Mideast situation – Letter from Iran

Letter dated 2 August 2002 from the Chargé d’affaires a.i.

of the Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to

the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General

Upon instruction from my Government and with reference to the allegations and fabrications contained in the Israeli representative’s letter of 8 July 2002 (A/56/1001-S/2002/743), and a number of other preceding letters containing similar allegations, I have the honour to bring the following to your attention:

Contrary to the allegations levelled in the said letters, the Islamic Republic of Iran provides only humanitarian, political and moral support to those who have mounted legitimate and internationally recognized resistance to the occupation of their land by the Israeli regime.

Israeli operatives have clearly speeded up the circulation of a succession of rumours and unrestrained official fantasies in the months that followed the terrorist acts of 11 September 2001, cynically trying to benefit from the tragedy that befell the American people. In the context of a political and media campaign here and there, they attempt to deceive as many hawkish elements as possible into taking on Iran, thus undermining moral support to those who resist their occupation of the Arab lands. Based on what the Israelis fantasize, one day Iran stations its Revolutionary Guards in Lebanon, another day it sets up and runs training camps in the Bekaa, then it deploys 10,000 Katyusha rockets on Lebanese territory and so on and so forth!

The Israeli propaganda ploy is part of a multi-pronged, ill-conceived strategy aimed at escaping mounting pressure from the resistance against the occupation and world public opinion. However, throughout history, no occupying Power could ever rest and shield itself from the rage of those under its occupation. And, undoubtedly, the Israeli regime is no exception to this general and age-tested rule. Therefore, no amount of mud-slinging can in any way blur the very reality that the Israeli regime feeds on what it has forcefully snatched from others and struggles in vain to hold on to what it illegally and illegitimately grasped.

As to the nature of those who level such irresponsible allegations against my country, suffice it to recall the latest major war crime of the Israeli regime, when it deliberately targeted innocent civilians in a pre-dawn aerial raid on 23 July, firing a one-ton bomb from a F-16 jet fighter into a tightly packed residential neighbourhood in Gaza.

I should be grateful if you would have the present letter circulated as a document of the General Assembly, under agenda item 42, and of the Security Council.