Saudi journalist Hussein Shubakshi recently published an article in the Al-Sharq Al-Awsatdaily.
In the article, which was translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), Shubakshi attacked the “resistance axis” of Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas which, he said, wages resistance against Israel's “occupation” of Arab lands while ignoring the Arab lands that are occupied by Iran, such as Ahvaz.
He noted that the resistance axis restricts the term "occupied Arab lands" only to those held by Israel, while the fact is that there are also Arab lands occupied by Iran, Turkey and even Spain, and that all these occupied lands should be accorded equal importance. Failure to do so is a form of "hypocritical doublespeak," argued Shubakshi.
The article was written following the September 22, 2018 attack on the military parade held by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) in Ahvaz.
The Islamic State (ISIS) jihadist group claimed the attack and later threatened Iran with more attacks, but there was also a claim of responsibility by a movement called "Ahwaz National Resistance", an Arab separatist group.
"The latest armed attack on units of Iran's IRGC – the terror and oppression apparatus of Iran's sectarian Ayatollah regime – reminded us of the need to renew the debate on the term 'occupied Arab lands.' [This attack] was claimed by a faction of the Ahvazi resistance, which is demanding independence for this occupied Arab region that Iran annexed by force in the beginning of the previous century. For many long years, the term ['occupied Arab lands'] has been restricted to the lands occupied by the Israeli enemy, and since the Al-Assad regime sold the Golan [to Israel], it has been applied exclusively to the Palestinian lands,” wrote Shubakshi. READ MORE
