence in the Arab homeland. The Syrian army, with its finger on the trigger, is united....I, as a military man, believe that the time has come to enter into a battle of annihilation.

Hezbollah
From the inception of Hezbollah to the present,  the elimination of the State of Israel has been one of Hezbollah's primary goals. Some translations of Hezbollah's 1985 Arabic-language manifesto state that "our struggle will end only when this entity [Israel] is obliterated".

In October 2002, Hezbollah's spokesperson Hassan Ezzedin elaborated on the group's aims regarding Israel: "'Our goal is to liberate the 1948 borders of Palestine, ... The Jews who survive this war of liberation can go back to Germany or wherever they came from. However, that the Jews who lived in Palestine before 1948 will be 'allowed to live as a minority and they will be cared for by the Muslim majority.''"

In October 2006, Hezbollah's representative in Iran, Muhammad Abdullah Sif al-Din said of the 2006 Lebanon War: "We think this war has one significance and it is the destruction of the Zionist regime."

Iran
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called Israel a "cancerous tumor" that "should be removed from the region".

In October 2007, Iranian judiciary chief Ayatollah Mahould Hashemi Shahroudi said that recent anti-Israel rallies in Iran were "a good start for the destruction of the Zionist regime."

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
In October 2005, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a speech to the "World Without Zionism" conference in Asia: "Our dear Imam (referring to Ayatollah Khomeini) said that the occupying regime must be wiped off the map and this was a very wise statement. We cannot compromise over the issue of Palestine. Is it possible to create a new front in the heart of an old front. This would be a defeat and whoever accepts the legitimacy of this regime has in fact, signed the defeat of the Islamic world. Our dear Imam targeted the heart of the world oppressor in his struggle, meaning the occupying regime. I have no doubt that the new wave that has started in Palestine, and we witness it in the Islamic world too, will eliminate this disgraceful stain from the Islamic world."

On Israel's 60th birthday, Ahmadinejad gave a speech, in which, according to the official IRNA news agency, he stated

"Those who think they can revive the stinking corpse of the usurping and fake Israeli regime by throwing a birthday party are seriously mistaken. Today the reason for the Zionist regime's existence is questioned, and this regime is on its way to annihilation.'"

In a subsequent speech, Ahmadinejad stated "The Zionist regime is dying," and that "The criminals imagine that by holding celebrations (...) they can save the Zionist regime from death." Ahmadinejad also stated that "They should know that regional nations hate this fake and criminal regime and if the smallest and briefest chance is given to regional nations they will destroy (it)".

In a public address, which aired on the Iranian News Channel IRINN TV on June 2, 2008, Ahmadinejad stated:

The Zionist regime has lost its raison d'être. Today, the Palestinians identify with your name [Khomeini], your memory, and in your path. They are walking in your illuminated path and the Zionist regime has reached a total dead end. Thanks to God, your wish will soon be realized, and this germ of corruption will be wiped off.

On Aug 3rd, 2006, in a speech during an emergency meeting of Muslim leaders, Ahmadinejad called for "the elimination of the Zionist regime". While some media outlets immediately interpreted his words as another threat to "destroy Israel",  such interpretations have again been challenged. In the speech, Ahmadinejad said, "although the main solution is for the elimination of the Zionist regime, at this stage an immediate cease-fire must be implemented". He stated that the Middle East would be better off "without the existence of the Zionist regime". He called Israel an "illegitimate regime" with "no legal basis for its existence" and accused the United States of using Israel as a proxy to control the region and its oil resources; "The Zionist regime is used to reach this objective. The sole existence of this regime is for invasion and attack."