Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaking at the United Nations. Photo: UN.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s trip to Egypt continues, which means so does his rhetoric. Tuesday during an interview on Egyptian TV he claimed that Israel feared the consequences of attacking Iran.

“The countries that helped the creation of the Zionist regime have come to the conclusion that this entity cannot carry out the defined missions. Therefore, they are changing its behavior, which means the end of the idea of occupation and Zionism. Zionists have figured it out and seek to change their situation through measures like attacking Syria but they cannot invade Iran.”

In an interview published in Egyptian media Wednesday Ahmadinejad claimed that Iran has already become a nuclear power but that it had no plans to attack Israel.

Among his other comments made in the last few days, Ahmadinejad stated that Egypt and Iran’s burgeoning relationship depends on the Egyptian government’s embrace of Iran’s “position regarding the liberation of all of Palestine.”

Ahmadinejad’s reception in Egypt has been inconsistent to say the least. A warm welcome from Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi was followed by his chastisement at the hands of Egypt’s leading Sunni Muslim scholar later at Cairo’s historic al-Azhar mosque and university. And Tuesday four men were arrested for protesting Ahmadinejad’s visit to another historic mosque in Cairo. One of the men threw a shoe at the Iranian president, an insult in the Arab world.