MESHUGA RABBIS MEET MAHMOUD
By HASANI GITTENS and CLEMENTE LISI
September 22, 2006 -- Oy vey!
Iran's firebrand president met face-to-face yesterday in Midtown with another group of Israel-bashers - about a dozen rabbis.
Holocaust-denier Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ripped into Israel at the Intercontinental Hotel, garnering praise from a group of Orthodox rabbis who believe Israel's creation violates God's will, WCBS/Channel 2 reported.
"They have no respect for the lives and dignity of the Jews," Ahmadinejad said through a translator. "If they could, they would destroy 6 billion people in the world."
Ahmadinejad, who has called for Israel to be wiped off the map, made a chilling prediction about the country's future to the rabbis sitting across from him.
"But their time is ending - God willing," he told the rabbis, who belong to a Brooklyn-based group called "Jews Against Zionism."
Meanwhile, a day after inviting Ahmadinejad to speak at Columbia University, school officials canceled the engagement because of "logistics."
Ahmadinejad would have been speaking today, on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the beginning of the Jewish new year.
"This time of year, a number of world leaders do come to speak on campus on short notice," Columbia's director of communications told the school's newspaper, "The Spectator."
"It's not unprecedented but, obviously, the scale of the security and logistical issues of this situation would have been much larger than normal."
There were rumors around campus that Jewish student groups were going to stage a large demonstration over Ahmadinejad's speech.
University President Lee Bollinger said he was offended by Ahmadinejad's views but respected Dean Lisa Anderson's right to invite him.
"I find President Ahmadinejad's stated beliefs to be repugnant, a view that I'm sure is widely shared within the university community," Bollinger said in a statement before the speech was canceled.
At the United Nations yesterday, Ahmadinejad told reporters he loves Jews, but hates Zionists.
"We love everyone around the world. Jews, Christians, Muslims, non-Muslims, non-Jews, non-Christians - we have no problem with people," Ahmadinejad said. "Zionists are Zionists - period. They are not Jews, they are not Christians, and they are not Muslims. They are a power group, a power party, and we oppose the oppression and the aggression that any party that seeks pure raw power goes after."
Ahmadinejad also said his country was working within the framework of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
"The bottom line is we do not need a bomb," he said.
The nations seeking to halt Iran's nuclear activities are working out a new deadline for the Islamic republic and have authorized the European Union's foreign-policy chief to go anywhere at any time to meet Tehran's top nuclear negotiator.
Ahmadinejad said he believed negotiations on the issue were "on the right track."
"Our position on suspension is very clear," Ahmadinejad said. "Under fair and just conditions . . . we will negotiate about it." With Post Wire Services
hasani.gittens@nypost.com