– HYPERLINK https://mail.hudsonny.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=https://mail.hudsonny.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1024165.html \t _blank Peres at UN: Ahmadinejad speech was 'darkest anti-Semitic libel'

September 24, 2008
Haaretz
Original Source: https://mail.hudsonny.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1024165.html \t _blank http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1024165.html

President Shimon Peres on Wednesday told the United Nations General Assembly that Iran was responsible for undermining efforts for peace in the Middle East. He said that while Israel had made concessions in its desire to live in harmony with its neighbors, Iran's quest for religious hegemony and regional dominance divides the Middle East and holds back chances for peace. 

Iranian support for Hezbollah divided Lebanon, Peres said. Its support for Hamas split the Palestinians and postpones the establishment of the Palestinian State. 

Peres also hit back at a speech by his Iranian counterpart to the same United Nations forum a day earlier, branding it the darkest anti-Semitic libel. 

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was absent from Peres' speech, said in his own address Tuesday that a small but deceitful number of people called Zionists had seized control financial and political centers in Europe and the U.S. in a deceitful, complex and furtive manner. 

On Wednesday, Peres said that the Iranian leader's speech was reminiscent of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an anti-Semitic tract published in the early 1900s that described a Jewish and Masonic plot to take over the world. 

The words of Ahmadinejad, Peres said, were an attempt to bring to life one of the ugliest plots of history. 

He also lashed out at the Iranian leader's frequent comments doubting that the genocide of 6 million Jews at the hands of the Nazis in World War II had taken place. 

Their despicable denial of the Holocaust is a mockery of indisputable evidence, a cynical offense to survivors of the horror. 

But, Peres said, Israel did not see the Iranian people themselves as an enemy. Their fanatic leadership is their problem and the world's concern, he said.