Information Department, Israel Foreign Ministry, Jerusalem, April 22, 2007.

Iran is the major destabilizing force in the Middle East today. From supplying
arms, money, training and support for terrorist groups such as Hizbullah, Hamas
and Islamic Jihad, to the promotion of extremist Islamic revolutionary ideology,
the clerical regime in Teheran is bent on sowing unrest throughout the region.

Determined to cause the annihilation of Israel, suicide terrorism plays an
important role in the Iranian regime’s war against Israel and the West. The
regime’s spiritual theoreticians utilize religion to both recruit suicide bombers
and to justify their actions. Iran’s involvement in the actual operations has
always been kept vague, in order to protect the regime’s image in the
international arena.

But now, for the first time, a linkage officially confirming active Iranian support
of these operations has been made public. The Lebanon-based Hizbullah
terrorist organization has declared that all terrorist attacks, suicide bombings
and other operations against Israel must first be authorized by the Teheran
regime before they can be carried out. This, in effect, places the responsibility
for these attacks squarely on Iran.

For many years, Hizbullah was careful not to implicate Iran in its terror
operations. However, in a 15 April interview with the Iranian Arabic language
TV station ‘al Qawthar’, Hizbullah Deputy Secretary-General Naim Kassem, told
the interviewer that suicide bombings, terrorist attacks and even artillery
barrages against Israeli civilians all receive prior approval from the Ayatollah’s in
Teheran:

“The religious doctrine which dictates Hizbullah’s actions in general and those
relating to the Jihad in particular, is based on the rulings of the spiritual leader
in Teheran. The spiritual leader has the power to permit our actions, and the
spiritual leader can forbid them.

In order to know what is permitted and forbidden regarding the Jihad, we ask
for and receive overall permission and only then do we carry out the operation.

Even with regard to the suicide bombings, no one is allowed to kill himself
without religious authorization.

Even the rocket attacks on Israel, against the civilian population [Aug 2006] …
in order to apply pressure, even this required overall religious authorization.”

After Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s widely publicized denial of the
Holocaust, his declared intention to annihilate Israel, and his declarations
regarding Iran’s nuclear ambitions, these newest revelations leave little doubt
that Ahmadinejad and his cleric regime are purposely pursuing a policy by
which Teheran hopes to engulf the region in Jihadist violence.