Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on Wednesday urged the Palestinians to resist the U.S. President Donald Trump's Middle East peace plan "through Jihad," and the Islamic State sees sponsoring the armed groups as "its duty."
Trump unveiled the long-awaited proposal along Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last Tuesday in Washington. The plan would allow Israel to annex all its existing West Bank settlements as well as the Jordan Valley. In return, the Palestinians would be granted statehood in Gaza, chunks of the West Bank and several neighborhoods on the outskirts of Jerusalem, all linked together by a new network of roads, bridges and tunnels.
"They [Israel and U.S.] will try to further their plot with bribes, weapons & enticements. What's the remedy? It is bold resistance by the Palestinian nation and groups in order to force out the Zionist enemy and the U.S. through Jihad," Khamenei said in a speech carried on his website and later published on his Twitter account. "All Muslim nations & the world of Islam must support them too."
The supreme leader said Iran will support the resistance not only in Palestine but in the whole of western Asia, which will "encompass a vast area and grow daily."
"We believe that Palestinian armed organizations will stand and continue resistance and the Islamic Republic sees supporting Palestinian groups as its duty," Khamenei said in a speech carried on his website and later published on his Twitter account. "So, it will support them however it can and as much as it can, and this support is the desire of the Islamic system and the Iranian nation."
In a lengthy rant, Khamenei also said the peace proposal, which he labeled "stupid," will "die before Trump dies."
He also offered an alternative, Iranian, peace proposal. "Conduct a poll of all Palestinians in the world, including Muslims, Christians and Jews - not immigrants who settled in the occupied lands - to choose a government," he said.
"I hope your young people will witness the liberation of Palestine, and you will see a day, God willing, when you will pray in al-Quds."