Israeli Ambassador Blames ‘Octopus’ Iran for Gaza Fighting

Speaking again on the situation in the Gaza Strip Sallay Meridor, Israel’s Ambassador to the United States, declared that “what you see in Gaza is made by Iran – its funded by Iran, the terrorists are trained by Iran, it’s supplied by Iran, the know-how to create short range rockets is Iranian.” One can then glean from these comments that Israel sees Iran as an issue in it latest war.

But Ambassador Meridor didn’t stop there, explaining that “as an octopus, Iran has proxies in region and beyond the region.” He also repeated the oft-heard, rarely substantiated accusation that Iran was “moving towards nuclear weapons.” Interestingly, this was the second time since the war began that the ambassador pointed to Iran as an octopus, claiming before that they were the “center of an octopus that was determined to undermine democracy.”

Iran has vocally condemned the Israeli government for its recent Gaza offensive, but so far its direct involvement has been limited to providing a plane load of relief aid for Gaza’s population. All that may change however, as Iranian Brigadier-General Mir-Faisal Baqerzadeh proposed a coalition of Islamic countries to consider military action against Israel to “save Gaza.”

Whether or not General Baqerzadeh’s proposal has any traction in the Muslim world, and whether or not Ambassador Meridor’s accusations are just business as usual for a nation that sees Iranian culpability in everything, the comments underscore the very real risk that a war beginning in the tiny, isolated Gaza Strip may not end there.