Iran leader lashes out at Israel, warns West against attacking
tehran -- Iran’s president delivered fiery remarks Friday about Israel and his country’s nuclear program on Quds Day, the annual event marking Muslim opposition to the Jewish state’s control of Jerusalem.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad used the occasion to criticize Israel’s policies and Western laws that bar questioning the Holocaust. He repeated his suggestion that the West relocate Israel’s Jewish population to “somewhere in Canada or Alaska.”
But the president also lashed out at domestic opponents of Iran’s drive toward mastering nuclear technology, which Iranian officials say they want for peaceful purposes only, and warned the West against attacking his country.
“Do not make another fake lie out of our nuclear dossier, such as the Holocaust, or an excuse such as Sept. 11, to attack Iran,” he said in a speech to thousands gathered for Friday prayers in Tehran.
Ahmadinejad does not formally command the armed forces or oversee Iran’s nuclear program. They fall under the purview of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the senior cleric who has been spiritual, political and military leader of Iran for nearly 20 years.
But at a time of heightened tension between Washington and Tehran, the firebrand president’s mention of both Iran’s drive toward uranium enrichment and its long-standing animosity toward Israel in the same speech may set off jitters among diplomats and security officials across the Middle East and the West.
Iranian officials typically make incendiary remarks about Israel during Quds Day, which Iran initiated and which has become an occasion of broader support for the Palestinians.
Speaking after Ahmadinejad, former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, a powerful political player and cleric, called Israel a “representative of Western colonialism” in the Middle East.
“By forming the Israeli entity, the Western colonialists did what they had failed to do during the centuries-old crusade against Islamic nations,” said Rafsanjani, considered a moderate and a rival to Ahmadinejad.
Both Ahmadinejad and Rafsanjani on Friday called for a referendum on the future of Israel and the Palestinian territories that would include the participation of Palestinians abroad.
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Special correspondent Mostaghim reported from Tehran and Times staff writer Daragahi from Beirut.
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