By Stan Goodenough
Oct 03, 2008
Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamanei declared Wednesday that Israel is on to road towards "weakness, destruction and defeat" and vowed that his country would continue to stand behind the Hamas movement whose goal is the violent dismemberment of the Jewish state.
Khamanei, who is the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic, said it was "definite [that] the world of Islam will see that day and [I] hope the existing generation of the Palestinian people will watch the day" when Israel is eradicated.
Islam teaches its adherents that the entire Land of Israel will ultimately be restored to Muslim control, and that it is the duty of every good Muslim to help bring this about through jihad (holy war).
Like Iran's megalomanic president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Khamenei has predicted Israel's downfall and has repeatedly referred to the country as a "cancerous tumor" that needs to be excised from the Middle East.