Iran blames US, Israel for anti-government protesters

Tehran attempts to link ongoing anti-regime protests to the Israeli and American governments, calling their support for the demonstrations “terrorism.”

By David Rosenberg, World Israel News

The Iranian government on Monday accused Israel and the United States of fueling the anti-regime protest movement in Iran, calling American and Israeli support for the protesters a form of “terrorism.”

In a statement to reporters during a weekly press conference in Tehran, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baqaei accused “the Zionist regime” and “hard line” American leaders of inciting violence in Iran.

“The Zionist regime is determined to exploit the slightest opportunity to sow division and undermine our national unity, and we must remain vigilant,” Baqaei said.

“Actions or statements by figures such as the Israeli prime minister or certain radical and hard-line US officials regarding Iran’s internal affairs amount, under international norms, to nothing more than incitement to violence, terrorism, and killing.”

“We are not going to trust or rely on the statements of officials from the Zionist regime,” Baqaei continued. “The regime’s pattern of deception is clear to us.”

Baqaei’s comments appeared to reference warnings by President Donald Trump to the Iranian government not to use deadly force against protesters.

“We are watching it very closely,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One Sunday night. “If they start killing people like they have in the past, I think they are going to get hit very hard by the United States.”

The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman also alluded to comments by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a day earlier, in which the premier suggested the new protests might mark the beginning of the end of the Iranian regime.

“It is very possible that we are standing at the moment when the Iranian people are taking their fate into their own hands,” Netanyahu said at the opening of the weekly government meeting on Sunday.