Al-Jazeera Net-Tehran
While Iranian officials celebrated the enactment of a law requiring their government to open a "virtual embassy" for their country in occupied Jerusalem, the Iranian parliament repealed a legal article ending the ban on Iranian athletes facing their Israeli counterparts in international competitions.
While Iranian officials considered that the announcement of the opening step of the "virtual embassy" is a response to the "American intransigence" by recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, they reduced a move that coincided with the legislation of this law and decided to end the ban on Iranian confrontations with Israelis in international championships.
Days before the "Jerusalem Day" - which Iran salutes on the last Friday of Ramadan - the Iranian parliament unanimously approved last Monday a draft resolution "Facing the hostile measures of the Zionist entity," and obligated Tehran to open a virtual embassy or consulate within six months in Jerusalem, as An eternal capital of Palestine.
The virtual embassy is a website on the World Wide Web that will be supported by an administrative and diplomatic staff that works through several accounts on social media pages, and takes the task of providing consular services to the Palestinians on its shoulders, according to the official Iranian media.
The draft resolution contains 16 articles, all of which emphasize confronting Israeli measures that Tehran deems hostile and constitute a threat to their national security, the Palestinian people and other Islamic countries, and shake peace at the regional and international levels.
Under the draft resolution, Iranian institutions are charged with prohibiting all economic, commercial, financial and credit activities with any company that is linked to Israel, while intelligence cooperation with the enemy is by virtue of "fighting and spoiling on the ground and the most severe penalties for violators must be imposed."
An embassy in Jerusalem
For his part, Secretary of the Political Committee of the Society for the Defense of the Palestinian People, Ahmed Ridha Ruhullah Zad, considered that the decision to open an Iranian virtual embassy in Jerusalem comes in response to the intransigence of the American administration to move its embassy to Jerusalem and announce the deal of the century.
In a statement to Al-Hazira Net, the spirit of God Zad stresses the necessity of preserving the Palestinian identity of Al-Quds Al-Sharif as the eternal capital of Palestine, stressing that focusing the Iranian draft resolution on Jerusalem is a necessary step to thwart the Zionist-American plans to eliminate the Palestinian cause and Judaize the city in its entirety.
He says that there are restrictions imposed on Palestinians inside and outside the diaspora regarding communication with Iran, and that the virtual embassy comes to overcome all these obstacles in order to achieve the rights of the Palestinians, especially since the laws of some countries do not do justice to the Palestinian refugees, he said.
He revealed the defense of the Palestinian people’s proposal to establish an Iranian embassy in Palestine, but on the land of one of the friendly countries hosting a large number of Palestinian refugees, and expressed his conviction that the virtual Iranian embassy will one day turn into a real embassy that will construct its buildings in Al-Quds Al-Sharif.
Implications of decision
And the new Iranian decision is nothing but an episode of the measures that Tehran began more than four decades ago in support of the Palestinian cause, according to political researcher Mahdi Azizi, who considers that "the Iranian revolution adopted the Palestinian cause as its first issue even before its victory on the basis of its ideological principles."
In his statement to Al-Jazeera Net, Azizi points out that what is new in the draft resolution is the obligation of all Iranian institutions to implement it, stressing that converting the country's road map into a law falls within the framework of its public and unlimited support for the Palestinian cause announced by the Iranian guide, Ali Khamenei, in 2006.
He adds that the Iranian parliament’s approval of the draft resolution unanimously indicates that all political groups in Iran are united on the Palestinian issue, stressing that adopting this decision on the eve of the International Day of Jerusalem will refute all allegations of Tehran's retreat from its principles due to US sanctions and pressure.
He says, "Contrary to what some people are saying that Iran did not fire a single bullet towards the Israeli entity, the fingerprint of Iran was and still is behind many operations against the Israeli occupation, and that Zionist anger over Iran's policies is the best proof of that."
Iran and Israel athletes
For his part, member of the National Security and Foreign Policy Committee of the Iranian parliament, Mohammad Javad Jamali Nobendakani, revealed the deletion of Article 11, which stipulates the prohibition of competition with Israeli athletes from the draft.
He attributed - in a press statement - the reason for this, that his country does not want to give an excuse to the Israeli entity and its agents in international federations that would suspend Iranian sports entirely, stressing that deleting the article does not mean retreat or normalization at all.
Last year, the International Judo Federation suspended Iran's membership, against the accusation of Iranian athlete Said Moulay, the country's authorities, of pressuring him to withdraw from a match with an Israeli athlete.
And whether the new law means, in practice, the abolition of the current Iranian ban on confronting Israeli athletes, Iranian political researcher Mahdi Azizi said that there is no change in the Islamic Republic's approach to the Zionist enemy, and that all it means to delete Article 11 is to withdraw the pretext from the global federations that can stick To freeze Iranian sports.
Meanwhile, Hossein Naqvi Hosseini, spokesman for the National Security and Foreign Policy Committee of the Iranian parliament, revealed in a press statement about talks between Iranian Ministry of Sports officials and parliamentarians to delete the article for its negative repercussions on the Iranian sports federations in global circles.
As for the head of the National Security and Foreign Policy Committee in the Iranian parliament, Mojtaba Zalouri, he played down the importance of deleting the article, considering that its presence in the draft resolution is an achievement obtained only, explaining that Iranian athletes have refused during the past four decades to confront Israeli athletes because of the lack of recognition of this entity.
On the other hand, member of the Sports Committee in the Iranian Parliament criticized MP Mohammad Azizi, his colleagues, for deleting the article from the draft resolution, stressing that dogmatic issues in the Islamic Republic are presented to sport, and that he does not see a problem in suspending Iranian sports as a tax to support the Palestinian cause.