'Iran anti Zionists, not Jews'
2006-09-22 11:01
United Nations - Iran's leader, responding to Western criticism of his questioning of the Holocaust and a call for Israel to be "wiped off the map", said on Thursday his quarrel was with Zionists and not Jews.
But President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did not respond directly
when asked by a reporter if he had been correctly translated
when he said previously he sought the elimination of the Jewish
state.
Ahmadinejad said Zionists were aggressors and murderers who had
driven Palestinians from their home to set up the Jewish state
and then occupied Palestinian lands.
"We love everyone around the world. Jews, Christians,
Muslims, non-Muslims, non-Jews, non-Christians - we have no
problem with people," he told a news conference on the
sidelines of a UN general assembly meeting.
Zionists 'a power group'
"Zionists are Zionists, period. They are not Jews, they are
not Christians, and they are not Muslims," he said.
"They are a power group, a power party, and we oppose the oppression and
the aggression that any party that seeks pure raw power goes
after."
Zionism is the name of the movement to establish a Jewish
homeland that led to the creation of the state of Israel nearly
60 years ago.
Ahmadinejad says he favours a return of Palestinians to the land now called Israel, and a referendum "with the participation of everyone" to determine its fate.
Remarks dismissed
Felice Gaer, director of the Jacob Blaustein Institute for
the Advancement of Human Rights, dismissed the leader's
distinction between Jews and Zionists.
"Ahmadinejad's desire to rid the world of Israel is the
transference of the classical bigoted treatment of the Jew to
the state of the Jews," she said.
"There is an inextricable historic Jewish connection with the land of Israel. As Martin Luther King said, 'When people criticise Zionists, they mean
Jews.'"
Cleaning up his image
Ahmadinejad appeared intent during his New York visit on
trying to clean up his image in the West.
At the start of his news conference, he apologised to New
York residents and police officers for all the extra traffic
brought to the city by diplomats attending the UN meeting.
Iranians "highly regarded" the people of the United States
as they did all people around the world, he said. "Many people
in the United States believe in God and they believe in
justice."
Protests
But the Iranian leader played down protests mounted by
Jewish groups against his US visit.
"After days of media propaganda" publicising a planned
protest in New York, only about 100 people had come, he said,
asking if they had been paid to participate.
By contrast, many more people around the world wanted to
shine a light on what was happening to Palestinians, he said.