The man that Israeli leaders consider to be the Number One threat to the existence of the State of Israel told the United Nations General Assembly Tuesday that 'Zionists" are the cause of the current financial disaster sweeping the world.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also told world leaders, "A few bullying powers have sought to put hurdles in the path of Iran's peaceful development of nuclear power. These are the same countries that possess stockpiles of nuclear arms that no one is monitoring."

It is believed that Iran is developing a nuclear weapon of mass destruction despite Ahmadinejad's denials.

The Iranian president accused European nations of "spending their dignities and resources on the occupations, crimes and threats of the Zionist network" and called for a referendum in Israel and the Palestinian Authority to create a government that would rule over a single state encompassing both Arabs and Jews.

"Today, the Zionist regime is on a definite slope to collapse, and there is no way for it to get out of the cesspool created by itself and its supporters," he said. The Iranian president blamed "Zionists" for the financial woes in Europe and the US by controlling economic centers around the world in "a deceitful, complex and furtive manner."

Nor did he spare the United States from his forecast of doom, declaring that it should mind its own business on the international scene. The "American empire in the world is reaching the end of its road, and its next rulers must limit their interference to their own borders," he said.

Ahmadinejad reiterated that Iran would continue to develop its nuclear technology, regardless of any efforts by the international community to halt the process. "The great Iranian people… will resist the bullying and has defended and will defend its rights," he said. "The Iranian nation is for dialogue. But it has not accepted and will not accept illegal demands."

Peres: First Time UN Allows Official Anti-Semitism

President Shimon Peres slammed Ahmadinejad's rant against "Zionist murderers", saying it constituted "the first time in the history of the United Nations that the head of a state is appearing openly and publicly with the ugly and dark accusations of the 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion.'"

The reference was to an infamous anti-Semitic diatribe published in the early 1900s that alleged a Jewish and Masonic conspiracy to seize control of the world - a proven deliberate hoax.

Peres added that Ahmadinejad's speech recalled "the darkest accusations in an air of hatred."