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Iran’s President, in New York, Says Israelis Have No Mideast Roots Iran’s President, in New York, Offends a Range of Targets
(about 7 hours later)
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. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran stoked the anger of Israel, the United States, Syrian insurgents and gay-rights advocates on Monday, using the first full day of his final visit to the United Nations as Iran’s leader to assert that he has no fear of an Israeli attack on its nuclear facilities, regards the Israelis as fleeting aberrations in Middle East history, is neutral in the Syria conflict and considers homosexuality an ugly crime.
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. Later on Monday he spoke at the United Nations; he will speak there again on Wednesday. In a series of public appearances that included a breakfast meeting with selected members of the press, a speech on the rule of law at a United Nations conference and a CNN interview broadcast on Monday evening, Mr. Ahmadinejad sought to portray Iran as a principled and upstanding member of the global community.
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. But the Iranian leader, known for his denials of the holocaust and other inflammatory language, ignored a warning by the secretary general of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, against making provocative statements. Instead, he offended a wide range of targets and prompted the Israeli delegation to walk out of the U.N. conference in protest.
“They have no roots there in history,” Mr. Ahmadinejad said of the Israelis, according to Reuters. “They do not even enter the equation for Iran.” Mr. Ahmadinejad, 55, is in the final nine months of his last term as president of Iran, and his annual visits to the United Nations for its General Assembly meetings have become something of a media event. Iran attached particular importance to his appearance this year because Iran is the rotating president of the Nonaligned Movement, which represents the largest bloc of members in the 193-nation General Assembly. Mr. Ahmadinejad will deliver his General Assembly address on Wednesday.
In a meeting with Iranian expatriates in New York on Sunday evening, Mr. Ahmadinejad belittled Israel’s significance and the military threats Israel has made against his country over its disputed nuclear program. “A number of uncultured Zionists that threaten the Iranian nation today are never counted and are never paid any attention in the equations of the Iranian nation,” Mr. Ahmadinejad said, according to a summary of his remarks on his English-language Web site. In what may have been his most incendiary remarks on Monday, Mr. Ahmadinejad belittled what he characterized as the insignificant history of Israel, compared with the long history of Iran. He told reporters and editors at the breakfast meeting 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.
The Iranian president, known for incendiary language against Israel, is in the last nine months of his final term in office, and there had been widespread expectations he would use his remaining appearance at the General Assembly to excoriate and provoke Iran’s enemies, who suspect Iran is developing the ability to make nuclear weapons. Iran has repeatedly denied its nuclear energy program is for military use. “They have no roots there in history,” Mr. Ahmadinejad said of the Israelis. “They do not even enter the equation for Iran.”
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who has repeatedly admonished Iranian leaders against making anti-Israel and anti-Semitic remarks, had a conversation with Mr. Ahmadinejad on Sunday to reiterate the warning that such language could cause “potentially harmful consequences,” Mr. Ban’s press office said in a statement. He also rejected any suggestion that Iran fears an Israeli military assault on its uranium enrichment facilities, which the Israeli government has called part of a clandestine Iranian effort to develop nuclear weapons despite Iran’s repeated assertions that its atomic energy program is peaceful.
Mr. Ahmadinejad’s speech on Monday came during a one-day high level conference on implementing universal standards of law. In his comments, he sounded many of the themes that have run through all his past appearances. “We believe the Zionists see themselves at a dead end and they want to find an adventure to get out of this dead end,” he said. “We are fully ready to defend ourselves. We do not take these threats seriously.”
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. Later at his speech on the rule of law, without mentioning any country by name, he denounced 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.“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. Israel’s ambassador, Ron Prosor, left the conference, saying in a statement that “Ahmadinejad showed again that he not only threatens the future of the Jewish people, he seeks to erase our past. Three-thousand years of Jewish history illustrate the clear danger of ignoring fanatics like Iran’s President, especially as he inches closer to acquiring nuclear weapons.”
“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. In Israel, Dan Meridor, the deputy prime minister, said recent inflammatory assertions from Iran, including threats of a possible pre-emptive strike on Israel, may be a sign that economic sanctions and diplomatic pressure on Iran are having an effect. “Maybe we need to continue the pressure,” he told reporters at a briefing.
Mr. Ahmadinejad compared that to reactions to questions he has raised about the Holocaust, although again without being specific. However, he has made the same point over so many visits to the United Nations that the meaning was clear. The Obama administration, which has vowed that Iran will not become a nuclear-weapons state but has urged Israel to give diplomacy and sanctions more time, was quick to denounce Mr. Ahmadinejad. Tommy Vietor, a White House spokesman, called his comments “characteristically disgusting, offensive, and outrageous.” He said they “underscore again why America’s commitment to the security of Israel must be unshakable, and why the world must hold Iran accountable for its utter failure to meet its obligations.”
“They support these offenders and infringe upon other’s freedom and allow sacrilege to people’s beliefs and sanctities, while they criminalize posing questions or investigating into historical issues and jail the researchers,” he said. Regarding Syria, Iran’s most important Middle East ally, Mr. Ahmadinejad denied accusations that is country is aiding the military of President Bashar al-Assad, which is seeking to crush a nearly 19-month-old uprising that has turned into a civil war. Syrian insurgents and their backers, including the United States, have said the Iranians are arming and training Syria’s military.
The Iranian leader is scheduled to deliver his General Assembly speech on Wednesday, which coincides with Yom Kippur, the holiest day in Judaism. In his CNN interview with Piers Morgan, Mr. Ahmadinejad rejected the suggestion that some people are born homosexuals, and he said that the West’s permissive attitude toward gay rights was insensitive to other cultures. “Let me ask you this,” he said. “Do you believe that anyone is giving birth through homosexuality? Homosexuality ceases procreation.”
Mr. Ahmadinejad’s annual visits to the United Nations have become something of a media event. For the past few years he has stayed at the Warwick in Midtown Manhattan, where cordons of heavy security have kept anti-Iran demonstrators across the street. Mr. Ahmadinejad also said, “If a group recognizes an ugly behavior or ugly deed as legitimate, you must not expect other countries or other groups to give it the same recognition.”
The New York Post, which has made no secret of its hostility toward Mr. Ahmadinejad, said it had tried to deliver a gift basket over the weekend to the Warwick filled with items including Gold’s Borscht, Manischewitz gefilte fish, Murray’s Sturgeon Shop whitefish, Zabar’s cream cheese and a free ticket to the Off Broadway show “Old Jews Telling Jokes.” The Post said Iranian officials at the hotel declined to accept it. Homosexuality is forbidden in Iran. Last year a United Nations report on human rights in Iran expressed concern that gays “face harassment, persecution, cruel punishment and even the death penalty.”

Helene Cooper contributed reporting from New York, and Jodi Rudoren from Jerusalem.