A number of
blogs have already noted this article and the speech it covers. Here is the whole article from Fars News:
Millions of Iranians once again held annual International Qods Day rallies on Friday, with a call by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for Israel to be relocated, away the Middle East and the Islamic world.
"Canada and Alaska have vast lands, why don't you relocate them (Israel) over there and keep helping them over there with (aid of) 30 to 40 billion dollars per year for building a new existence over there," President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a speech.
"I ask Europe and the United States whether they would have agreed to take them their lands and come up with the idea to split it and return a small part back to them," he added.
The president once again also said that the Holocaust should not be exposed as a "holy issue, holier than God and the prophets" and "as pretext to start another genocide in Palestine".
The Iranian nation, he said, condemned the killing of all innocent people, regardless of whether they were Muslims, Christians or Jews and considered Adolf Hitler and those behind the killings during the Second World War as "criminals," he said.
The Late Founder of the Islamic Republic, Imam Khomeini, had declared the last Friday of the fasting month of Ramadan to be "the International Qods Day", intended to be a day to call for the liberation of Qods (Jerusalem) from Israeli occupation.
After Mecca in Saudi Arabia, Jerusalem, or Qods in Arabic, is the holiest place for Muslims.
Hundreds of thousands attended the International Qods Day rallies in Tehran.
Ahmadinejad and ex-president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani held speeches after the demonstration at the Friday prayer ceremony at Tehran University.
Iran does not recognize Israel and insists on a referendum to clarify the geographic and political status of the "occupied territories of Palestine" in which also millions of Palestinian refugees should be allowed to vote.
Ahmadinejad and other Iranian leaders have several times stressed that Iran would accept the outcome of the referendum "whatever it would be."
Leftists sometimes point to Ahmadinejad's calls for a referendum as clarifying his stance towards Israel. It does, but not in the way they think it does. The Jews of Israel are never going to consent to a foolish referendum in which they would be outnumbered, so obviously this is just posturing that tells us nothing of Ahmadinejad's practical intentions, whatever those might be. It is interesting, though, that this particular posture is assumed following references to "relocating" Israel.
All Iranian officials, including the late Imam Khomeini, the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei and President Ahmadinejad have always stressed that Iran's opposition is solely towards "Zionism" and not Judaism, and that the confrontation is, thus, a political and not a racial issue.
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