President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has sparked international outrage for his repeated attacks against Israel, which he has predicted is doomed to disappear and described as a "stinking corpse" and a "dead rat". His most notorious attack was in 2005 when he repeated another saying from Khomeini calling for Israel to be "wiped from the map".

Mottaki added: "More than ever, the Zionist regime is disintegrating from within. Today, the Islamic resistance has shattered the regime's legend of invincibility."
While Ahmadinejad and top military commanders regularly predict the demise of Israel, such virulent attacks from the foreign ministry are relatively unusual.

Iran vehemently denies charges of anti-Semitism,