Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, who is always touted by the West as a peace partner for Israel, met on Wednesday with the man that has constantly called for Israel’s destruction.

Abbas met with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on the sidelines of the Islamic summit held in Cairo, the PA-based WAFA news agency reported.

According to the report, the two discussed the political process, the Palestinian Authority’s financial crisis and the reconciliation efforts between Abbas’s Fatah movement and rival Hamas.

The meeting was attended by PLO Executive Committee Member Saeb Erekat, the PA’s Foreign Affairs Minister Riyad Al-Malki and Abbas’s spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh, WAFA reported.

A report about the meeting on the Iranian website PressTV said that Abbas expressed gratitude for Iran’s support and said Iranians have “always stood beside the Palestinian nation.”

Ahmadinejad described supporting the rights of the “Palestinian people” as the unwavering strategy of the Islamic Republic, the report said.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran completely supports the rights of the Palestinian nation in all international circles,” Ahmadinejad was quoted as having said during the meeting with Abbas.

“Israel is in a position of weakness and if the resistance of nations and Palestinian groups continues, undoubtedly the future outlook of nations will be brighter,” Ahmadinejad added.

The meeting between the two came on the same day that the Iranian president proudly declared that the Iranian people are ready to march on Israel to “wipe it out” if the Jewish state attacks the Islamic Republic.

“The people of Iran are ready to march on Israel to wipe it out if it launches into an adventure against Tehran” and attacks the country, the Iranian president told Egyptian media.

“The Zionists… hope to aggress Iran and attack it, but they are very afraid of the Iranian reaction and of the consequences of such an attack,” he added.

“Our defense forces are capable of dissuading any aggressor and making him regret his act,” Ahmadinejad said.

On Monday, the Iranian president said that “the period of the Zionists is over” and said that Israelis “should give their place to others.”

Ahmadinejad is currently on an historic trip to Cairo, the first visit of an Iranian president to Egypt since the 1979 Iranian revolution ruptured diplomatic ties between the two countries.