TEHRAN, 28 October 2005 — The Iranian government yesterday called for “riot against Zionists and unbelievers” in nationwide demonstrations planned for today as nations across the world denounced President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s remark on Wednesday that Israel should be “wiped off the map.” Israel demanded the United Nations expel Iran.

In a statement carried by the ISNA student news agency, Ahmadinejad’s government said today’s planned demonstrations should be a clear reply to the “crimes by Israel against the Palestinian nation” in the last five decades in Jerusalem.

“The flame of the Intifada in Palestine is shining more than ever… and has already caused humiliating defeats for the Zionists such as the forceful retreat from the Gaza Strip,” the statement said.

Since the 1979 revolution, late Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini had ordered the annual holding of the Qods (Jerusalem) Day demonstrations in Teheran and all other Iranian provincial capitals on the last Friday of Ramadan.

Israel demanded UN action. “A country that calls for the destruction of another people cannot be a member of the United Nations,” Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s office quoted him as saying in a statement.

Vice Premier Shimon Peres said he might seek an official Israeli mandate to request Iran’s expulsion from the United Nations, but admitted that such an outcome would be unlikely.

“I don’t know if it has any chance of success. But it is something we must say. I don’t think it is a matter of what one thinks is worthwhile or not. This is intolerable,” Peres told Israel Radio.

Iran’s expulsion from the United Nations would require a Security Council recommendation and two-thirds majority vote in the General Assembly — unlikely given the traditional support by many developing countries for anti-Israel resolutions.

Russia warned Tehran that comments such as one made by Ahmadinejad added to pressure for Iran to be referred to the UN Security Council over its nuclear program.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, speaking to Russian media during a trip to Jordan, said the remark by Ahmadinejad was “unacceptable.”

“I have to admit that those who insist on transferring the Iranian nuclear dossier to the United Nations Security Council have received an additional argument to do so,” Lavrov was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies.

“What I saw on television was unacceptable. We will bring it to the attention of the Iranian side,” he said.

The European Union said the comments were “despicable and unacceptable” and “inconsistent with any claim to be a mature and responsible member of the international community.”

Iran’s ambassadors to Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands were also summoned by those countries’ respective foreign ministries to hear official protests — a sign of deteriorating relations between Tehran and the 25-member bloc.

But Iran remained defiant. The spokesman for Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Syed Massoud Jazihiri, backed up Ahmadinejad by describing Israel as a “cancerous tumor.”

He said the West “was right to be afraid, because two decades ago when the Imam (Khomeini) called for Israel to be wiped off the map they thought it was a slogan, but as time passes we are seeing signs of unity in the Islamic world.”

“We have no doubts that at the end of the road, the victory of Muslims and the defeat of Israel is inevitable,” Jazihiri told the Fars news agency.

Iran’s foreign ministry also ordered its diplomats to lodge official protests over Europe’s attitude toward “Zionist crimes.”

“In protest at the exacerbation of the Zionist regime’s crimes and its suppression of the Palestinian nation, Iran’s embassies in Western countries were instructed to convey Iran’s strong protest to European governments for their indifference toward the issue,” the Foreign Ministry said.