Each and every person among the thousands who participated in the Sept. 21 rally at Dag Hammarskjold  Plaza in New York City protesting the appearance of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the United Nations General Assembly is to be commended and thanked.

For protest and indignation were the only appropriate responses to the Iranian leader’s presence at the UN and presentation from the podium of the august hall of the General Assembly.

Ahmadinejad’s personal obsession to wipe Israel off the map is well documented, as are the many ancillary causes he underwrites in support of that obsession.

So as not to offend the sensibilities of the fair-minded western media and the mostly indifferent western public, Ahmadinejad sterilized his true intentions toward the Jewish state. Even so, his language betrayed his ultimate purpose. In the address to the General Assembly, he echoed the same ugly themes that have been the hymnal and anthem of Jew-haters for centuries. He referred to the “Zionist murderers” who are “acquisitive” and “deceitful,” and who control international finance despite their “minuscule” number.

The following day, from the very same General Assembly podium, Israeli President Shimon Peres placed Ahmadinejad’s speech in its proper historical context. “Yesterday, on this very stage, the Iranian leader renewed the darkest anti-Semitic libel – the Protocols of the Elders of Zion… an attempt to bring to life one of the ugliest plots of history.”

Later in the week, Germany’s Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier at the General Assembly also condemned Ahmadinejad: “The statements of the Iranian president about Israel are irresponsible and unacceptable. The blatant anti-Semitism of his speech this year was intolerable and demands our mutual condemnation,” Steinmeier said.

On Sept. 26, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told the Security Council, which had been called to convene by the Arab League to discuss Israel’s settlements in the West Bank, that “the United States of America will be asking that the council convene again to take up the matter of one member of the United Nations [Iran] calling for the destruction of another member of the United Nations [Israel].”

The next day, the Security Council unanimously passed a resolution directing Iran to halt nuclear enrichment work It also urges Iran to co-operate with the UN International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, which is investigating whether Iran had conducted research on an atomic weapon.

Thus, nothing has changed with and for the Iranian leader. He flouts the world, mostly but not only the West, even as he panders to it.

Israel’s president described Ahmadinejad best: “He is a disgrace to the ancient Iranian people. He is a disgrace to the United Nations.”

But the Iranian leader is also very dangerous, and he must be stopped.