NEW YORK, Sept 25: When Iranian President Ahmadinejad landed in New York, he was greeted by a screaming headline in a New York tabloid ‘Evil Has Landed’ and scores of demonstrations organised by Jewish organisations who hold sway over the big apple.

Then at the much-heralded Columbia University event the president of the Ivy League institution, Lee Bollinger, used his 10-minute introductory address to berate and chide the Iranian leader calling him everything from a ‘cruel and petty dictator’ to ‘astonishingly uneducated’, remarks that were played up by mainstream US media and decried by some academics as unscholarly.

Ahmadinejad came to the university at the invitation of its president.

Clearly taken back by the harshness of the language used by Mr Bollinger, Mr Ahmadinejad tried to maintain a smile on his face, even when he began his remarks by complaining about his treatment at the hands of his hosts, saying that guests would not be treated in such a manner in Iran.

He described some of Mr Bollinger’s remarks as an ‘insult’ and ‘incorrect, regretfully’.

“In Iran tradition requires that when we invite a person to be a speaker, we actually respect our students and the professors by allowing them to make their own judgment,” he said through a translator.

“And we don’t think it’s necessary before the speech is even given to come in with a series of claims and to attempt to provide a vaccination of sorts to our faculty and students.”

But Ahmadinejad stayed on message, appearing relaxed, reasonable, open, even charismatic. Whether or not American TV audiences are seduced is beside the point, because Ahmadinejad’s primary audience is not American said one American publication.

The provocations of his New York visit are an integral part

of his domestic political strategy which depends on his ability to hold America’s national attention with an unapologetically nationalist message about Iran’s nuclear rights, lecturing them about God and their aim to run the world, Time magazine commented sarcastically.

When challenged on his statements questioning the Holocaust, for example, Ahmadinejad cleverly turned the issue around, asking: “Why is it that the Palestinian people are paying the price for an event they had nothing to do with?”

That argument may not get much sympathy with an American audience, but championing the Palestinian cause helps Iran’s strategy of undermining the moderate Arab regimes allied with the United States.

He was asked to answer directly whether he or his government seeks the destruction of Israel. He did not. But to solve the “60-year-old problem”, he said, “we must allow the Palestinian people to decide on its future itself”.

Someone from the audience asked Mr Ahmadinejad if he was calling for the destruction of the state of Israel.

The Iranian president did not provide answer directly but spoke instead about the issue of Palestinian self-determination: “We love all nations. We love the Jewish people. There are many Jews living in Iran, with peace and security.”

In answer to criticism Mr Bollinger had made about Iran’s treatment of women and gays, Mr Ahmadinejad had much to say.

“In Iran, we don’t have homosexuals like in your country. We don’t have that in our country,” he said to boos and hisses and even some laughter from the audience.

He said that as an academic he questioned whether there was “sufficient research” about what happened at the end of World War II, referring to the Holocaust. “We know quite well that Palestine is an old wound” for 60 years, he said at one point.

“We need to still question whether the Palestinian people should be paying for it or not.”

In a shameless bid to please the powerful Jewish lobby which is known to make or break the American candidates for presidency, Republican candidate Mitt Romney upped the ante in the arms race among the Republican presidential candidates to see who can be toughest on the Iranian president in his visit to New York City, launching a radio advertisement in early primary states that repeats a call he made last week for the world body to indict the Iranian leader under the Genocide Conventio.

The 60-second spot, which begins airing today in Iowa and South Carolina and then in Florida later in the week, trumpets how Mr Romney, as governor of Massachusetts, refused to provide a State Police escort to former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami when he came to Harvard University to speak in 2006, arguing he was responsible for the torture and murder of dissidents. But Middle East scholars and human rights organisations at the time took issue with Mr Romney’s characterisations of Mr Khatami, a reformist leader who instituted democratic reforms and opposes Mr Ahmadinejad, the New York Times reported.

Not to be outdone Rudolph W. Giuiliane’s campaign released comments he made to an ABC affiliate in Maine in which he excoriated Columbia University’s invitation to Mr Ahmadinejad to deliver a keynote address.

In 1995 during the 50th Anniversary celebrations of the United Nations, Giuliani who was the Mayor of New York, barred Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat from attending a concert at Lincoln Centre for the delegates. This endeared him to the powerful Jewish lobby who filled his election coffers with money.

Mr Ahmadinejad also said he hoped to visit the site of the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan. He is allowed under international law and diplomatic protocols to travel freely within a 25-mile radius of Columbus Circle.

But the police said last week that Mr Ahmadinejad would not be allowed anywhere near Ground Zero during his trip.