Quds Day Rallies More Important Than Ever

:Ayatollah Khamenei

Kayhan Int’l 

TEHRAN – Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday Qud Day rallies this year are more important than ever in order to defend the Palestinians against U.S. President Donald Trump’s much-touted "deal of the century”.
"Some sycophants of America are trying to popularize the deal of the century, but both America and its sycophants will fail in this case,” the Leader told a group of university professors and researchers.
Ayatollah Khamenei said defending the Palestinian people is a must both from a humanitarian perspective and a religious and Islamic perspective.
The International Quds Day is an annual event during which demonstrators take to the streets to express their solidarity with the Palestinian people and opposition to the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories.
The day is seen as the legacy of the late founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Imam Khomeini, who officially declared the last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan as International Quds Day back in 1979.
Senior White House adviser Jared Kushner is leading a U.S. delegation to the Middle East this week seeking support for a late June workshop aimed at selling the American plan.
Kushner, Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt, U.S. Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook, and Kushner aide Avi Berkowitz began their trip in Rabat and were to travel to Amman and Jerusalem Al-Quds, arriving in Israel on Thursday.
The trip is similar to one that Kushner and Greenblatt took in February to Persian Gulf states to drum up support for the Middle East plan they have been developing on behalf of Trump.
A White House official said one reason for this week’s trip is to bolster support for a June 25-26 conference in Manama, Bahrain, in which Kushner is to unveil the first part of Trump’s long-awaited plan.
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have said they will participate, and a senior U.S. official said officials from Qatar have said privately their country was expected to attend as well.
The Russian foreign ministry took a dim view of the conference in a statement on Tuesday, saying the United States was attempting to "impose an ‘alternative vision’ of the Palestinian-Israeli settlement.”
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Wednesday, "We urge all Arabs who have accepted to go to Bahrain to reconsider out of respect for the Palestinians.”
 "We didn’t mandate anyone to negotiate on our behalf, and if anyone wants to trade the interests of the Palestinians for their own benefit, let them do it out of their own pockets,” he told Reuters.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Ayatollah Khamenei rejected Western calls for negotiations with Iran.
"We do not negotiate on honor issues of the revolution; we do not negotiate on the military capability. Negotiation here means bargain which wants us to concede our defensive capability,” the Leader said.
"We have already said we do not want negotiation because it is not only useless but also harmful,” he added.