New York - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday slammed Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for calling the Holocaust a "lie," showing to the UN General Assembly copies of Nazi documents for the extermination of Jews during World War II. In an emotion-laden speech, Netanyahu brandished the documents to demonstrate that Ahmadinejad erred in repeatedly denying the Holocaust. He also criticized "some in the UN" for condemning Israel, which he said was the victim of Hamas rockets fired from the Gaza Strip.
"Are these plans of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp where 1 million Jews were murdered a lie too?" he said, citing US President Barack Obama's visit to one of the death camps earlier this year.
"Did President Obama pay tribute to a lie?" he said.
Ahmadinejad addressed the assembly on Wednesday and used the occasion to attack Israel.
Netanyahu denounced the United Nations for keeping silent while Israel was attacked.
A UN fact-finding mission headed by South African judge Richard Goldstone made public findings last week that both Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza were guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the December-January conflict in Gaza. The mission said 1,400 people were killed in the conflict.
The mission was mandated by the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council to probe the killings in Gaza.
Netanyahu called on the UN to reject the Goldstone findings, warning that failure to do so would bring the organization back to irrelevancy. The assembly adopted in 1975 a resolution equating Israel to Zionism, but rescinded it years later under US pressure.
"Israel has justly defended against terrorism," Netanyahu said. "This report provides a clear-cut bias against Israel."
He called for an effective demilitarization of the Palestinian state.
"I said effective because we do not want another Gaza, another south Lebanon, another Iranian-backed terror base threatening Jerusalem," Netanyahu said. "We want peace, and I believe that with goodwill and hard work, such a peace can be achieved."
