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I doubt you will see this story on the front page of the Huffington Post.

A senior Iranian official admitted for the first time Friday that Tehran did indeed supply long-range Zelzal-2 missiles to Hezbollah.

Mohtashami Pur, a one-time ambassador to Lebanon who currently holds the title of secretary-general of the “Intifada conference,” told an Iranian newspaper that Iran transferred the missiles to the Shi’ite militia, adding that the organization has his country’s blessing to use the weapons in defense of Lebanon. - Haaretz.com

This statement by the Iranian official is deceptive because it appears to convey the notion that the arming of Hezbollah by Iran as a recent event. Unfortunately that characterization is a lie unless it is preceded with “we continue to supply Hezbollah“. The fact of the matter is that Iran has been doing this for years and today’s news story should be old news; but it is not. The admission contradicts previous Iranian denials as demonstrated below so there should be no question as to who the liar is in these matters.

The 2002 November - December edition of the Middle East Intelligence Bulletin covered this story in depth with citations to MSM outlets such as the New York Times, the Washington Post and the London Sunday Times. The string pullers in the MSM are well aware of Iran’s involvement in arming Hezbollah yet they continue to join the far left in portraying Israel as the one who should be condemned.

Note that Israeli leaders have been complaining of this all along while the inept leaders at the U.N. essentially turned a blind anti-Semitic eye to the escalating threat.

In the two and a half years since Israel withdrew from south Lebanon, it has fortified outposts to resist mortar attacks, built an electrified fence along the border, installed surveillance cameras and heat sensors to detect infiltration attempts, and employed reconnaissance drones to closely monitor enemy activity on the other side for signs of impending attacks. It remains defenseless, however, against the militant Shi’ite Hezbollah movement’s growing arsenal of up to 10,000 short and long-range rockets, including hundreds capable of striking into the civilian and industrial heartland of the Jewish state.

Israeli officials have been complaining about massive Iranian airlifts to Hezbollah since March 2001, when Prime Minister Ariel Sharon warned that Iran, “in full cooperation with Syria,” was providing Hezbollah with large numbers of rockets capable of hitting “the center of the country.” By late January 2002, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres was declaring before the Knesset that Iranian airlifts had expanded Hezbollah’s arsenal to 10,000 “missiles” (this frequently-used term is technically incorrect, as even the long-range rockets lack in-flight guidance systems).

Although Tehran issued repeated denials and Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah carefully avoided confirming the airlift, other Hezbollah officials were less reserved. In May 2001, a member of the group’s political bureau, Nawaf Moussawi, declared during a rally that “2.5 million Israelis are now in range of our missiles,” a boast which appeared to confirm Sharon’s claim. A February 2002 report by the Christian Science Monitor quoted a “well-connected . . . Hezbollah insider” as saying that “truckload after truckload” of military equipment had been arriving in the border district since the Israeli withdrawal in May 2000. - Hezbollah’s Strategic Rocket Arsenal, November - December 2002 edition of the Middle East Intelligence Bulletin

The MSM has been simultaneously covering and ignoring these facts as far back as 2002. Yet it takes publications like the Jerusalem Post and Haaertz.com to remind people of this information because the MSM has selective memory when it comes setting Israel up for condemnation.

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Others Bloggin on this Story:

Blue Crab Boulevard : Iran Admits Supplying Missiles

Captains Quarters: Iran Defies … Well, Everyone

FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog: Israel at War Watch: Iran Admits Supplying Long-Range Missiles to Hezbollah

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