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Iran president in new diatribe against Israel |
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Monday, 02 January 2006 |
TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran's hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
issued a new diatribe against archfoe Israel, saying that the Jewish
state was "anti-Islamic in nature" and the result of European "ethnic
cleansing."
"In fact the Europeans have practiced ethnic cleansing against the Jews
in Europe by expelling the Jews from all the European states," the
official IRNA news agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.
"They have shot two targets with a single bullet -- they have built a
Jewish camp among the Islamic nations and got rid of the Jews from the
whole of Europe.
"The Zionist regime is a part of Europe, which was broken away from Europe, and is anti-Islamic in nature," he said.
The outspoken hardliner suggested that the international outrage
sparked by previous comments in which he said that Holocaust denial was
"scientific debate" and that Israel should be "wiped off the map" was
because he had touched a sensitive nerve.
He asked why Palestinians who played no party in the killing of Jews in
World War II should have been forced to make way for a Jewish state.
"Why don't the Europeans who perpetrated the crime pay the price themselves?" he asked.
The president rejected suggestions his comments were anti-Semitic,
insisting Iran made a distinction between Judaism and Zionism.
Ahmadinejad, an ultra-conservative who won a shock election victory in
June, has caused international outrage with a series of anti-Israeli
remarks.
The outspoken president has labelled the Jewish state a "tumour" that
should be "wiped off the map" or moved out of the Middle East.
In his latest outburst last month, he said the Holocaust -- during
which an estimated six million Jews perished -- was "invented" and that
Israel should be moved as far away as Alaska.
Ahmadinejad's comments have already resulted in two rebukes from the UN
Security Council, and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan also put off
a planned visit to Iran in October.
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