Iran says Europe may be hurt by backing Israel

TEHRAN, Oct 20 (Reuters) Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned Europe today it was stirring up hatred in West Asia by supporting Israel and said it "may get hurt" if anger in the region boils over.

''You should believe that this regime (Israel) cannot last and has no more benefit to you. What benefit have you got in supporting this regime, except the hatred of the nations?" he said in a speech broadcast on state radio.

''We have advised the Europeans that the Americans are far away, but you are the neighbours of the nations in this region. We inform you that the nations are like an ocean that is welling up, and if a storm begins, the dimensions will not stay limited to Palestine, and you may get hurt,'' he said.

Ahmadinejad caused outrage in the West last year by calling for Israel to be ''wiped off the map'', echoing comments by the Islamic Republic's late founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

He has not since repeated that phrase but regularly launches verbal attacks on Israel, whose right to exist Iran has not recognised since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

''Today, with the grace of God, the efforts to establish this fake regime have failed totally,'' he said in today's speech to mark Qods Day (Jerusalem Day) when Iranians are officially encouraged to demonstrate in support of the Palestinians.

Although Ahmadinejad has called for Israel's destruction, he said in August Iran was not a threat to any country ''not even to the Zionist regime'' -- a term Iranian officials use for Israel.

State television showed crowds in Iranian towns and cities today waving banners with pictures of Khomeini, and Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Iranian-backed Lebanese group Hizbollah.

Ahmadinejad has also drawn condemnation in the West by describing the Holocaust, in which six million Jews were killed by the Nazis, as a ''myth''.

Reuters