Israel’s Anti-Iran Charges Aim to Cover Its Crimes

Iran's ambassador to the United Nations on Tuesday said the latest claims by the Israeli regime about Iran's alleged violation of the UN Security Council's resolutions are meant to "cover up their criminal policies".

In a recent letter to the UNSC, Israeli UN Ambassador Danny Danon accused Iran of using commercial airline flights to ship weapons to the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah and said it was in violation of UNSC resolutions.

Dehqani described the letter as "a typical Israeli attempt" to cover their "acts against the innocent Palestinians", IRNA reported. Describing the accusations as "unsubstantiated", Gholamhossein Dehqani wrote in a Tuesday letter to the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that they are leveled against Iran "without, as usual, a shred of evidence".

The Iranian envoy said these accusation are not, as they tried to seem, "important new information", but "old rehashed ones".

In the letter, which was reported by Reuters on Tuesday, Danon claims that "[The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps'] Qods Force officers pack arms and material into suitcases that are transferred to Hezbollah either by commercial flights to Beirut or commercial flights to Damascus in Syria, and then transferred by land to Lebanon".

"It is clear that Iran is still the primary supplier of arms and related material to Hezbollah, in blatant violation of numerous Security Council resolutions," Danon wrote. The Hezbollah movement was founded in 1982, following the Israeli invasion of that country that led to the occupation of the Lebanese capital Beirut.

In 2000, it managed to force withdrawal of Israeli troops from south Lebanon.

The group has been designated by the US and the (Persian) Gulf Cooperation Council as a terrorist entity. The European Union has identified the military wing of the movement as a terrorist group.

Dehqani said the claim of the violation by Iran of "numerous Security Council resolutions" amounts to "an innovative in-bulk leveling of accusations against a UN member state."

  Brazen Violator

"A regime that has brazenly flouted all UN General Assembly and Security Council resolutions about the lands it criminally occupies is not in a position to broach such a claim against other nations," Dehqani wrote. "It is absurd and hypocritical for the representative of a regime that has occupied the lands of other peoples for so many decades and denied every basic right of the Palestinian people, including their right to self-determination, to accuse occasionally my country of violating international law," he said.

Danon asked UNSC to "condemn Iran and Hezbollah for the violation of its resolutions".

As usual, he had no evidence to support his claim. Dehqani said it is unacceptable for the representative of a regime "that has for long been involved in terrorizing and indiscriminately targeting the Palestinian civilians, including women and children, in their own land and in terrorist targeted killings and assassinating individuals in many parts of the world, to accuse Iran of sponsoring terrorism".