Tel Aviv - Iran's nuclear ambitions need to be dealt with by the international community and not by Israel alone, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in remarks published Monday. 

"Iran is a large world power, which poses a threat to the international community. The one charged with handling the Iranian issue is, first and foremost, the international community," he told the Yediot Ahronot daily in an interview to mark the Jewish new year, which begins Monday evening. 

He said comments by Israeli leaders and analysts about what was needed in order to deter the perceived Iranian threat showed that Israel was "a country that has lost a sense of proportion about itself." 

"The assumption that if the United States, Russia, China, Britain and Germany don't know how to deal with the Iranians, we Israelis will know, we will do, we will act, is an example of loss of proportions," he said. 

"I say, gentlemen, let's be more modest. We will do what we know how to do and what we can do, and we will act within the boundaries of our realistic abilities, meaning that we will act within the envelope of the international system, while we are not the ones leading it, but someone else." 

Israel regards Iran as is biggest existential threat, because of Tehran's nuclear ambitions coupled with comments by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that the Jewish state must be erased off the map. (dpa)