Iran-Based Pakistani Shi'ite Scholar Agha Ali Raza: Israel's Population Cannot Be Considered Civilians – They All Constitute Legitimate Targets; Israel Is Behind All Conflicts And Oppression In The World; Destroying Israel Will Save Humanity

Agha Ali Raza, a Pakistani Shi'ite scholar living in Qom, Iran, said in an April 15, 2023 interview with the Iranian English-language media outlet Islamic Pulse that fighting Israel constitutes fighting "for the sake of the soul of the entire humanity." He said that the entire population of Israel cannot be considered "civilians" according to Islam and the Geneva Conventions and therefore constitute "legitimate targets for the resistance" because they are "an occupying force." He said that Zionism is a "historical super-racist ideology" that makes Hitler, Fascism, and Nazis look like "babies," and he asserted that it is behind all the oppression and conflicts in the world. He also said that by focusing on Israel, Iran and its Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei are fighting for the rights of all oppressed people, including African Americans and Native Americans. He elaborated: "These are the tentacles of the same octopus." The interview was posted on Islamic Pulse's various social media accounts, including Islamic Pulse 4 on YouTube.

Agha Ali Raza: "In Israel, the entire population of the Zionist regime is criminal, and that is not only supported by religious logic, but also by the Geneva Convention. You see, what the Geneva Convention says, that if an entity occupies another land and brings in its civilians to populate that land, that occupied territory, then these civilians will be legitimate targets of the resistance.

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"Now, apparently, these people look like civilians, but they're not civilians..."

Interviewer: "Technically, they're not civilians..."

Raza: "They are an occupying force."

Interviewer: "They are coming to occupy land."

Raza: "Yes, if they had been forced to come here, if they had somehow been coerced, then maybe we could debate the topic.

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"Zionism is basically ethnocentric and egocentric Judaism, which is in complete contrast to actual Judaism..."

Interviewer: "The pure Judaism."

Raza: "The pure Judaism.

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"We are talking about a cabal within the Jewish nation, which kind of covertly infiltrated into the Jewish nation, and they had no belief in God or in the divine values of the Old and New Testaments or in any of the Scripture. These were people who created obstacles for the Prophet Moses himself and for the other prophets.

"These are the people who used to oppress and persecute the prophets. These are the people who always had the ideology of: 'We are the Chosen Nation, and even God cannot do anything against us, we are superior' – extremely supremacist... Like Hitler... Let me say this...

"Hitler, Fascism, and the Nazi regime were kind of completely... They are babies in front of this kind of historical super-racist ideology.

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"And if you look at the crimes perpetrated in other places in the world, and you reverse engineer the blame – I am talking about genuine crimes that are happening in different areas of the world – if you reverse engineer the blame, if you reverse engineer the fault behind this entire conflict, you again reach the Zionist establishment.

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"These are tentacles of the same octopus."

Interviewer: "The satanic project, as..."

Raza: "The satanic project, exactly.

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"So if the Islamic Republic and the Islamic Revolution, under the leadership of Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei, focus on a geopolitical level on Palestine, they are in fact, indirectly, preserving, protecting, and fighting for the rights of all these flashpoints throughout history. They are fighting for the rights of the African American people, even though the African American people might not realize this. They are fighting for the rights of the native indigenous American people, even though these people might not realize this. They are fighting for the rights of the indigenous people in Canada, in Australia, and in South America, even though these people – because of the media censorship we have internationally – the don't realize this. Fighting Israel is fighting for the sake of the soul of the entire humanity.

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"For example, in The Lord of the Rings, if that central Tower [of Sauron] is destroyed, then that entire network of evil will fade away. That is the position that Israel has within the global Zionist project of oppression, exploitation, and of destroying nations and their identities."