Iran Urges Palestinian Terrorism Against U.S.

Iranian Parliament Speaker Hashemi Rafsanjani said today that Palestinians should kill Americans and other Westerners in retaliation for attacks by the Israeli military in the occupied territories.

“If in retaliation for every Palestinian martyred in Palestine, they will kill and execute, not inside Palestine, five Americans or Britons or Frenchmen, they (Israelis) could not continue these wrongs,” Rafsanjani was quoted as saying by the official Islamic Republic News Agency, monitored in Nicosia.

“It is not hard to kill Americans or Frenchmen. It is a bit difficult to kill (Israelis). But there are so many (Americans and French) everywhere in the world,” he said.

480 Deaths

At least 460 Palestinians and 20 Israelis have died in the 17-month-old Palestinian uprising against Israeli in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which Israel seized from Jordan and Egypt in the 1967 Middle East war.

IRNA said Rafsanjani spoke at a prayer sermon today in Tehran before huge rallies to mark an Iranian holiday in support of the Palestinian cause.

IRNA said Rafsanjani also encouraged Palestinians to hijack planes to force Israel to release prisoners and to blow up factories in Western countries.

Rafsanjani criticized PLO leader Yasser Arafat for renouncing terrorism and recognizing Israel’s right to exist.

He also brushed aside Western reaction to his support for violence.

“Now they will start saying that so and so, as a man in charge, and as the speaker of Parliament has officially called for acts of terror. . . . But let them say it. . . . Aren’t they saying it now?