The destruction of Israel "is no longer just a dream, but a goal that is within reach", said today the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, General Hossein Salami.
Salami stated that Iran and the Revolutionary Guard, 40 years after the Islamic Revolution, "reached the capacity to destroy the Zionist regime."
"In the second phase of the revolution, that sinister regime should be eliminated from the map, and that is no longer an ideal or a dream, but a goal within reach," said the Iranian general.
He made the speech in Tehran on the occasion of the biennial gathering of Revolutionary Guard commanders, at a time when many observers fear that escalating tensions between Tehran on the one hand and the US and its allies on the other could push the Middle East into war.
General Salami's statements were also reported by Tasnim and Fars agencies, which are close to the ultra-conservative current in Iran.
The state agency IRNA also reported on this, but in an article titled "Enemies suffer irreversible weakening".
Irna emphasized Salami's statements that despite the "hostility" shown to him, Iran will continue to strengthen and ultimately triumph over its opponents.
Hostility toward Israel has been a constant in Iranian politics since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and Tehran openly supports Palestinian armed groups, such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, as well as Lebanon's Hezbollah.
Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in June of last year repeated Tehran's old position that Israel is a "malignant tumor" of the Middle East that should be "removed and destroyed."
Although some Iranian generals often express the desire to destroy Israel and emphasize the capacity to destroy Tel Aviv, official statements have been cautiously predicting for several years that Israel will cease to exist because of its own "arrogance" and not because of an Iranian attack.
Ayatollah Khamenei predicted that the Jewish state will disappear in 2040.
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