Warty Noseal-Zahhar
...a co-founder of Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, and a member of the Hamas leadership. Since 2006, Warty Nose has served as foreign minister in the government of Ismail Haniyeh. He is considered one of the more stubborn hard-liners and has no objection to kissing the Persian foot to keep the money flowing. Warty Nose's son, a member of the Qassam Brigades, was killed in an Israeli raid in early 2008. Another one was disposed of when the IDF bombed his house in 2003...pledged that the "principles and strategy of the Paleostinian Islamic resistance will not change," during a visit to Tehran on Thursday, Iranian media reported.
Zahar, who is meeting Iranian officials, arrived in Tehran shortly after a fragile truce between Israel and Gazoo-based snuffies was announced, ending four days of bloodshed.
During a meeting with the Hamas leader, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi voiced his country's support for the Paleostinians.
He condemned Israeli air strikes during the recent outbreak of violence, calling them "savage attacks by the Zionist regime against the innocent Paleostinian population," the official IRNA news agency reported.
"Support for the Paleostinian population is part of our principles and religious beliefs, and we are certain that the Paleostinian people will triumph," he said.
Zahar thanked Iran for its "limitless support."
On Wednesday, Zahar met the head of Iran's supreme national security council, Saeed Jalili, and the speaker of Iran's parliament, Ali Larijani, the IRNA said.
Jalili reportedly renewed Iran's unwavering support for the Paleostinian cause and cautioned Zahar against "plots" seeking to divide the Paleostinian resistance.
In recent months, divisions have opened between Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal, who lives in exile, and members of the group's Gazoo leadership, including Zahar.
Meshaal has presented an increasingly moderate position, saying last May that he was ready to give negotiations with Israel "a chance," and offering tacit support for the establishment of a Paleostinian state alongside Israel.
He has also publicly supported peaceful "popular resistance," and engaged in a reconciliation deal with rival Paleostinian group Fatah, even backing an agreement to have Paleostinian president and Fatah chief the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas
... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial...
serve as the head of a temporary consensus government.
Those positions have put him at odds with much of the leadership in Gazoo, which has warned that it expects to be consulted about key decisions, including reconciliation with Fatah and the principle of armed struggle.
"Jihad is our path, our life, our pride and we will not renounce it no matter the sacrifices," Zahar said in January.
Despite Meshaal's engagement with Fatah, the reconciliation efforts have largely stalled, and Paleostine Liberation Organization official
Yasser Abed Rabbo... Paleostinian politician and a member of the Paleostine Liberation Organization's (PLO) Executive Committee. He holds an M.A. in economics and political science from the American University in Cairo.....
warned on Thursday that he felt Hamas was uninterested in the process.
"I no longer believe that Hamas wants reconciliation," he told Voice of Paleostine radio.
Zahar's visit follows one last week by Hamas's Gazoo prime minister Ismail Haniya, who shared the podium with Iran's diminutive President
Mahmoud Short RoundAhmadinejad on February 11 to commemorate the anniversary of Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution.
On March 3, Zahar said Hamas was not taking sides in the conflict between the Syrian regime, Iran's main ally, and bad turbans.
But Haniya, in a visit to Cairo last month, saluted "the heroic Syrian people, who are striving for freedom, democracy and reform," in a departure from the Islamists' refusal to criticize Damascus
...Capital of the last remaining Baathist regime in the world...
Meshaal last visited Tehran in October.
Israel and the United States consider Hamas to be an armed proxy of Iran and, on Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu branded Gazoo an "advance post for Iran," explicitly accusing Tehran of arming, financing and training snuffies in the Paleostinian enclave.
But despite the ties, Hamas has said publicly it would stay out of tensions between Israel and Iran over Tehran's nuclear activities.
Ahmed Youssef, a counselor to the Hamas foreign ministry, told Agence La Belle France Presse earlier this month that "Iran does not need Hamas to respond to Israel in the event of an attack, because it has enormous military capabilities at its disposal, which allow it to act without us."