Bollinger was strongly criticized for inviting Ahmadinejad to Columbia, and had promised tough questions in his introduction to Ahmadinejad's talk. But the strident and personal nature of his attack on the president of Iran was startling.
"You are either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated," Bollinger told Ahmadinejad about the leader's Holocaust denial. "Will you cease this outrage?"
Ahmadinejad said he simply wanted more research on the Holocaust, which he said was abused as a justification for Israeli mistreatment of the Palestinians.
What stood out for me is that Ahmadinejad quite clearly
does not deny the holocaust a subject of great debate here a few months back.
Bollinger described Ahmadinejad as having a "fanatical mindset" for making statements like wanting Israel to be “wiped off the map.”
"Do you plan on wiping us off the map too?" Bollinger asked, also asking questions about allegations Iran was supplying insurgents in Iraq. "Can you tell them and us why Iran is fighting a proxy war in Iraq?"
Ahmadinejad responded to boos and cheers that Iran is a "peace-loving nation."
"We love all nations. We are friends with the Jewish people," he said.
Also seemingly to deflate the claims that he said he wants to "wipe Israel off the map."
