TEHRAN – The first foreign guest who visited Iran to meet with Imam Khomeini in Tehran and congratulate him and the Iranian nation over the victory of the Islamic Revolution in 1979 was the former leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Yasser Arafat and his accompanying Palestinian delegation.

The oppressed Palestinian nation was just one of the many Muslim and non-Muslim nations that were inspired by the Islamic Revolution in Iran. The victory of the Islamic Revolution was a very important, decisive, and promising factor for the future of the Palestinians' struggle.

The victory of the Islamic Revolution brought lots of joy among Muslim Palestinians, especially in the occupied territories and among the people of Lebanon. Palestinian fighters took to the streets of occupied cities and refugee camps across the occupied lands and fired salvos of celebratory gunfire into the sky to express their joy over the Islamic Revolution's victory.

Six days after the victory of the Islamic Revolution, on February 18, 1979, the PLO chairman Yasser Arafat who was previously detested by the toppled regime of Mohammad Reza Shah, a close ally of the Zionist occupying Israeli regime, arrived in Tehran on a sudden and unannounced visit. Upon arrival from Damascus at Mehrabad Airport in Tehran, he told reporters that, “Iran and Imam Khomeini showed that our Umma(Muslims) will never give up. The Iranians broke the chains tied around the Palestinians. This great revolution of yours is the guarantee of our victory.”

"Your revolution was like an earthquake that sent shockwaves across the globe and trembled Israel and imperialism,” the PLO chairman also said elsewhere in his interview at Mehrabad Airport.

According to media reports, when Arafat was asked whether the Palestinian movement felt “stronger” since the Iranian uprising, he replied: “Definitely. It has changed completely the whole strategy and policy in this area. It has been turned upside down.”

Visit a sign of Iran's sharp turn

The visit was a striking sign of the turn in Iran's foreign policy towards the Palestinian issue, the New York Times reported about the visit at the time. The Shah maintained relations with the usurping Israeli regime and furnished the regime with about 60 percent of its oil needs, the Times report added.

The Pahlavi regime initially refused to recognize Israel but after the Shah tightened his grip on power, his regime established overt and covert ties with the occupying regime. An unofficial Israeli embassy was operating in Tehran for years to advance the interests of the Zionists in Iran.

Simultaneously with the visit of the Palestinian delegation in Tehran, a sign that read "Palestine Embassy" was installed at the top of the front door of that unofficially declared embassy building in downtown the capital in the presence of Arafat.

Indeed, the embassy used to be like an espionage center. Israeli security experts helped in building the notorious Pahlavi regime’s secret police known as SAVAK. They contributed much to SAVAK's personnel training.  Israeli intelligence services and SAVAK were in close contact, oppressing the freedom-seeking movement in Iran before the revolution.

Israeli regime’s high-ranking officials repeatedly visited Iran to hold meetings with the Shah regime’s authorities, despite sparking anger among Muslim nations.

But, Iran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution led by Imam Khomeini reversed course in line with Muslim people’s demands and the country severed all diplomatic and trade ties with the usurping Israeli regime. Even before the revolution, many Iranians were in Lebanon to help the oppressed of the Shia community and the Palestinian refugees there who were under aggression by the Zionist regime in the south of the country.

Imam Khomeini’s meeting with Palestinian delegation

In the meeting, Imam Khomeini stressed to Arafat that leftist Arab nationalism and reliance on foreign powers would not direct the Palestinian struggle toward victory. Instead, the Imam told Palestinians that only trusting in God Almighty and relying on the holy Quran and Islamic teachings would show the way forward to achieve the goal of liberation of the occupied Palestinian lands.

“The Shah too pinned hope on the support from America, the United Kingdom, China, Israel, etc. But their support was not too strong. Only support the God bestows is reliable,” Imam Khomeini further stressed.

Imam Khomeini further stressed that the Palestinian issue was an issue of the entire Islamic world, emphasizing the need for supporting Palestinians uprising as a religious duty that has to be shouldered by all Muslim nations, not only in their political struggle but also on the battlefield and armed struggle with the usurpers of holy Quds and their backers.

Resistance is sole solution for the Palestinian issue

Nearly a decade after meeting with Imam Khomeini in 1988 amid indifference to the Palestinians suffering on the part of Arab rulers, Arafat, charmed by the infeasible two-state solution bid, gave in to pressures and began to negotiate with the Israeli regime, followed by signing the Oslo Accord in which the PLO acknowledged the State of Israel and pledged to reject armed struggle. But all this had a devastating impact on the struggle of Palestinians.

In the years following the Islamic Revolution, the Islamic Republic of Iran helped different Muslim nations in the region to forge a powerful alliance of Resistance forces against the occupying regime.

Tehran also helped in globalizing the Palestinian nation. It was Imam Khomeini who named the last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan the International Quds Day during which Muslims across the globe show their solidarity with the Palestinians.

Unlike Arab nationalism, which suffered humiliating defeats against the Israeli regime in both the 1967 and the 1973 wars, the Resistance has come out victorious on many battlefields against the usurping regime and its Western backers.

The Resistance inspired by the Iranian revolution has now become a global movement and has found supporters among freedom seekers all around the globe, even among people in Western countries.

Today, Iran is proud of its assisting role in creating a powerful Resistance movement that has waged a successful battle against the most barbaric regime in history.