A prominent Iranian professor has disputed the claim of Iran's Islamic leaders that the country has a special responsibility to ensure the destruction of Israel, according to the Algemeiner website.

“You claim that the Islamic Republic of Iran has a responsibility to annihilate Israel,” Sadegh Zibakalam told a seminar in Tehran, a video of which was uploaded to YouTube this week.

“The first question I would like to put to this regime is that this responsibility to annihilate Israel as a core value of Iranian foreign policy, who has given this responsibility to the Islamic Republic of Iran?”

Zibakalam, who is a professor of political science at the University of Tehran, continued by asking whether Iranians had called for Israel’s annihilation in a referendum or if the Iranian parliament had legislated for the Jewish state’s destruction.

In February 2014, Zibakalam stated publicly that he recognized Israel because the United Nations recognizes it as a state. He has also spent time in jail for questioning the wisdom of Iran's nuclear program. He was rejected as a candidate for the Iranian parliament by Iran’s Guardian Council in 2000.

Zibakalam’s comments at the seminar were interrupted by some members of the audience, who chanted “Death to Israel.” However, others booed them and began chanting Zibakalam’s name.

He responded by calling his critics “tyrannical and dictatorial” for disrupting the debate.

“Has the Arab League said it was incompetent to annihilate Israel and pleaded for Iran to do so on their behalf?” he asked. “Have Palestinians pleaded for this? Or the UN Security Council?”

He concluded by asking, “Who on earth has given this responsibility to Iran to annihilate Israel?”