“The deal is a strategic mistake, a historical folly and a poisonous dagger in the body of the Islamic [world],” said a statement from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
By Ebin Sandler, World Israel News
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) released a statement on Saturday condemning Israel’s agreement with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) establishing official diplomatic relations between the two countries.
“The deal is a strategic mistake, a historical folly and a poisonous dagger in the body of the Islamic Ummah,” the IRGC statement said, which was quoted by Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency.
“The measure will not meet the Zionist regime’s interests. [It] will instead annihilate the dream of a new Middle East and will put a dangerous future before the U.S. and supporters of the deal,” it added.
Iran is sworn to Israel’s destruction and supports multiple terror proxies in the region, including Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria, that actively pursue the Islamic Republic’s goal.
The UAE is the first Gulf Arab state to establish official relations with Israel and the third Arab nation to do so in total. A component of the U.S.-brokered deal is Israel’s agreement to delay extending sovereignty over Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.
While Iranian President Hassan Rouhani also blasted the UAE over the deal, less than 100 people protested it near the Emirates’ embassy in Tehran on Saturday evening, The Associated Press reported.
The demonstrators hollered “death to Israel” and “death to America” and set an Israeli flag on fire, the AP added.
The Fars report added that the Iranian foreign ministry referred to the deal as a “dagger which stabbed both the Palestinian nation and the Muslim peoples in the back,” claiming it “will backfire and further strengthen the resistance axis by enhancing unity and solidarity against the Zionist regime and the backward governments in the region.”
“Critics see the deal as the latest attempt by Trump to save his presidential campaign against the Democrat Joe Biden,” added the Fars.