Tel Aviv/Ramallah - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned to Israel Friday, to applause by the majority of Israelis over his address to the UN General Assembly, but to sharp criticism from the Palestinians. Most Israeli commentators hailed the address, in which Netanyahu slammed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Holocaust denial, and a UN report accusing Israel of having committed war crimes in Gaza.
The front-page of the biggest-selling Yediot Ahronot daily Friday showed a large photograph of Netanyahu holding up a copy of the minutes of the January 1942 Wannsee conference, at which top Nazi officials agreed on the "final solution" to the Jewish problem.
"At his best," said a comment referring to Netanyahu, underneath a banner headline directed against Ahmadinejad, which repeated the Israeli premier's rhetoric question: "Is this a lie?"
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, reacting to the speech on al-Jazeera Thursday, mocked Netanyahu's demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state as a precondition for peace. "If every country has to define itself by its religion, then where will be going?" he said.
The radical Islamist Hamas movement ruling the Gaza Strip also said Netanyahu's speech "was full of lies." Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zukhri said "Palestine is the land of our forefathers and Muslim throughout history and it will stay as such. It never was and never will be a Jewish land."
"Just as we are asked to recognize a nation state for the Palestinian people, the Palestinians must be asked to recognize the nation state of the Jewish people. The Jewish people are not foreign conquerors in the Land of Israel. This is the land of our forefathers," Netanyahu Thursday told the world leaders gathering at the UN.
In his address, he commended those delegations which left the hall during Ahmadinejad's address.
But in unusually direct wording, he added that "to those who gave this Holocaust-denier a hearing, I say on behalf of my people, the Jewish people, and decent people everywhere: Have you no shame? Have you no decency?"
Referring to Iran's Islamist regime, he also said that "the greatest threat facing the world today is the marriage between religious fanaticism and the weapons of mass destruction, and the most urgent challenge facing this body is to prevent the tyrants of Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons."
Israel's second-largest daily, Ma'ariv, also welcomed as "excellent" Netanyahu's address, with commentator Ben Caspit arguing it represented "the sane Israeli mainstream."
"What did we gain from this speech? Practically speaking, not much. On the other hand,
