Khamenei in 2009
Khamenei in 2009Reuters

Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei at @kahamenei_ir tweeted a “9 Questions About Elimination of Israel” infographic Sunday, explaining “Why should and how can #Israel be eliminated?”

The graphic explains Iran’s conflict with Israel isn’t over the "West Bank" (Judea and Samaria). According to Khamenei, “During 66 years of life so far, the fake Zionist regime” has committed “infanticide, homicide, violence & iron fist while boasts about it blatantly.” And, he adds, “The only means of confronting a regime which commits crimes beyond one’s thought and imagination is resolute and armed conflict.”

And yet, Khamenei says that “of course, the elimination of Israel does not mean the massacre of Jewish people in the region.”

Ultimately, he says, Israel's fate should be decided by a referendum among the Palestinians, including descendants of refugees. “Naturally,” Jews who emigrated into “Palestine” will not be allowed to participate. The referendum will decide if the “non-Palestinian emigrants” may remain or if they must return to their “home countries.”

Khamenei’s graphic closely follows and explains his other tweeted a graphic which stated the “WEST BANK SHOULD BE ARMED JUST LIKE GAZA” under the hashtag “#ALASQSAUNDERATTACK.” The graphic showed what appear to be korans on the floor of what is presumably Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount. The graphic is dated “7:03am November 8” and also appears to have been actually produced by Ayatollah Khamenei because there is a “KHAMENEI.IR” in the lower left-hand corner of the graphic.

The full text of Khamenei’s tweet reads, “Do not assume that if Gaza did not posses missiles, the Zionist Regime would back down, no! Look at their crimes in the West Bank where there is no weaponry! WEST BANK SHOULD BE ARMED JUST LIKE GAZA. Friends of Palestine should do their best to arm People in West Bank. – AYATOLLAH KHAMENEI.”

The bottom of Khamenei’s latest graphic reads “The only means to confront the barbaric regime like #Israel is arming West Bank.”

It appears the logic behind the Khamenei graphic is that Israel only “backed down” from invading the Gaza Strip further in the summer because Gaza possessed missiles. Therefore, the Supreme Leader appears to reason that if the "West Bank" contained similar missiles Israel would “back down” from the “West Bank” as well.

Iran, with its billions of yearly oil revenue, has been the principal state actor in arming Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip. If Iran were successful in arming the “West Bank” with the short-range small Katyusha rockets similar to those Iran smuggled into the Gaza Strip, those Katyusha rockets with a range of 20km or 12mi would cover Israel’s entire densely populated Sharon Plain, also know as the coastal plain.

Israel’s coastal plain contains 70% of Israel’s population and 80% of her industrial base. Unlike the sparsely populated areas around the Gaza Strip, the densely populated Israel areas abutting the “West Bank” would make perfect targets for the relatively inaccurate Katyushas.

Also, Ben Gurion Airport is within easy range of “West Bank” Katyushas that also can carry anti-personnel ball-bearing warheads that would tear parked jumbo-jets to shreds. It should be remembered that US President Barack Obama halted all flights to Israel when Gaza’s rockets landed several kilometers away. Any “West Bank” rocket fire anywhere near Ben Gurion Airport similar to the Gaza short-range rocket fire would very likely bring all air traffic to a halt.

Katyushas can also carry both GB and VX nerve gases including Sarin, the poison gas Syria’s Bashar Assad is alleged to have used on Syrian civilians.

The Palestinians are filing a resolution in the United Nations Security Council this month aimed at forcing Israel to retreat to the “Green Line” or the 1949 Armistice Lines.

At also should be noted that the Ayatollah Khamenei is also the supreme authority over the development of Iran’s nuclear bomb. President Obama believes that the same Ayatollah Khamenei who tweeted the “Arm the West Bank” tweet, also issued a fatwa against building a nuclear bomb.

Last year President Obama said, "I do believe that there is a basis for a resolution [of the Iranian nuclear issue] (because) Iran's supreme leader [Ayatollah Khamenei] has issued a fatwa against the development of nuclear weapons."

Such a fatwa has never been published or tweeted by the Ayatollah Khamenei.