When Iran Says 'Death to Israel,' It Means It

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

52% : One specific example Khamenei gave was the evolution of Palestinian long-range strike capabilities, an evolution that many analysts believe Tehran to be responsible for.
51% : The leader most responsible for the ascendance of these views in Iran today is none other than the Islamic Republic's founder, Ayatollah Khomeini.
50% : Under sanctions pressure, Khamenei authorized Iranian diplomats to negotiate directly with America in 2013 by saying Iran needed to show "heroic flexibility" against an adversary.
49% : Clearly, it has helped Tehran compete for (and in more recent times, against) Sunni Muslim and Arab hearts and minds by claiming the mantle of champion of the Palestinian cause.
49% : Khomeini cut his teeth in opposition to Israel well before the 1979 revolution, just as much as in opposition to the U.S. and to the U.S.-supported shah of Iran.
48% : Driving the point home about liberating Jerusalem, Iran marks Quds Day, a holiday created in the late '80s by Khomeini to cement his regime's anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian bona fides.
47% : Some Iranian media outlets have even taken to calling the country's medium-range ballistic missiles -- all of which surpass known weight/range thresholds to be classified as strategic or nuclear-capable platforms -- "Israel-hitting missiles" referring to the upper range of these projectiles, which is about the distance between Iran and Israel.
47% : While it may be lost on some observers that the Islamic Republic believes it is charged with helping bring about Israel's end, it is not lost on those in positions of authority in Iran, such as Major General Hossein Salami, who serves as commander of the IRGC.
47% : Arming the axis allows Iran to target actors indirectly and without suffering consequences.
45% : After all, Khomeini himself was hostile to the concept of nationalism as popularly defined, and said that "nationalist people are of no need to us; Muslim people are."
44% : The quote contained no conditionality, and in Khomeini's original statement, it was used to draw a sharp contrast between the policy of the new revolutionary government in Iran toward Israel and those of Muslim nations who sought normalization with the Jewish state.
42% : In so doing, Persian and Shiite Iran has been able to punch above its weight against the established order in the Middle East.
42% : But just because Iran has been patient and works through proxies in its quest to bring about the end of the Jewish state does not mean its intentions are any less genocidal.
40% : Despite the sheer volume of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic statements emanating from the country's two supreme leaders in the 43 years since the Islamic revolution in Iran, the notion that Tehran's Islamist rulers seek the destruction of Israel has often been caveated, belittled, or politically recast.
39% : While the axis threatens maritime navigation, launches projectiles at civilian centers, and baits and bleeds adversaries, the chief strategic dividends it offers Tehran are insulation from blowback and the masking of Iranian involvement so as to ensure that the regime can live to fight another day.
34% : For their part, the Iranian people are protesting and bringing the regime's anti-Israel and revolutionary foreign policy into their crosshairs, chanting "No to Gaza, no to Lebanon, I sacrifice my life for Iran"; "Palestine, Syria, make us miserable"; and "Forget Syria; think about us."

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