Among the other effective measures that the Islamic world should seriously consider, Ayatollah Khameneh’i proposed severing all political and economic ties with Tel-Aviv.

"The oil embargo which was imposed back in the 1970s was not the work of OPEC, it was organised by the Organisation of Arab Oil Exporting Countries (OAPEC)", Mr. Rodriguez reminded said.

"Even if Iran or Iraq or both decided to cut their supplies, others would immediately increase their productions, making for the cuts", an Iranian oil expert said, referring to Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf producers as well as Russia.

"The Organisation is not going either to meet before June 26 or to increase production", Mr. Rodriguez said in response to speculation OPEC will raise its output to stem surging prices.

Oil analyst credited President George W. Bush’s urging Israel to withdraw from Palestinian cities and Secretary of State Colin Powell on his way over to the Middle East for preventing further increase in oil prices, adding however that if Mr. Powell fails in his mission (to bring a cease-fire between the Israelis and the Palestinians), then the situation might change dramatically.

Mr. Khameneh'i made the call for imposing oil embargo on Israel and its allies and supporters, whom he did not named, during the Friday sermon, in which he strongly lashed out at Israel for the "rarely precedent crimes it is committing against the Palestinian people".

"The Iranian ayatollahs, who like to present Iran as the mother of Muslim nations, could not possibly remain silent after Iraq urged all Muslim oil producing countries to use the oil as a weapon against the United States and all other nations which support Israel", the source explained.

"The Zionist regime, as the symbol of blood-thirstiness, barbarianism, and observing nonchalance towards all rules of ethics and human rights is standing on one side and the desperate, brave and oppressed Palestinian nation, on the other side", the Iranian leader said, accusing the "Zionists" for the "hegemony" they have exerted over most of the world news media which depicts "merely bits and pieces of the horrendous reality in Palestine today".

Inviting the global community and the Christians to voice their collective objection towards the Israel’s military incursion into the holy Bethlehem Church, Ayatollah Khameneh’i observed that the Palestine issue is not merely an Islamic issue, "but one with global dimensions in which the conscious of the whole mankind is at stake, and therefore, any human being is entitled to judge and react about it, relying on human ethics and values".

Ruling out numerous accusations of the US president against Iran "and a few other countries" because of their support of the Palestinian people, the leader added: "adopting such stands merely leads to global wrath and hatred of America, as today there is no country as hated as America throughout the Islamic world", the official Iranian news agency IRNA reported from the sermon.

In a speech to the Congress, President Bush had labelled the present Iranian Islamic regime as well as those in Pyongyang and Baghdad as forming an "evil axis".

All the Palestinian groups he mentioned are on the American list of "terrorist organisations".

Referring to the Zionist regime's total "nonchalance" towards international norms and the U.N. resolutions, Ayatollah Khameneh’i described as "futile" any kind of negotiation with that regime and "a move in the wrong direction".

"The present condition in Ramallah and Israel's attack against the Palestinian Authority headquarters there are samples of Israel's total indifference and lack of responsibility towards the agreements it has previously signed, and therefore, talking with them will bear no fruit in the future either", he added in his long diatribe.

Repeating President Mohammad Khatami’s utopian solution for bringing peace to the Middle East, the ayatollah said all Palestinian refugees should return to their

Motherland, and then, all the members of the Palestinian nation, including the Muslims, the Christians and the Jews would choose the type of their desired political system through a referendum".

"This proposal is based on the soul of democracy and the rules of human rights, is quite logical, and very practical, and therefore, I encourage all Arab and Islamic countries, as well as all other world nations, governments, and global communities to aim at its realisation", he added, ignoring that many of the "original inhabitants" of Palestine are dead or born after the creation of the Jewish State.