Iran's Khamenei: Israel more 'barbaric' than Paris terrorists

In appeal to Western youth, supreme leader says Palestinians experiencing ‘the worst kind of terrorism for the last 60 years’

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Sunday accused Israel of perpetrating “the worst kind of terrorism for the last 60 years,” noting that it was far more “barbaric” than the Paris terror attacks two weeks ago by Islamic State militants that killed 129.

In a letter addressed to Western youth in the wake of the Paris attacks, the supreme leader said there was no violence as “atrocious” as Israeli settlement construction.

“The oppressed people of Palestine have experienced the worst kind of terrorism for the last sixty years,” he wrote. “If the people of Europe have now taken refuge in their homes for a few days and refrain from being present in busy places it is decades that a Palestinian family is not secure even in its own home from the Zionist regime’s death and destruction machinery.

“What kind of atrocious violence today is comparable to that of the settlement constructions of the Zionist regime?” he added.

The supreme leader also accused the Jewish state of “state terrorism,” and charged that Jerusalem “every day” demolishes Palestinian homes. Israel demolishes the homes of Palestinians who allegedly carried out attacks against Israelis.

“This is done without even giving them time to gather their belongings or agricultural products and usually it is done in front of the terrified and tear-filled eyes of women and children who witness the brutal beatings of their family members who in some cases are being dragged away to gruesome torture chambers. In today’s world, do we know of any other violence on this scale and scope and for such an extended period of time?”

Khamenei also condemned as “terrorism” the shootings of Palestinian protesters by IDF soldiers.

“Shooting down a woman in the middle of the street for the crime of protesting against a soldier who is armed to the teeth — if this is not terrorism, what is? This barbarism, because it is being done by the armed forces of an occupying government, should not be called extremism?”

An Israeli policeman last week shot and killed a 14-year-old Palestinian girl after she stabbed a 70-year-old Palestinian man in central Jerusalem, mistaking him for a Jew.