Lest there be any who doubt that the leadership, both theocratic and political, within the Islamic Republic of Iran represents a mass pathological virus of potential destruction, this article, in all its vicious belligerence and slander, added to the many that preceded it in similar vein, should clear up any lingering uncertainties.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told an annual anti-Israel protest in Tehran on Friday that the Jewish state was a "cancerous tumour" that will soon be excised, drawing Western rebukes.
Washington said Ahmadinejad's statements were "reprehensible", while Paris viewed them as "outrageous."
Ahmadinejad's diatribe against Israel in his Quds (Jerusalem) Day address was the latest in a long line to have drawn criticism from Western governments.
"The Zionist regime and the Zionists are a cancerous tumour," he said.
"The nations of the region will
soon finish off the usurper Zionists in the Palestinian land.... A new
Middle East will definitely be formed. With the grace of God and help of
the nations, in the new Middle East there will be no trace of the
Americans and Zionists," he said.
The diatribe took place amid heightened tensions between Israel and Iran over Tehran's controversial nuclear programme.
The Jewish state has in recent weeks intensified its threats to possibly bomb Iran's nuclear facilities to prevent it having the capability to produce atomic weapons.
Iran, which is suffering under
severe Western sanctions, denies its nuclear programme is anything but
peaceful. Its military has warned it will destroy Israel if it attacks.
"They (the Israelis) know very
well they don't have the ability" to successfully attack Iran, foreign
ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast was quoted as saying by the ISNA
news agency.
"If they make a mistake, our nation's reaction will lead to the end of the Zionist regime," he said.
State television showed crowds
marching under blazing sunshine in Tehran and other Iranian cities to
mark Quds Days, an annual commemoration launched by the founder of the
Islamic republic, the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, just after the 1979 revolution that brought him to power.
Demonstrators held up Palestinian flags and pictures of Khomeini's successor as Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and banners reading "Death to Israel" and "Death to America."
The head of Iran's powerful
Revolutionary Guards, General Mohammad Ali Jafari, told the Fars news
agency as he attended the Tehran rally that "the Iranian nation has
always been at the forefront of the (regional anti-Israeli) resistance
in showing its animosity with Israel."
He added that Iran intended to maintain that virulent stance.
Ahmadinejad, in his speech,
claimed that "Zionists" triggered World Wars I and II, and had "taken
control over world affairs since the moment they became dominant over
the US government."
US National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor told AFP that Ahmadinejad's comments were "hateful and divisive."
"We strongly condemn the latest
series of offensive and reprehensible comments by senior Iranian
officials that are aimed at Israel," Vietor said.
"The entire international community should condemn this hateful and divisive rhetoric."
French deputy foreign ministry spokesman Vincent Floreani hit out at the "latest provocations" from the Iranian president.
"We firmly condemn these
outrageous and totally unacceptable statements and we remind (Iran) that
we would never allow the right of Israel to live in peace to be called
into question," he said.
Ahmadinejad's past broadsides
against the Jewish state, and his denial that the Holocaust occurred,
have earned him opprobrium from Western and other nations, and walkouts
during his addresses to the UN General Assembly.
Israel has been employing its own
invective against Iran and its leaders, invoking the image of Hitler
and the Nazis on the eve of World War II and accusing Tehran of being
bent on Israeli genocide.
Published online on Yahoo news
Labels: Anti-Semitism, Iran, Islamism, Israel, Political Realities, Psychopathy
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