The new President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, made a call that shocked the entire civilised world. Declared he: “Israel must be wiped off the map”. He added that the establishment of “the Zionist regime” (Israel) was a move by the world oppressor against the Islamic world, and the Islamic umma (nation) will not allow its historic enemy to live in its heartland.
...
It has turned out that Ahmadinejad was not the first leader of post-revolutionary Iran to make this manner of incendiary rhetoric on the annual Jerusalem Day. Former President, Ali Akhbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, then sitting as the Chairman of the Expediency Council of Iran had, on the December 14 2001 edition of the protests, pointedly canvassed the destruction of Israel with nuclear bomb as soon as the Muslim world had access to it. Rafsanjani’s speech described Israel as a “forgery” of what he called the world Zionist movement which, in its arrogance, foisted an “artificial” Zionist enclave right inside the heart of the Islamic world.
Bookmarks