Besnainou made the appeal Sunday night during a dinner hosted by the World Jewish Congress in the French Senate.

He said: “The Jewish nation,; which has lived two of its most marking events during the twentieth century, the Shoah and the creation of the state of Israel, is facing today a man, Ahmadinejad, who denies the Holocaust and calls to erase Israel from the map. His intentions are clear: Hitler wanted a world purged of its Jews, Ahmadinejad aims at a world purged of the Jewish state.”

He added: “Prime Minister, there is still time to prevent a probable catastrophe. You have the possibility to do so. We must do all we can to prevent Iran’s leaders from obtaining the nuclear weapon”.

“Diplomacy has its limits and the free world has not only the duty of trying, it must also obtain results. World peace depends on this,” Besnainou added.

Responding to Besnainou, Dominique de Villepin pleaded for a quick vote of a UN Security Council resolution imposing “progressive, targeted and reversible sanctions against Iran”.

Earlier on Sunday, the World Jewish Congress delegates discussed the Iranian threat and actions they could take.

Existential threat

“For the first time in decades Israel is facing an existential threat,” declared both David Kimche, chairman of the Israel Council on Foreign Relations, and Oded Eran, Israel’s ambassador to the EU and NATO.

“We need to intensify our contacts with the Security Council permanent members, with Javier Solana, Germany, Italy, the next UN secretary general, the AEIA and parliaments,” Eran, who will become in January the new WJC representative in Israel, declared.

“When half of the Jewish people is threatened, it is the absolute duty of the second half to be active,” Eran added, considering that international bodies were reacting too slowly on the Iranian threat issue and that this attitude could have damaging consequences.

“We have to prepare for the worst scenario possible, other countries will try to get the nuclear weapon just like Iran,” said David Kimche.

“We have to make sure Teheran understands fully, at 100%, that its obtaining the nuclear weapon will lead it to great danger.”

David Kimche stressed that the situation in Israel and the US has changed with the recent elections.

“Ehud Olmert will meet with President Bush on Monday but he might hear different things than in former discussions,” Kimche said.

The chairman of the Israel Council on Foreign Relations placed some hope in Arab regimes in the Middle East and estimated that these countries were well aware of the Iranian threat. “They are as much a target for Iran as Israel,” he said.

Ambassadors of Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco attended the World Jewish Congress dinner.