Ayatollah Khamenei. Photo: wiki commons.

Israeli think tank, the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, published a report on Sunday that extensively details Iran’s threats to destroy Israel.

In the report, the author, Lt. Col. (ret.) Michael Segall, calls Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei the “chief agitator for the extermination of Israel.” He says this position is a continuation of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s “founding vision” that “the eradication of Zionism is an inevitable precondition for redeeming contemporary Islam.”

According to the report, this fight to destroy the Jewish state has been an axiomatic directive of the Islamic Republic of Iran from the founding of the theocracy in 1979, which could never be “questioned or strayed from,” and was an “objective to be perpetually and actively pursued.”

Segall asserts that this enmity has filtered down through the ranks of the Tehran regime’s military, intellectual and political leadership, and is a centerpiece of touted moderate President Hassan Rouhani’s foreign policy just as much as it was for infamous former President Mahmoud Ahamdinejad.

The Iranian armed forces, Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the IRGC’s Quds Force have declared their readiness to attempt to destroy Israel once the order is given, says Segall, and have thrown their weight behind international anti-Israel activities, terrorist attacks, and even conferences that deny the occurrence of the Holocaust.

This hostility towards Israel, he asserts, allows Iran to fulfill two main aspects of Khomeini’s ideology: exporting the worldview of the ruling mullahs by posing as a champion of the Palestinian cause, expanding its regional influence in the process, and ultimately gaining enough power to pose a significant threat to Israel.

Therefore, Segall concludes, Iran keeps fanning the flames of anti-Israel hatred through supplying terrorist organizations and organizing rallies like the International Quds Day rallies calling for Israel’s destruction.