Why Iran supports Palestine

A front-page headline in Tuesday’s New York Times claims that Iran is smuggling weapons to the occupied West Bank in an effort “to turn the West Bank into a flashpoint in its shadow war with Israel.”

This hostile framing of a story based on anonymous sources and quoting at least one Israel lobby source is in a long tradition of painting Iran as a purely nefarious actor.

Palestinians, exercising their right to resist, are erased from the equation and thought of at most as pawns or proxies, rather than actors with a cause in their own right. It’s a convenient – and false – framing that paints the United States, Israel and Washington’s other client regimes as good guys, merely defending themselves against mischief and aggression.

It’s so disgusting how they erase Palestinians from the equation. Palestinians have an absolute right to resist the genocidal occupier which is armed by Western, particularly American and German savagery, to commit the must barbaric crimes. pic.twitter.com/Nlo2MhREQR
— Ali Abunimah (@AliAbunimah) April 9, 2024

This comes just over a week after Israel, amid its genocide in Gaza, carried out a brazen attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, an assault on international law and norms that even the European Union, one of Israel’s staunchest backers, felt compelled to condemn it.

The bombing killed several people, including two senior generals of Iran’s Quds Force which advises and assists resistance groups in the region.

In spite of the cartoonish portrayal of Iran in pro-Washington organs such as The New York Times – a portrayal that scholar Edward Said dissected in the immediate aftermath of the Islamic Revolution four decades ago – Iran is a complex country with a foreign policy rooted in its history and alliances that are based on a specific worldview that includes anti-colonialism as a key component.

There are few people who can offer a more insightful analysis of Iran’s policies and outlook than Mohammad Marandi, a professor of English literature and Orientalism at the University of Tehran.

Professor Marandi joined Ali Abunimah on The Electronic Intifada Podcast for an extended discussion of recent developments in Palestine and the broader strategic situation in the region as what has come to be known as the axis of resistance – comprising Iran and allies in Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iraq – consolidate their front against US-backed Israeli aggression.

Watch the video above or listen via SoundCloud below.

Video production by Tamara Nassar Subscribe to The Electronic Intifada Podcast on Apple Podcasts (search for The Electronic Intifada) and on Spotify. Support our podcast by rating us, sharing and leaving a review. You can also donate to fund our work.