“An intensification of the Israeli military threats against Iran seems to suggest that the Zionist regime has forgotten that Iran is more than capable of hitting them from anywhere,” a Tehran Times front-page editorial screamed Tuesday night, alongside the map of Israel that’s covered with red targets representing Iranian hits.
The Tehran Times (TT) graphic designers realized belatedly that their map suggested hits against targets in the Palestinian Authority and the Gaza Strip, so they added another map showing that only the Jewish Gaza Envelop communities would be targeted. But the map clearly shows Jenin and Nablus (Shechem) as slated to go down with the Zionists. At least the Iranians believe in Greater Israel, which is more than we can say for some of the ministers in the current Israeli government.
The article was a response to a Washington Post exclusive report that an Israeli attack on June 8 this year wiped out Syria’s underground chemical plant near Homs and Damascus (Report: Israel Hit Secret Syrian Chemical Weapons Labs & Facilities), which Yedioth Ahronot and many other Israeli news outlets described as “a direct message” to Iran: Israel can destroy your underground atomic plants.
The TT quoted Major General Mohammad Bagheri, Chief of Staff of Iran’s military, who said on Tuesday that “despite our confidence in the deterrence situation of the country, our forces have never underestimated the threat of the enemy and are prepared for the smallest of threats in the strategic field,” and added that “at the strategic level, we do not intend to strike anyone, but at the operational and tactical level we are ready for a decisive response and a quick and tough offensive against the enemy.”
Bagheri said Iran’s enemies are aware of the Iranian missile strike on the US airbase in western Iraq and the downing of a US strategic drone with indigenous systems, suggesting these operations should be “especially instructive for the adventurous enemies.”
The TT also referred to the announcement of a large-scale simulated attack on Iran scheduled for the spring in collaboration with the US military, as well as the fact that concurrent with a conversation between Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and the new German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, “Germany has taken a tougher stance against Iran.”
The article then warns: “The Tehran Times doesn’t need to remind the illegitimate regime of Israel of Iran’s defense capabilities. Yet, they need to remember something.” And that something is, apparently, a statement by Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei from 2013, in which he said: “Sometimes the leaders of the Zionist regime even threaten us; they are threatening to strike militarily, but I think they know it, and if they do not know it, they must know that if they make a mistake, the Islamic Republic will destroy Tel Aviv and Haifa.”
And this strange article ends with a statement that’s both a warning and a desperate plea: “Keep your hands off!”