Iran leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad 'a disgrace' to UN, Israeli president Shimon Peres says

nydailynews.com

Israel's president slapped back hard Wednesday at Iran's loony leader, calling him a danger and "disgrace to this house."

"The Iranian people are not our enemies," Shimon Peres told the UN General Assembly. "Their leader is a danger to his own people, to the region, to the world ... His appearance here is already a shame."

Peres dressed down President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a day after the Iranian called up classic anti-Semitic canards to blame "Zionist murderers" for everything from the unfolding Wall Street crisis to the Russian invasion of Georgia.

"Yesterday, on this very stage, the Iranian leader renewed the darkest anti-Semitic libel," Peres said.

The Israeli leader also blasted Ahmadinejad's past denials of the Holocaust as a "mockery of indisputable evidence, a cynical offense to survivors of the horror."

Peres warned the world body that Iran's nuclear program posed an "existential threat" to the Jewish state.

"Tehran combines long range missiles and short range minds," he said. "It is pregnant with tragedies."

There was no immediate response from the Iranians.

Ahmadinejad, who has said in the past that Israel should be wiped off the map, used his turn to address the UN on Tuesday to rail at the Jewish state.

"Today, the Zionist regime is on a definite slope to collapse, and there is no way to get out of the cesspool created by itself," the Iranian said.

He also launched verbal bombs at the U.S., saying the "American empire is reaching the end of its road."