TEL AVIV – An Al Jazeera presenter who was hosting an Iranian diplomat on his show mocked Tehran for vowing to avenge the U.S. killing of a top IRGC general as well as its obsession in “liberating Jerusalem.”
On his popular show “Opposite Direction,” Faisal al-Qassem hosted Amir Mousawi, a journalist who has in the past served as Iran’s cultural attaché in Brussels, Sudan and Algeria, earlier this week.
Qassem questioned the Islamic Republic’s competence in seeking revenge over the assassination of the elite Quds force commander, Qassem Soleimani.
Qassem noted that the leader of Iranian proxy terror group, Hassan Nasrallah, similarly made statements that were nothing more than hot air after the 2008 death of Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyeh (allegedly by a joint Israel-US targeted killing in Damascus).
“What did Nasrallah do? He poured two buckets of water on Israel,” Qassem asked Mousawi, a staunch defender of Hezbollah.
Mousawi said that even if it takes a while, Iran’s response would come. By way of excuse over the delay, Mousawi explained that “the abilities of the resistance axis are not [equal to] those of the big devil and its collaborators” – referencing the US and Israel.
Qassem ridiculed Iran’s oft-repeated vow to liberate Jerusalem from Israel.
“You want to liberate Jerusalem, right? And what will you do with Jerusalem? Who will you join Jerusalem with?” he said.
Qassem went on to list the cities that Iran has entrenched itself in either directly or via proxies.
“Will you join Jerusalem, after its liberation, with Baghdad, which is characterized by the world — these are not my words — as the world’s dirtiest capital? Will you join it with Beirut, which has become the Middle East’s biggest dump? Will you join it with Damascus whose residents are starving? Will you join it with the Houthi [rebels in] Sanaa?”
“If you want to liberate Jerusalem for me, then I don’t want you to liberate it,” Qassem said.
“Yesterday I held a poll. No one wants you to free Jerusalem of Palestine for them,” he said, referencing a Twitter poll he conducted.
The poll asked: “Iran and its militias always employ the slogan — liberating Palestine. I wonder — do the Arabs want to replace the Israeli occupation with the Iranian occupation?”
Out of 3,455 respondents, 70.1 percent voted no while 29.9% voted yes.
Qassem has in the past praised Israel’s treatment of its prisoners as well as its army’s “great efforts to avoid shelling areas populated by civilians in Lebanon and Palestine,” The Times of Israel reported.
He came under fire last year for hosting IDF Arab media spokesman Avichay Adraee on his show.
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