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Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad argued before a U.N. anti-racism conference Monday that Israel is a "paragon of racism" founded on "the pretext of Jewish sufferings" during World War II.

The comments, a hard-edged version of Ahmadinejad's often-repeated anti-Zionist views, prompted several dozen European diplomats to walk out of the opening session of the week-long Geneva meeting, which the Obama administration and eight other Western nations already were boycotting. In addition, a handful of pro-Israel demonstrators shouting "shame, shame" and "racist, racist" threw red clown noses at the podium and prevented Ahmadinejad from entering a room where he was to hold a news conference.

The uproar seemed to douse any hopes that the gathering would prove more successful than the first U.N. anti-racism conference, in Durban, South Africa, in 2001. That meeting also became a forum for vitriolic condemnation of Israel.

Unwilling and unable to make a constructive contribution towards a solution and at the same time frustrated that the Americans have taken the initiative, Europeans do what they do best: warn and complain, like the viewers of a soccer game, who -- from the stands -- know they would convert every strike into a goal.

After over 40 years' occupation, there can be no return to a status quo ante, because the status quo ante itself is a subject of dispute. For most Israelis, it is Israel within its 1967 borders, while for Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran, it's Palestine prior to the founding of Israel. When they talk about the end of the occupation, they don't mean Hebron, Ramallah, Bethlehem and Nablus, they mean Haifa, Beersheba, Jaffa and Tiberias.

One side insists on the expansion of settlements, the other demands their right of return -- like travellers who've taken the wrong train and getting ever farther away from their destination, but not wanting to get off because they've been travelling so long. So the Israelis play victors in a dead end and the Palestinians, heroes without any prospect of success.

The first-degree threat presented to Israel is Iran's progress towards positioning itself as an alternative power to America in this region, estimates Dr. Eran Lerman, who took office Thursday as deputy chief of the National Security Council.  "It isn't just the nuclear issue, but the whole gamut that compels Iran to present itself as the heir of the USSR and a counterforce against the West," Lerman explained to Ynet.

"Iran is like a huge, outspread octopus. But what has been going on within the country recently, the serious hit Hizbullah took in the Lebanese elections, as well as the change embodied by US President Barack Obama – who is allowing Muslim figures ostentatiously to have photo ops with him, all this is an indication that Iran's power quest, which nuclear capability is meant to bolster, is not unavoidable or a sure success. It can be fought and slowed," Lerman claimed.

For the last nine years, Dr. Lerman has served as the director of the American Jewish Committee's Middle East office. The AJC is one of the oldest Jewish organizations in the United States, established 103 years ago.

We can offer several arguments for and against the demand to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. The reasons in favor seem clear: On the tactical and strategic level, the demand puts to the test the willingness of the Palestinians, the Syrians and the countries of the Middle East in general, to make a quantum leap when it comes to accepting our existence. They would do so by recognizing the unique character of Israel and accepting it as a fact that should no longer be questioned. This is psychologically significant, with diplomatic-security implications whose importance should not be downplayed. There is also the hope that formal recognition of Israel's Jewish character will check the demand to implement the refugees' "right of return"; clarify to the minorities in Israel their status as citizens, while drawing a red line that will emphasize the pointlessness of aspirations to undermine the Jewish character of the state, and reinforce global legitimization of the existence of Israel as a Jewish state.

it is impossible to ignore the suspicion that Israel's demand for recognition also stems from an unconscious, collective factor that is very problematic. We may still be suffering from the exile-induced fear that a Jewish state will not last a fear accompanied by expressions of a lack of confidence in our strength or a surfeit of such confidence. This is speculation, but it can explain patently irrational diplomatic-security viewpoints, on both the left and the right, which are hard to understand otherwise. If this assessment is correct then we are talking about a dangerous phenomenon that distorts our judgment.

It is not accepted in those parts of international law that deal with the recognition of states: A country is recognized de facto or fully without any determination regarding its essence as a secular, Catholic, or Muslim country et al. Moreover, the demand to recognize Israel as a Jewish state implies that our character depends on such recognition, which our opponents can also withdraw.

Rising political tensions in Iran ahead of watershed presidential elections on 12 June intensified today with the discovery of a homemade bomb on board a domestic airliner. The incident closely followed a fatal attack on a mosque that hardline Iranian leaders blamed on the US, Israel and Britain.

The Ahvaz incident followed an apparent suicide bombing on Thursday at a mosque in Zahedan, in Sistan-Baluchistan province in south-eastern Iran, which killed 25 people and wounded more than 100. Three men convicted of planning the explosion were publicly executed yesterday.

Khuzestan and Sistan-Baluchistan provinces have witnessed numerous attacks attributed to separatists, ethnic and religious groups, and mujahideen resistance fighters since the 1979 revolution. Oil-rich Khuzestan, which borders Iraq, is home to Iran's Arab minority. Sistan-Baluchistan, bordering Pakistan, has a high concentration of Sunni Muslims. Iran is predominantly Shia.

On the eve of what looks like the country's most significant election in a decade, Ahmadinejad was in classic attack mode yesterday, using his final campaign rally to lambast Zionism and imperialists and accuse the three other candidates of using "Hitler's methods, to repeat lies and accusations until ­everyone believes them".

In a strange piece of political repetition, Ahmadinejad's slogan, courtesy of Barack Obama, is "Yes We Can". Even opponents admit it would be rash to assume he cannot win four more years. His common touch and defiance of the US and Israel go down well in the countryside and small towns, and with many poor and traditional people everywhere.

Palestinians reject any deal between Israel and the United States that would allow even limited Jewish settlement construction in the occupied West Bank, a top Palestinian negotiator said Sunday.

Netanyahu said Palestinians "must finally abandon the demand" to resettle families of hundreds of thousands of refugees of a 1948 war over Israel's establishment, which he said could "undermine" the Jewish state's existence. Addressing a memorial to the founder of Zionism, Netanyahu reiterated demands for Palestinians to explicitly recognize Israel as a Jewish state, calling this "the key to peace."

Western officials said the United States was moving in the direction of making allowances so Israel could finish off at least some existing projects which are close to completion.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran on Monday used the platform of a United Nations conference in Geneva on combating racism to disparage Israel as a “cruel and repressive racist regime,” prompting delegates from European nations to desert the hall and earning a rare harsh rebuke from Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

As Mr. Ahmadinejad began to speak, two protesters wearing rainbow-hued clown wigs — their statement on the tenor of the proceedings — pelted him with red foam noses. Hustled out the door by security agents, they were soon followed by lines of stony-faced diplomats from the 23 European nations attending the conference. They walked out to the sound of some other delegates applauding Mr. Ahmadinejad.

The United States and more than a half-dozen other nations had already boycotted the gathering out of concern that it would focus on maligning Israel rather than on the global problems of discrimination, replaying the disputes that marked the first United Nations conference on combating racism in Durban, South Africa, in 2001.

The atmosphere at the Geneva meeting was tense even before the Iranian president began speaking, with pro-Israel protesters chanting "shame" from the other side of the chamber's doors and a Jewish student group from France infiltrating the hall. Some countries, led by the US and Israel, had already declared a boycott, Others, including Britain, took their seats, but were braced, with their "shoes on", to walk out if Ahmadinejad's oratory was to prove offensive.

When he did speak, he was even more vitriolic than they had feared.In a rambling polemic, Ahmadinejad questioned the reality of the Holocaust, accused Israel of genocide and spoke of a wide-ranging Zionist conspiracy, triggering pandemonium and a coordinated walkout by Britain and other EU states.

He spoke in Geneva's Palais des Nations and used language probably not heard there since it was built to house the doomed League of Nations in the dark days of the 1930s. He said Zionists had thoroughly infiltrated western countries. They had "penetrated into the political and economic structure including their legislation, mass media, companies, financial systems, and their security and intelligence agencies ... to the extent that nothing can be done against their will", he told delegates from around the world.

A controversial UN conference on racism has begun in Geneva, amid concern it could become an anti-Semitic forum. Several countries - including the US, Australia and Germany - are boycotting it but France and the UK are attending.

Iran's president, who has denied the Holocaust, is to address the meeting, a follow-up to a 2001 UN forum in Durban that ended in acrimony.

many Western countries are uncomfortable with the address by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the only major leader to accept an invitation to the forum.