TEHRAN (Iran News) – For years people in the world have been facing with the term of sponsored-terrorism and every government or politician has its or his definition for this phenomenon and term but one can definitely term Israel as the leader of state-sponsored terrorism in the world.
According to Wikipedia, the standard definition for state-sponsored terrorism is “the terrorist violence carried out with the active support of national governments provided to violent non-state actors. States can sponsor terrorist groups in several ways, including but not limited to funding terrorist organizations, providing training, supplying weapons, providing other logistical and intelligence assistance, and hosting groups within their borders. Because of the pejorative nature of the word, the identification of particular examples are often subject to political dispute and different definitions of terrorism.”
During the 1970s and 1980s, state sponsorship of terrorism was a frequent feature of international conflict. From that time to the 2010s there was a steady pattern of decline in the prevalence and magnitude of state support. Nevertheless, because of the increasing consequent level of violence that it could potentially facilitate, it remains an issue of highly salient international concern.
The U.S. Government, which has repeatedly engaged in sponsorship of terrorism as a feature of its foreign policy, provides its own definition in the U.S. State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism. Of course other Western states and big powers have also their own definitions and above all Israel which commits state-sponsored terrorism but tries to justify it or change the definition of this terminology.
The State of Israel has been accused of being a state-sponsor of terrorism,[61] and also committing acts of state terrorism. We have seen many examples of this kind of terrorist acts from the Zionist regime especially when it comes to the Islamic Revolution, Lebanon or Palestine.
Recently an American professor of international law and former UN special rapporteur said the Israeli assassination of a member of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) last month was a clear violation of international law, noting that Israeli is guilty of “state-sponsored terrorism.”
In a terrorist attack in Tehran on May 22, Colonel Hassan Sayyad Khodaei was assassinated by two motorcyclists who shot him five times before fleeing the scene.
Khodaei was dismounting his car to enter his home in an eastern neighborhood of the Iranian capital when three bullets hit him in the head and two bullets in the hand.
“The assassination of Sayyad Khodaei … seems a clear violation of the right to life, defined in international law by Article 6(1) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,” Richard Falk, a former special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, said in an interview with Press TV.
“This fundamental provision of international human rights law affirms an ‘inherent right to life’ enjoyed by all persons and is given further specificity by asserting that ‘no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life,’” he said.
He suggested that Falk was arbitrarily deprived of his life “given what we know about his life and activities at the time of the assassination.”
The New York Times on May 25 cited an intelligence official as saying that Israel had informed American officials that it was behind the assassination.
“The targeted killing of Khodaei was unsupported by any Israeli presentation of evidence of his violent intentions or of engagement in extra-national violent plots as alleged by informal spokespersons for [Israel] in offering their rationalization for the assassination to the media and the US government,” Falk told Press TV.
“I believe a reasonable person would conclude that the assassination suggests that Israel is guilty of state-sponsored terrorism, which is a criminal behavior under international law.”
Given its timing, Falk said, the assassination was “intended either to prompt an Iranian act of proportional retaliation or strengthen the insistence of the Iranian negotiators in Vienna that the [Iran deal] cannot be restored without removing the [Islamic] Revolution Guards Corps from the US list of ‘terrorist organizations.’”
He noted that Iran has the right to strongly protest at the UN and call for a thorough international investigation of the assassination.
This is not the first time that a Western scholar accuses the Zionist regime of state terrorism and the Islamic Republic of Iran has been always the target of this type of terrorism through the sold-out enemies’ pawns in the country, mainly MKO terrorist group’s mercenaries, who perform terrorist acts in the country with the support of Israel and Western countries.
The strangest thing is that all international bodies are fully aware of the Zionists’ crimes and terrorist acts but they remain silent and passive and this emboldens them to continue their crimes.
The Islamic Republic of Iran has stepped up its security and defense against terrorist acts during decades of its existence and has minimized and foiled the terrorist acts but sometimes because of some sold-out mercenaries inside the country, Israelis can perform their vicious act but they should wait for due response by Iranian forces.
Iranians hate terrorist and coward acts and they prefer to retaliate in a manly and brave way rather than clandestine killing of the ordinary citizens but we recommend the Western states and international bodies to remain also silent and not to accuse Iran of violating law when Iranians take retaliatory actions against any hostile pro-terrorist country.
The slogan of the Islamic Republic of Iran has changed in recent years and it believes the era of hit-and-run has ended and terrorists cannot escape unpunished and they will receive their due punishment in due time.
