Ahmadinejad says Israel just a passing phase in the Middle East

Defying a warning by the United Nations secretary general against inflammatory remarks, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran said Monday that Israelis had no historical roots in the Middle East and that the existence of Israel was just a passing phase in the region’s long history.

Mr. Ahmadinejad, who arrived in New York on Sunday for the annual General Assembly meeting, made the remarks in a breakfast session with selected members of the media. At the breakfast meeting, he said that the Israelis had been around the region for only 60 or 70 years, in contrast to the Iranians, whose civilization has existed for thousands of years.

Without mentioning any country by name, he lashed out at the United States for ignoring Israel’s nuclear arsenal while trying to shut down Iran’s nuclear program.

“Some members of the Security Council with veto rights have chosen silence with regard to the nuclear warheads of a fake regime, while at the same time they impede the scientific progress of other nations,” he said.

He also indirectly attacked the United States and others for defending freedom of speech even when it defames religion, a reference to the online video attacking the Prophet Muhammad that incited demonstrations around the Muslim world, including Iran, many of them violent, over the past three weeks.

“They themselves wrongly invoke the U.N. charter and misuse freedom of speech to justify their silence toward offending the sanctities of the human community and to divine prophets,” the Iranian leader said. 

Iran’s President, in New York, Says Israelis Have No Mideast Roots

By RICK GLADSTONE and NEIL MacFARQUHAR

Published: September 24, 2012