JERUSALEM, Feb 27: Former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday accused Iran of trying to establish a 1,000-year Islamic “Reich,” similar to the empire Adolf Hitler dreamt of creating.

The Iranians “are trying to create a 1,000-year-old militant Islamic Reich,” the head of Israel's hawkish Likud party and the country's current opposition leader told reporters.

Tehran denies claims by Israel and the West that its nuclear programme is aimed at developing an atom bomb, insisting that its atomic activities are meant solely for civilian means.

Israel considers Iran its chief enemy and an “existential threat”, alarmed by Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad's calls for the Jewish state to be “wiped off the face of the map”.

“A victory on Zionism is the first step towards a victory of establishing this fantasy empire, reconstituted from Persia to Spain,” Netanyahu claimed, adding: “Israel is only the first stop.” ”For a quarter of a century this great force (Iran) has emerged from under the surface of the earth like a poison geyser, a poison gas,” he said.

“It has to be stopped.” Recent polls have shown that if snap elections were held in Israel, the right-wing Likud under Netanyahu's leadership would emerge as the largest party in parliament with nearly 25pc of the vote.—AFP