http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=2426
It is the last Friday of Ramadan, when Islamists across the globe will participate in al-Quds (Jerusalem) Day marches against Israel. The annual tradition was established in 1979 by the late Ayatollah Khomeini, the first Supreme Leader of the newly-formed Islamic Republic of Iran.
Though ostensibly a show of solidarity with the Palestinians, it was actually created as a mass expression of anti-Zionism — something that could unite otherwise heterogeneous groups under a consensual banner.
“For many years, I have been notifying the Muslims of the danger posed by the usurper Israel,” Khomeini declared. ”… I ask all the Muslims of the world and the Muslim governments to join together to sever the hand of this usurper and its supporters … I ask God Almighty for the victory of the Muslims over the infidels.”
This was not an indication of the ayatollah’s sympathy with the Palestinian cause. Khomeini cared as little for the Palestinians as a national entity as he did for Iran as one. In fact, on his flight back to Iran after 14 years of exile, he was asked by reporter Peter Jennings how he felt about it. “I feel nothing,” Khomeini said, indicating that it was the Islamic caliphate he cared about, not some country from which he happened to hail.
He also exhibited contempt for PLO chief Yasser Arafat, by not allowing him to act as an intermediary during the American Embassy takeover by radical Muslim students, among them a 23-year-old named Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Trying to show U.S. President Jimmy Carter that he had clout with the mullahs in the Islamic republic, Arafat offered to “intervene” to negotiate the release of the hostages. Carter was hopeful; Khomeini laughed in both their faces.