Iranian President Says Israel Should Be ‘Wiped Off the Map’

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared Wednesday that Israel is a “disgraceful blot” that should be “wiped off the map.”

Ahmadinejad’s speech to thousands of students at a “World Without Zionism” conference set a hard-line foreign policy course sharply at odds with that of his moderate predecessor, and the United States said Ahmadinejad’s remarks showed that Washington’s fears about Iran’s nuclear program were accurate.

“I think it reconfirms what we have been saying about the regime in Iran,” White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan told reporters in Washington. “It underscores the concerns we have about Iran’s nuclear intentions.”

Spain, France, Britain and Canada also condemned the remarks.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said that Ahmadinejad and Mahmoud Zahar, a leader of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, “speak openly about destroying the Jewish state.”

Under reformist President Mohammad Khatami, whose eight-year tenure ended this year, Iran had shown signs of easing its implacable hostility toward Israel.

Officials said then that Tehran might not object to a two-state solution in the Mideast if that was what the Palestinians wanted.

But Ahmadinejad, referring to Palestinian suicide bomb attacks in Israel, said that “there is no doubt that the new wave in Palestine will soon wipe off this disgraceful blot from the face of the Islamic world.”

Ahmadinejad also condemned Iran’s neighbors that seek to break new ground in their relations with Israel.

“Anybody who recognizes Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation’s fury,” state-run television quoted the president as saying.