Reuters/Agencies

Iranians stage an anti-Israeli rally in Tehran yesterday
The creation of a universally-recognised Palestinian state would be just a first step towards wiping out Israel, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said yesterday.
He spoke weeks ahead of a UN General Assembly in New York where the Arab League plans to seek full UN membership for a Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, with East Jerusalem as its capital.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on August 16 that he would deliver the application to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon at some point during a gathering of world leaders for the General Assembly starting the week of September 19.
Ahmadinejad, restating a position expressed soon after taking office in 2005 that Israel was a “tumour” to be wiped off the map, urged Palestinians not to settle for a two-state solution that is backed by Abbas but to strive for a complete return of what they consider their land.  
“Recognising the Palestinian state is not the last goal. It is only one step forward towards liberating the whole of Palestine,” Ahmadinejad told worshippers at Friday prayers on international Quds Day—an annual show of support for the Palestinian cause.
“The Zionist regime is a centre of microbes, a cancer cell and if it exists in one iota of Palestine it will mobilise again and hurt everyone.”
Any move for Palestinian statehood at the UN is likely to be vetoed by the US, but even if it were to pass and Israelis and Palestinians found a way to co-exist, that would still be entirely insufficient, Ahmadinejad said.
“It is not enough for them to have a weak, powerless state in a very small piece of Palestine. They should unite to establish a state but the ultimate goal is the liberation of the whole of Palestine,” he said.
“I urge the Palestinians never to forget this ideal. Forgetting this ideal is equal to committing suicide. It would be giving an opportunity to an enemy which is on the verge of collapse and disappearance.”
Abbas has said he wants the world to recognise a Palestinian state at the General Assembly and support its admission to the UN, while sticking to his goal of two-state co-existence with Israel. 
Palestinians want their state to encompass the Israeli-occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip, from which Israel withdrew settlers in 2005, with East Jerusalem as their capital. Israel captured all three areas in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
Ahmadinejad reiterated that the Holocaust was a “lie” which he said was used as an excuse for Israel’s creation.
“The goal of all believers and justice seekers should be focused on the disappearance of the Zionist regime,” he said as the worshippers shouted “Death to Israel” and “Death to America.”
He also warned Israelis that they “had no place” in the Middle East.
“Your era is over. It is in your interest to return to your homes... You have no place in our region and among our nations.”
 Ahmadinejad also warned the West against “interference” in the region, which has been the scene of political crises and popular uprisings in recent months.
“Freedom, justice and free election... are the legitimate rights of all people but we should be careful (because) they will not be born out of the guns of Nato and US forces,” Ahmadinejad said.
“Any government that does not have good relations with its people and deprives them of liberty and justice does not stand a chance of (keeping) its rule,” he said. “But the solution does not lie with the intervention of Nato forces and oppressors.”