Iran’s Leader Wants Israel Put in Europe

Iran’s hard-line president, who recently called for Israel to be “wiped off the map,” sparked another barrage of international criticism Thursday when he said the Jewish state should be moved to Europe and questioned whether the Holocaust took place.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad implied that European countries backed the founding of Israel in the Middle East in 1948 out of guilt over the genocide carried out by the Nazis.

“Some European countries insist on saying that during World War II, Hitler burned millions of Jews and put them in concentration camps,” Ahmadinejad said. “Any historian, commentator or scientist who doubts that is taken to prison or gets condemned.

“Let’s assume what the Europeans say is true.... Let’s give some land to the Zionists in Europe or in Germany or Austria,” the president said. “They faced injustice in Europe, so why do the repercussions fall on the Palestinians?”

Israel condemned Ahmadinejad’s remarks as “outrageous and even racist.” The United States denounced them as “appalling and reprehensible.”

Rabbi David Saperstein, head of the U.S.-based Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, called the comments a “repugnant distortion of history.”

Ahmadinejad’s remarks Thursday were even more striking for their venue: a summit of Muslim nations in Islam’s holiest city, Mecca, convened to condemn terrorism and extremism and stressing the themes of moderation and tolerance.

Speaking at a news conference on the summit sidelines, he said that most Jews in Israel “have no roots in Palestine, but they are holding the destiny of Palestine in their hands and allow themselves to kill the Palestinian people.”

Ahmadinejad raised a similar storm in October when he called Israel a “disgraceful blot” that should be “wiped off the map.” Still, Ahmadinejad stuck by the comments and his government organized a series of large anti-Israel demonstrations.

Israel and the United States have cited Iran’s hostility toward the Jewish state as a reason that it must be prevented from developing nuclear weapons. Iran insists that its nuclear program is aimed solely at producing electricity.