By Kemo Cham
Iran’s dislike for Israel is rooted in the history of the expansionist agenda of the Jewish state, an Iranian embassy official has said.
Kayvan R. Manesh, Deputy Head of Mission at the Iranian Embassy in Sierra Leone, told ManoReporters that Israel and its western backers can’t stand Iran because of its opposition to this expansionist agenda that has witnessed Israel occupy Palestinian lands and its continued hostility to other countries in the region. He noted that Iran’s refusal to give in to this expansionist western agenda makes it a common enemy that has faced decades of vilification and countless sanctions.
“Since the establishment of the State of Israel through occupying Palestinian land illegally, they have been nothing but a source of instability and terror in the region,” the Iranian diplomat said in an interview, stressing that Israel poses the “greatest threat of instability” to the region.
Manesh was responding to an earlier publication by ManoReporters in which Israeli Ambassador Roey Gilad described Iran as Israel’s number one enemy in the region and accused the Islamic Republic of seeking to exterminate the Jewish state through terror.
Gilad is Israel’s resident ambassador in Ghana and accredited to Sierra Leone and Liberia. He presented his credentials to President Julius Maada Bio at the beginning of June, 2025.
Israel accuses Iran of using proxies in the region, including the Palestinian militant group, Hamas; the Lebanese group Hezbollah and the Houthis of Yemen to achieve its goal of exterminating the Jewish State. But according to the Israelis, their greatest concern is Iran’s desire to develop a nuclear weapon, which they believe could make it easier for them to achieve their goal.
Iran has always denied that it intends to build a nuclear weapon. Ambassador Manesh, in his interview with ManoReporters at the Iranian embassy in Freetown dismissed all the allegations levelled against his country by the Israeli diplomat, arguing that Israel was in fact guilty of all what it is accusing its enemies of. He cited Israel’s continued bombardment of the Palestinian enclave of Gaza, as well missiles attacks on Syria and Lebanon, where Israelis say they are fighting against Iran’s proxies.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran was Founded through a revolution in 1979, and that revolution was based on these very moral grounds that we will not condone the massacre and injustice against other Muslim nations, Palestinians in particular,” he said.
According to Manesh, what is happening in Gaza amounted to a Holocaust, noting that Israel is doing exactly what was meted out to Jews by the Nazi regime of Germany. He pointed out that the indictment of Prime Minister Benyamin Netayahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court (ICC) is a testament to this.
But the Israelis were indicted alongside a former Hamas Commander, Mohammed Deif.
The Israelis say Iranian officials, including the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, never shy away from public declaration of their intention to eliminate the Jewish State. But Manesh said this view of Iranians has been a response to Israel’s actions in the region.
The interview was conducted on the backdrop of the 12-day war between the two sworn enemies, which started with Israel’s surprised bombardment of Iranian nuclear sites on June 13. Iran immediately retaliated with missile attacks on Israel, leading to the nearly two weeks of bombardment and counter-bombardment that destroyed lives and properties in both countries.
According to the Iranian government, 935 people died on the Iranian side, while the Israelis counted 28 fatalities, as at June 29th, according to a report by The Times of Israel. Hundreds others were injured between the two countries.
The United States was drawn into the war after Israel’s appeal to US President Donald Trump to help its bomb Iranian nuclear sites that were believed to be hidden in bonkers out of reach of the Israeli fighter jets.
Iran retaliated to the US bombing of its nuclear facilities with a missile attack on a US military base in Qatar, raising concerns about a regional unrest.
Despite Iran’s repeated denial, the west insists that the Islamic Republic hold the ambition to develop a nuclear bomb. Ambassador Gilad, in a press briefing with Sierra Leonean and Liberian journalists at the height of the June war made a presentation highlighting Iran’s progress in its effort to enrich Uranium, which he claimed could have positioned it to make a nuclear bomb within a short period of time.
But Ambassador Manesh dismissed that as a “tired” western propaganda geared towards eliminating the Islamic Revolution and add Iran to the list of countries in the Middle East that has surrendered their sovereignty to Israel.
He said that nuclear bomb is just a pretext to bomb Iran, noting that Israel has been speaking about Iran’s closeness to achieving it since the 1990s.
“We never wanted a nuclear weapon. If we did, what would be the better pretext to make it right now that we are under aggression by the Zionist enemy who, in fact, is a nuclear weapons power and not a signatory to the NPT (Nuclear Proliferation Treaty),” he said.
On the allegation that Iran is funding proxies to achieves its goal for Israel, Manesh said the militant groups were all in existence before the Islamic Revolution, countering the suggestion that they were created by Iran. He however admitted that Iran was supporting them because their goal align.
“These are resistance groups and resistance is a reaction to tyranny, to oppression,” he said.
