Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's spokesman pledged that Israel had the means to defend itself and would not allow for a second genocide of Jews.

"Thank God, Israel has the means at its disposal to bring about the downfall of this extremist regime in Iran. There will be no second 'final solution'," Sharon's spokesman Raanan Gissin told AFP.

"We hope that these extremist declarations will make the world wake up to the nature of this regime -- especially the fact that Iran's nuclear programme and its support of international terrorism, represents not only a danger for Israel but for the entire Western civilisation."

The comments came after Ahmadinejad said in a speech that "they have invented a myth that Jews were massacred" and said the Jewish state should be moved as far away as Alaska.

Ahmadinejad also caused uproar in Israel and the international community in October when he called for the Jewish state to be "wiped off the map".

"We hope these extremist comments by the Iranian president will make the international community open its eyes and abandon any illusions about this regime," foreign ministry spokesman Mark Regev told AFP.

"Israel is calling once more for Iran's nuclear programme to be submitted by the International Atomic Energy Agency to the UN security council" and for the imposition of sanctions, added Regev.

Ahmadinejad's comments reflected a "perverse vision of the world held by this regime and underline the danger should such an extremist regime have a nuclear capacity in the future."

Israel has consistently called for international action to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, with its chief of staff Dan Halutz claiming on Tuesday that Tehran would have all the necessary knowledge to build a nuclear warhead within three months.

Israel is widely believed to possess around 200 nuclear warheads, making it the only nuclear power in the Middle East, although it has never admitted having atomic weapons.

All rights reserved. © 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.