Ban Rebukes Iran Over Anti-Israel Remarks

UNITED NATIONS — It is "unacceptable" for President Ahmadinejad of Iran to use terms like "dirty microbe" and "savage animal" in reference to Israel, Secretary General Ban said today. Mr. Ban's comments came after Israel's ambassador, Dan Gillerman, lodged a complaint to him about the latest diatribe from Tehran.

"It is unacceptable and undesirable for a head of state of a member state of the United Nations to use such kind of language against any other member state," Mr. Ban told The New York Sun after meeting Mr. Gillerman today.

In the last few days, Iran's language has become increasingly belligerent in what some Israelis believe may portend an attack in retaliation for the killing of the Hezbollah terrorist Imad Mughniyah in Damascus last week, which many in the region believe was carried out by Israel.

The Israelis "assassinate pure and pious people and then they celebrate it, like what happened to the son of Lebanon who had stood against the savage onslaught of the Zionists and broke the Zionists' horns," Mr. Ahmadinejad told a crowd during a nationally-televised rally in Bandar Abbas, Iran. "World powers have created a black and dirty microbe named the Zionist regime and have unleashed it like a savage animal on the nations of the region," he said.