‘You stand on right side of history’: Snippets from Leader’s letter to US students

By Press TV Website Staff

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has written a letter addressed to students in US universities who have been protesting against the Israeli-American genocidal war.

These on-campus protests calling for divestment of US universities from the Israeli regime and companies affiliated with it have continued despite indiscriminate and unwarranted force used by the US authorities at the behest of many pro-Israel lobby groups in the United States.

Hundreds of students and professors have been suspended or fired for taking part in these popular demonstrations but they have refused to be cowed down or bullied into submission.

Leader’s letter, timely and significant, comes at a time when the Israeli genocidal war has claimed more than 36,100 Palestinian lives, most of them children and women.

In recent days, the occupying regime has carried out a series of massacres in the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, drawing anger and outrage worldwide and fuelling anti-Israel protests.

Here are the key snippets from the letter released early on Thursday, which addresses students in the US “whose awakened conscience has moved them to defend the oppressed women and children of Gaza”:

1. This message is an expression of our empathy and solidarity with you (students in American universities). As the page of history is turning, you are standing on the right side of it.
2. You (students) have now formed a branch of the Resistance Front and have begun an honorable struggle in the face of your (US) government’s ruthless pressure.
3. The greater Resistance Front, which shares the same understandingand feelings as you today, has been engaged in the same struggle for many years in a place far from you.
4. The goal of this struggle is to put an end to the blatant oppression that the brutal Zionist terrorist network has inflicted on the Palestinian nation for many years.
5. The apartheid Zionist regime’s genocide today is the continuation of extremely oppressive behavior(of the regime) that has been going on for decades.
6. Palestine is an independent land with a long history.It is a nation comprised of Muslims, Christians and Jews.
7. After the World Wars, the capitalist Zionist network imported several thousand terrorists into this land with the help of the British government. They attacked cities and villages, murdered tens of thousands of people and expelled multitudes of Palestinians. They seized their homes, businesses and farmlands, and formed a regime and called it Israel.
8. After Britain, the United States became the greatest supporter of this occupying(Zionist) regime, providing it with political, economic and military support.
9. The Zionist regime used an iron-fist policy against the defenseless people of Palestine from the very beginning and has ever since intensified its brutality, terror and repression in complete disregard of all moral, human and religious values.
10. The Resistance Front emerged from this dark environment of despair, and the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran expanded and fortified this front.
11. The global Zionist elites – who own most US and European media corporations or influence them through funding and bribery – have labeled this courageous, humane resistance movement (against the Israeli occupation) as “terrorism”.
12. The global hegemonic powers distort even the most basic human concepts. They portray theterrorist Israeli regime as “acting in self-defense”whilelabeling the Palestinian resistance that defends its freedom, security and the right to self-determination as “terrorists”.
13. The situation is changing today. A different fate awaits West Asia. People’s conscience has awakened on a global scale and the truth is coming to light.
14. The Resistance Front has grown in strength and will become even stronger.And history is turning a page.
15. The support and solidarity of your (students) professors is a significant and consequential development. This can offer some measure of comfort in the face of your (US) government’s police brutality and the pressures it is exerting on you.
16. I (Leader of the Islamic Revolution) too am among those who empathize with you, the young people, and value your perseverance.
17. The Resistance Front advances by a comprehensive understanding and the practice of these and hundreds of other such commands – and will attain victory with the permission of God.
18. My (Leader) advice to you is to become familiar with the (teachings of)Holy Quran.