Middle East Features
Ahmadinejad continues tirade campaign against Israel
By DPA
May 8, 2008, 12:55 GMT

Tehran - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad availed himself of the 60th anniversary of Israel's foundation to continue his tirade campaign against what he calls 'the barbaric Zionist regime.'

What started with expressions of hope for Israel's eradication from the Middle East and calls on relocating the Jewish state to Europe, North America and even Alaska, was continued with casting doubt on the Holocaust in the Second World War.

Ahmadinejad even arranged a conference in December 2006 in Tehran under the pretext of evaluating the 'real dimensions' of the Jewish massacre which was however mainly attended by anti-Semitic circles and no historic re-evaluation was ever made after the conference.

On the 60th anniversary of the establishment of Israel, Ahmadinejad once again hit out at it, calling the Jewish state a 'rotten and stinking corpse' which even worldwide festivities could not revive.

He also once again predicted the imminent demise of Israel 'like a dead rat' and further warned other states not to involve themselves in the 'Zionists' criminal record' by supporting the Jewish state.

'These remarks are absolutely unacceptable and I can really not understand what the president hopes to gain by such insulting remarks,' a Western diplomat in Tehran said.

The merit of such remarks is not only questioned by foreign diplomats but also by Iranian political circles inside the country.

'Ahmadinejad explores irrelevant issues in our foreign policy, for example the Holocaust issue, which is neither related to our country nor a current foreign policy issue for us, which has just slowed down progress in our nuclear dispute,' say Hossein Marashi, the spokesman of the moderate Kargozaran party.

Many observers believe that Ahmadinejad's anti-Israeli rhetoric has at least led to pointless complications in the dispute over Iran's controversial nuclear programme and that without the tirades the dispute could have had a better course than United Nations Security Council resolutions and sanctions.

Also Abdollah Nasseri, a spokesman for the reformist party close to former president Mohammad Khatami, called Ahmadinejad's anti- Israeli remarks as 'totally unnecessary political adventurism' that has only harmed the country in the recent years.

Islamic Iran does not acknowledge Israel as a sovereign state but the Iranian clergy has for 25 years tried to distinguish between the Israeli government and Jews - and especially the Jewish religion which is respected in Iran - and focused its criticism only on the Israeli government.

The trend changed with Ahmadinejad coming to presidency in August 2005 and the nature of the anti-Israeli remarks gradually changed to anti-Semitism.

'Criticizing Israel in a factual manner would be much more effective, find more resonance in the Arab and Western world and eventually harm the Israeli government much more than using this kind of terminology,' an Iranian analyst in Tehran said, referring to Ahmadinejad's vitriolic statements.