John Lyons, Middle East correspondent | April 22
IRANIAN leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has unleashed international condemnation of his speech to the UN anti-racism conference, with Israeli President Shimon Peres likening him to Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin.
And despite a walkout during the speech by 23 EU delegates, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said "the world sounds a weak voice against those who advocate erasing Israel".
Mr Ahmadinejad defied UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, who had urged the Iranian President before he took to the podium not to use his address on the opening day of the conference to attack Israel.
Mr Ban said the speech had been a manipulation of the forum and "I deplore the use of this platform by the Iranian President to accuse, divide and even incite".
"It is deeply regrettable that my plea to look to the future of unity was not heeded by the Iranian President."
Mr Ahmadinejad told the conference in Geneva, dubbed "Durban II", that Israel was "the most cruel and repressive racist regime". In a reference to the Holocaust, which he has described as a "myth", Mr Ahmadinejad spoke of "the pretext of Jewish suffering".
While some delegates walked out, others shouted interjections and some applauded him.
Mr Ahmadinejad was taken aback when one demonstrator, a French Jewish student dressed as a clown, threw an object towards him, but he continued after calling the man "ignorant".
"Following World War II, they resorted to military aggression to make an entire nation homeless under the pretext of Jewish suffering," he said. "They sent migrants from Europe, the US and other parts of the world in order to establish a totally racist government in the occupied Palestine.
"The word Zionism personifies racism that falsely resorts to religion and abuses religious sentiments to hide their hatred."
The speech coincided with Holocaust Remembrance Day. In Israel, Mr Netanyahu told those who gathered at Jerusalem's Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial for a service broadcast nationally: "We will not allow the Holocaust deniers to carry out another Holocaust against the Jewish people. This is the supreme duty of the state of Israel. This is my supreme duty as Prime Minister of Israel."
Mr Peres, a Nobel Peace Prize-winner, said earlier that "among those who collaborated with the Nazis, and those who stood by and let the Holocaust happen, there are those who criticise the one state that rose to grant refuge to Holocaust survivors, the one state that will prevent another Holocaust.
"It is hard to fathom why despots such as Hitler the Nazi, Stalin the Bolshevik and Ahmadinejad the Persian chose the Jews as the main target for their hatred, their madness and their violence.
"Perhaps they targeted the Jewish people because of its spiritual power - a nation poor in material possessions, but rich in values - for he who is infected with megalomania fears the power of the spirit."
British Foreign Secretary David Milliband condemned the Ahmadinejad speech as "inflammatory and utterly unacceptable", but defended Britain's decision to participate in the conference.
Source: The Australian
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