Iran spurns world outrage over Israel remarks
Iran’s ultraconservative new president – spurning international outrage over his remarks about Israel – joined more than a million demonstrators who flooded the streets of the capital and other major cities yesterday to back his call for the destruction of the Jewish state.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stood fast behind his Wednesday demand that the Jewish state be wiped off the map and reissued the call during the nationwide protests yesterday, the Muslim day of prayer.
But in an apparent attempt to blunt international outrage over Ahmadinejad’s Wednesday comments, the Iranian embassy in Moscow issued a statement saying that Ahmadinejad did not want to “engage in a conflict”.
Marching alongside protesters in downtown Tehran, the 47-year-old former mayor of Tehran and one-time Republican Guard commander, renewed his criticism of the West.
“They become upset when they hear any voice of truth-seeking. They think they are the absolute rulers of the world,” he said during the al-Quds – or Jerusalem – Day protests, which was among the largest since they were first held in 1979 after Shiite Muslim clerics took power in Iran.
His fellow marchers carried placards reading “Death to Israel, death to America.” It is not uncommon for an Iranian president to join marches in the capital. Ahmadinejad was accompanied by five bodyguards, but otherwise security was not out of the ordinary for such an event.
Despite Ahmadinejad’s continued harsh attacks on the West, former President Hashemi Rafsanjani tried to dial back the rhetoric, suggesting that Israelis and Palestinians hold a referendum to decide the future of Israeli-Palestinian relations.
“If Muslims and Palestinians agree (to a referendum), it will be a retreat but let’s still hold a referendum,” Rafsanjani said in his prayer sermon yesterday.
The Iranian Embassy statement in Moscow said Ahmadinejad ”did not have any intention to speak in sharp terms and engage in a conflict”.
But that was not the message carried by the at least 200,000 Iranians who massed in Tehran to unleashed virulent condemnation against Israel, the US and the West in general, accusing them of oppressing Palestinians and Iran.
Some demonstrators chanted “Israel is approaching its death” and wore white shrouds in a symbolic gesture expressing readiness to die for their cause.
A resolution was read at the end of the rallies backing ”the position declared by the president that the Zionist regime must be wiped out”.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki defended his president’s comments, saying they represented Iran’s long-held policy of not recognising Israel.
The US said the Iranian leader’s hostile remarks have only served underscored Washington’s concern over Iran’s nuclear program. Israel said the Persian state should be suspended from the United Nations. UN chief Kofi Annan expressed “dismay” at the comments in a rare rebuke of a UN member state.
The UN Security Council yesterday condemned Ahmadinejad’s remarks. In a press statement, the council supported Annan’s remarks reminding Ahmadinejad that, according to the UN Charter, member states must refrain from threatening the use of force against each other.
Russia, a key ally of Iran, summoned the Iranian ambassador seeking an explanation for Ahmadinejad’s remarks.
Iran’s seven state-run TV stations devoted coverage yesterday to programs condemning the Jewish state and praising the Palestinian resistance since the 1948 creation of Israel.
