Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said today the Holocaust was a myth, reiterating a view that has caused international uproar and drawn a rebuke from the UN Security Council.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: said Israel should be moved to the US, Canada, or Europe
"They have fabricated a legend under the name 'Massacre of the Jews', and they hold it higher than God himself, religion itself and the prophets themselves," he told a crowd in the southeastern city of Zahedan.
His speech was broadcast live on state television. Mr Ahmadinejad accused the Israeli government and its allies of hypocrisy and repeated remarks that Israel should be moved from "dear Palestine" to Europe, America or Canada.
"If your civilisation consists of unjust acts, oppression and poverty for the majority of the globe to provide your own people welfare, then we shout at the top of our voices that we hate your frail civilisation," he said, to rapturous cries of "God is Greatest" from the crowd.
Mr Ahmadinejad, a former Revolutionary Guardsman who was elected president in June, in October called Israel a "tumour" which must be "wiped off the map", provoking a diplomatic storm and stoking up fears about Iran's nuclear ambitions.
Washington accuses Tehran of seeking nuclear weapons. Iran denies any atomic arms ambitions.
European diplomats say Mr Ahmadinejad's Holocaust comments make it harder for them to negotiate directly with Iran over the country's nuclear programme.
Israel's Foreign Ministry said today's comments showed Iran's "rogue regime" was acting outside acceptable international norms.
"The combination of extremist ideology, a warped understanding of reality and nuclear weapons is a combination that no-one in the international community can accept," said spokesman Mark Regev.
Historians have said that Mr Ahmadinejad sees himself as a popular, pan-Islamic leader in the mould of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic revolution.