To the Editor:

It is disingenuous for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to suggest that he has no hostility toward the Israeli people, but only the state of Israel ("Iran's President Denies Hostility to Israelis," Sept. 19).

The people of Israel cannot be separated from their home, or their history.  Israel's thriving society was built by its citizens.  Their forbearers, including many Holocaust survivors, envisaged the nation as a final safe haven for persecuted Jews.  And while there were Zionist movements long before Hitler came to power, anti-Semitism, the Holocaust, and the systematic murder of the Six Million were the ultimate catalyst for the birth of the Jewish homeland.

President Ahmadinejad's Holocaust denial and spurious comparison of the Nazi Holocaust to Israel's treatment of the Palestinians sends a clear signal about how he really feels about the Jewish people.  Given his record, Mr. Ahmadinejad cannot be taken at his word.