Iran verus Israel

No, the headline is not about a football match or even some arm wrestling, but about recent statements the leadership of Iran has been making.

"Israel must be wiped off the map," said Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. 

BBC News reports:

Mr Ahmadinejad told some 3,000 students in Tehran that Israel's establishment had been a move by the West against the Islamic world.

He was addressing a conference entitled The World without Zionism and his comments were reported by the Iranian state news agency Irna.

"As the Imam said, Israel must be wiped off the map," he said, referring to Iran's late revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

In 2001, former Iranian president Hashemi Rafsanjani called for a Muslim state to annihilate Israel with a nuclear strike.

The full report on Irna can be found here.

Comments

[Robert]

If Ahmadinejad has that kind of attitude, you can hardly blame the Israelis if/wehn the take pre-emptive action... but it will obviously make the whole situation so much worse, one wonders if he isn't deliberately stirring up a hornets nest.

Yet another fall-out of the US-UK W.M.D. duplicity is that a cry of "Iran has nukes" will now be considered a boy crying wolf.

[Lior]

Iranian Shi'ites fought a war without victory against Saddam Hussein, fomented a rebellion in Southern Iraq in the first Gulf War, have sponsored the "Palestinians" since their own revolution, supported Hizbollah and manipulated Lebanese politics - all without success. Sunni predominance, Chrsitian opposition in Lebanon and Israeli military superiority having gotten the better of them. Given, also, that they would have to arm their youth, vastly in the majority, who would turn their arms against a hated regime, what is left but the bomb? Let us not be deceived - they mean what they say. They will bide their time, talk to the "useful idiots" in the EU, wrap the UN round the blood-stained fingers, have their agents and minions grumble and whinge and complain about "unfair reporting" and "bias" - notably in the BBC, always ready to listen to them - and manipulate public opinion simply as a stalling measure. Some of them might even get an invitation to speak at the Liberal Jewish Synagogue in St Johns Wood as part of on-going, multi-cultural dialogue. But it will be a stalling measure. They will beaver away until they have their nuclear capability and when they are ready, will use an excuse to use it. They talk continually about having their own nuclear "deterrent". They mean to deter no-one. They mean to obtain an offensive weapon and to use it, not in self-defence but in a planned offensive against the Jewish state. They have said so. Please, let us honour these distinguished "gentlemen" and believe them.