A Muslim religious group in Iran has sparked outrage after endorsing a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, implicitly recognizing Israel’s right to exist.
The Assembly of Lecturers and Scholars in Qom, a reformist group of clerics, issued a statement calling for "the Zionist regime" to return to "the legal borders before the aggressions of 1967, and for the establishment of an independent Palestinian State."
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Israel captured the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem in the 1967 Six-Day War, territories the Palestinians seek for a future state.
Iran, which has historically called for Israel's destruction, did not attend a regional summit in Riyadh on the issue.
In August, Iran's deputy president, Mohammad Javad Zarif, reportedly remarked that Iranians were growing weary of a government that appeared "more Palestinian than the Palestinians themselves."
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also faced backlash in 2020 after he envisioned a future for Jerusalem with Palestinian and Hezbollah forces guarding the Al-Aqsa Mosque, alongside images of key figures like Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, slain IRGC commander Qassem Soleimani and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
The accompanying slogans read, "Palestine Will Be Free" and "The final solution—armed resistance until referendum."
Following the outrage sparked by the reformist clerics' endorsement of a two-state solution, the group issued a second statement, adding a condemnation of "the despicable crimes of the Zionist state," while standing by their call for the establishment of a Palestinian state to end ongoing violence and bloodshed.
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