In a speech published on his website Thursday, Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad said the ultimate goal of world forces must be the
annihilation of Israel.
Speaking to ambassadors from Islamic
countries ahead of 'Qods Day' ('Jerusalem Day'), an annual Iranian
anti-Zionist event established in 1979 by Ayatollah Khomeini and which
falls this year on August 17, Ahmadinejad said that a "horrible Zionist
current" had been managing world affairs for "about 400 years."
Repeating
traditional anti-Semitic slurs, the Iranian president accused "Zionists"
of controlling the world's media and financial systems.
It was Zionists, he said, who were “behind the scene of the world’s main powers, media, monetary and banking centers.”
"They
are the decision makers, to the extent that the presidential election
hopefuls [of the USA] must go and kiss the feet of the Zionists to
ensure their election victory,” he added.
Ahmadinejad added that
"liberating Palestine" would solve all the world's problems, although he
did not elaborate on exactly how that might work.
“Qods Day is
not merely a strategic solution for the Palestinian problem, as it is to
be viewed as a key for solving the world problems," he said.
He
added: "Anyone who loves freedom and justice must strive for the
annihilation of the Zionist regime in order to pave the way for world
justice and freedom.”
The Iranian president said that Israel
reinforced "the dominance of arrogant powers in the region and across
the globe" and that Arab countries in particular - he cited Bahrain,
Yemen, Libya, Syria and Turkey - were affected by Israel's "plots."
Ahmadinejad,
who has called the Holocaust a myth, has previously called for Israel's
annihilation, in a 2005 speech in which he used a Persian phrase that
translates literally as "wiped off the page of time."