Peres told a visiting European delegation that concerted international pressure was the best way to dissuade Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons but that hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's call for Israel to be wiped off the map was a specific threat to the Jewish people.

"If Iran will see an international coalition against the bomb, it will comply. If the world is divided, they will make a mockery," he said, according to a statement from his office.

"The Iranian president's calling for genocide is a Jewish problem. And genocide can be accomplished, as we know from history, without a bomb. A nuclear bomb is like a flying gas chamber.

"The state of Israel's raison d'etre is to prevent another genocide, and thus Israel should raise the call, but we expect everyone to stand up clearly against Iran."

Israel views Iran as its chief enemy, alarmed by Ahmadinejad's call for the Jewish state to be erased from the map and his dismissal of the Nazi Holocaust as a myth.

While Iran insists its nuclear work is only designed to meet energy needs, Israel and the United States believe the activity is a front to develop atomic weapons -- claims denied by Tehran.

In an interview earlier this month, Peres, a former premier and Nobel peace prize winner, warned that Iran risks its own destruction if it tries to wipe out the Jewish state.

Israel is currently considered the only country in the Middle East to possess a nuclear arsenal, estimated at some 200 nuclear warheads, although the Jewish state has never confirmed or denied it holds such weapons.

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