okay, let's back up a moment.
ahmadinejad is not interested in a war. period. he knows his country is in no position to fight one. they lack the military power and he knows he's about as popular in iran as bush is here, plus let's not forget that he doesn't even run the country and couldn't do jack squat even if he wanted to without khamenei's say-so.
secondly, as hugo said, ahmadinejad just said the zionist regime, not the israeli people. nothing he has ever said indicates he has any aspirations for nuking israel or even starting a war there for the above reasons.
ahmadinejad is trying to do one thing and one thing only: step into the vacuum created by saddam's fall. until now, iraq was the "big man" in the area, saddam was the scary power and his country was at the forefront of policy. what ahmadinejad wants to do is keep iran in the headlines and the nuclear attempts are in order to get them a place at the table.
the hullabaloo over his statements are what he wants, like a dog that jumps, barks, and snaps in the hopes of making you think it's a rottweiler when in reality it's a yorkie. ahmadinejad is even less likely of attacking israel than saddam was because, unlike saddam, he's not a megalomaniacal moron. for his crazy viewpoints, he's quite astute and knows full well that if iran dropped so much as a firecracker in israel's territory iran would be a swimming pool the next day.