Some Iranian journalists and political activists questioned Ahmadinejad's speech. They felt Iran was humiliated by the event. A reporter asked Rahim-Moshaei, the president's trusted advisor, why he gave speeches that resulted in humiliation for Iran. "What a strange question," Rahim-Moshaei retorted. "There was a time when [we were so isolated] we were not even allowed to attend conferences. Now we walk in, and others walk out; do you call this our isolation?"

Some in Iran saw Ahmadinejad's fierce attacks on the West and Israel as a calculated measure to help him win in the June 12 presidential elections. This may well be the case, if we assume Iranians are mesmerized by their president's reckless gallantry abroad. It is a fact that Ahmadinejad has made foreign policy "successes" appear as his presidency's major achievement. It is absolutely necessary for him to look like a winner outside, as his economic and social policies inside have led to chaos and disappointment domestically.

The Geneva speech could also have been meant to rally the Arab street behind Iran by suggesting that Arab rulers were too cowardly to speak out against Israel. The more Arab governments rally against Iranian policies in the region, the more Ahmadinejad relies on the Arab street.

WE MAY also point to the president's pressing need to be constantly in the limelight. Yet his deep anti-Israel angst seems to reflect more than skin-deep political calculations and may require a psychological analysis. The environment where Ahmadinejad grew up, meaning Iran under the Shah, was largely free of anti-Israel sentiments. The top leaders of the revolution, who had previously cut their teeth on the politics of Lebanon, brought home to Iran anti-Israel sentiments prevalent in Arab countries.

But Ahmadinejadwas too young at the time to be among them. So the question remains as to how he developed his anti-Israel fervor. There is no reference to such feelings or activities in his short autobiography. He grew up in a village near a small town in the desert. However, an accusation made by Mehdi Khazali, the progeny of the prominent Ayatollah Ahmad Khaza'li, may shed some light on Ahmadinejad's psychosis.

Khazali claims that Ahmadinejad's real family name is "Saboorchian," a Jewish name that he changed to "Ahmadinejad". Khazali, naming a few other prominent leaders of the Islamic Republic as new converts to Islam from Judaism, questions whether a Jewish cabal has crept in and taken over the revolutionary government! As outlandish as Khazali's claim seems to be, it has gone unchallenged. If there is any shred of truth in it, then we can see Ahmadinejad's fierce anti-Israel sentiment under a different light. Could he be just another convert unsure of his newly acquired identity, resorting to extreme measures to prove himself? Could he be the watered down, modern equivalent of Tomas de Torquemada?

No matter what the motive, many Iranian analysts believe their president's uncontrollable rage and hatred expressed in public are helping rather than hurting Israel; the Durban II conference just provided another piece of evidence. These days, a saying attributed to an Israeli general is making the rounds among Iranians: "If Ahmadinejad is not on the Israeli payroll, he should be."