Calls Iranian premier a "joke" who "worships the bomb" at Iranians' expense.
By JPOST.COM STAFF, GREER FAY CASHMANperes 298(photo credit: AP)
In an interview with National Public Radio in the US on Monday, President Shimon Peres called Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "an unbelievable joke." The president then went on to say that the Iranian premier was "worshipping the bomb more than he's worshipping the God in heaven."
"My impression is that in his eyes the nuclear bomb is higher than Allah," Peres said.
The president also hinted that skyrocketing unemployment and inflation were not high on the Iranian premier's priority list. "All the attention is about the bomb, but people cannot live on a bomb," he said.
Also on Monday, during a tour of the Upper Galilee, Peres attacked Hizbullah and its leader Hassan Nasrallah, saying that Hizbullah did not really achieve anything in the Second Lebanon war. "I heard Nasrallah's incendiary speech yesterday," the president said. "What can I say? He speaks wisely but acts stupidly."
"If Hizbullah wanted to achieve something," he said, "it would fare much better at the negotiating table than on the battlefield."
Peres, who was talking to residents of Kiryat Shmona, pledged to continue to work for the development of the Galilee and the Negev with the same devotion and commitment as when he held the ministerial portfolio for the development of those regions.