Ahmadinejad: Israel filthy bacteria

Iranian president: Jewish state acting like "wild beast;" Israel complains to UNSC over threats.

By JPOST STAFF, MICHAL LANDO
Jafari 224.88 (photo credit: AP)
Jafari 224.88
(photo credit: AP)
In yet another verbal attack against Israel, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called the Jewish state a "filthy bacteria" whose sole purpose was to oppress the other nations of the region. "The world powers established this filthy bacteria, the Zionist regime, which is lashing out at the nations in the region like a wild beast," the Iranian president told supporters at a rally in southern Iran. "[Israel] won support [from the other nations] which created it as a scarecrow, so as to keep the people of this area under control," Ahmadinejad said. Referring to the assassination of Hizbullah terror chief Imad Mughniyeh, the Iranian leader said that Israel "uses terror as a threat every day, and afterwards is happy and joyful." Meanwhile, the Israeli mission to the United Nations has written a letter of complaint to the UN Security Council, protesting recent remarks by two senior members of the Iranian regime threatening Israel. Last week, the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported that Commander-General Muhammad Ali Jafari of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps wrote in a letter to Hizbullah head Hassan Nasrallah that he was convinced "that Hizbullah's might is increasing with every passing day, and that in the near future, we will witness the disappearance of this cancerous growth called Israel." Later that day, the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of Iran, Maj.-Gen. Hassan Firouzabadi, said in his own letter to Nasrallah that "the hero-breeding land of Lebanon... [would] nurture hundreds and thousands of such heroes... and that combatants of the Lebanese and Palestinian Islamic resistance [would] continue the struggle until the complete destruction of the Zionist regime and liberation of the entire Islamic land of Palestine." The letter from the Israeli mission - written Tuesday at the request of the Foreign Ministry - to Security Council President Ricardo Alberto Arias, calls on the international community to condemn "these outrageous anti-Israel, anti-Semitic and racist threats, which undoubtedly constitute direct and public incitement to commit genocide." Ambassador Dan Gillerman said the Iranian officials' letters represented "anti-Israel rhetoric and racism of the worst kind." He called the Iranian rhetoric a "blatant violation" of the United Nations Charter. Furthermore, the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide is explicit in its demand for states to punish and prosecute those that carry out "direct and public incitement to commit genocide," wrote Gillerman. The letter does not ask the Security Council to issue a statement, because similar instances in the past have failed to round up the necessary 15-member consensus. "This still doesn't diminish the importance of the complaint," Deputy UN Ambassador Daniel Carmon told The Jerusalem Post. "The name of the game in this organization is texts, speeches, letters and documents circulated as a way for people to express themselves. We feel that every time there is something [unusual] - a terrorist attack, or a dangerous expression - we put it on record." While the letter does not call for a statement by the Security Council, it expresses a demand that the international community condemn the Iranian officials' rhetoric, said Carmon. "How will they do it? I don't know," he said.