It is heartbreaking for any normal human being to see the death and destruction that occurred this week in both Israel and Gaza. While the news media has been quick to blame Israel as the cause for the civilian deaths in Gaza, most of these media outlets have totally overlooked the biggest culprit of the destruction unleashed on Gaza– the current Iranian regime and the mullahs that run Iran! Why haven’t the journalists asked why Iran has poured millions of dollars’ worth of short and long range missiles as well as other weaponry into the hands of Hamas terrrorists in Gaza? Why have the media outlets not traced the millions of the dollars that support the Hamas terrorists back to Iran? Would Iranian-made “Farj” rockets have been shot into Israel had Iran not furnished them into the hands of Hamas terrorists? Would stockpiles of weapons not be stored in homes, schools, mosques and other civilian locations in Gaza had Iran not furnished them to Hamas? Where is the outrage of the international community at Iran for sponsoring the terrorism perpetuated by Hamas? All the financial and military roads lead back to Iran and the regime’s ruling clerics and they must be held accountable for these crimes against humanity.
It is common knowledge that Hamas’s primary lifeline has been directly from Iran since 1993. The Iranian regime openly admitted that in 1993 they first provided Hamas with an annual subsidy of approximately $30 million, in addition to military training. In January 1995, outgoing Director of the Central Intelligence Committee James Woolsey testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee that Iran had provided more than $100 million to Hamas. By November 2006, amidst an international embargo against Hamas, the organization announced that Iran had already given $120 million. During a visit by Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh to Tehran the following month, Iran pledged $250 million in aid to compensate for the Western boycott. Today analysts estimate that the Iranian regime provides anywhere from $300 to $400 million in financial and military aid to Hamas in Gaza!
Aside from the heartbreak of innocent lives been destroyed in both Israel and Gaza, what is even more tragic is the suffering that the poor people of Iran must endure under this current regime. None of the western news media have dared to cover the stories from thousands of average Iranian bloggers and individuals in Iran using social media to convey their rage at the Iranian regime that is using millions of the country’s petro-dollars to fund this senseless proxy war against Israel while average Iranians are living in extreme poverty. I’ve read many Iran-based blogs that are posting “No to Gaza, No to Lebanon, I die for Iran”– a popular slogan began in 2009 when protestors in Iran were furious that the Iranian regime had pour billions of dollars into terrorists groups such as Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, instead of helping average Iranians suffered at home with these funds. Hundreds of thousands of average Iranians in Iran cannot publicly voice their opposition to the regime for fear of being imprisoned or killed, but they are anonymously speaking out online and in social media sites against the regime.
The future outlook of the Iranian regime's funds and weaponry to Hamas is questionable right now. Since the outbreak of a ruthless civil war in Syria with the Assad regime attacking Palestinian camps in Syria and killing thousands of Sunni Muslims, Hamas has distanced itself from Assad who is also a puppet of Iran. Moreover Hamas has refused to openly support Assad’s regime after they were directed to do so by their Iranian puppeteers. The Syrian war has no doubt strained relations between the Shiite clerics in Iran and the Sunni followers in Hamas, but time will only tell if their mutual hatred for Israel can keep their unholy alliance together for long. Yet Hamas is not worried a bit about their source of revenue since the emir of Qatar, in late October, promised more than 400 million dollars to the Hamas government for developmental projects
Instead of media scrutiny and U.N. pressure mounting on Israel, the international community must start asking Iran’s radical Islamic leadership what substantial role they have played in bringing the latest round of death and destruction to the people of Gaza. Iran’s regime is the cancer in the Middle East that must be removed; otherwise the entire region will slowly be pulled into more death and destruction from the chaos created by Iran’s mullahs.
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