Former chief rabbi invites Ahmadinejad to Yad Vashem

Israel's former chief rabbi, Yisrael Lau, yesterday invited Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to come and visit the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem to see for himself proof of the Nazi's deliberate murder of 6 million Jews.

"Under the international umbrella of the United Nations, the president of Iran appeared dripping with hatred toward the Jewish people," Lau told delegates to the March of the Living, during the annual event's closing ceremony at the Auschwitz-Birekenau death camp in Poland, which coincided with Israel's Holocaust Rememberance Day.

On Monday, Ahmadinejad delivered a speech condemning Israel at the Durban II racism conference, and accused the West of using the Holocaust as a pretext for aggression against Palestinians.

"Come to Yad Vashem, we'll show you all of the archives documents and memoirs. We will present you with all the evidence until you are convinced that the Holocaust actually happened," said Lau, a Holocaust survivor and director of the Jerusalem museum.

The former chief rabbi accused Ahmadinejad and other deniers of "not wanting to know the truth.... This is why they disseminate their lies."

Ahmadinejad actually dropped a reference to Holocaust denial from his Monday speech, the United Nations confirmed yesterday.

The prepared English text of Ahmadinejad's speech said the West had used the "ambiguous and dubious" question of the Holocaust in setting up the state of Israel.

U.N. spokeswoman Marie Heuze said he omitted the remark in his delivery in Farsi. The French and English interpreters also dropped the phrase.

However, Ahmadinejad still described Israel as "the most cruel and repressive racist regime" because of its treatment of the Palestinians, causing dozens of Western diplomats to walk out. A pair of rainbow-wigged protesters threw clown noses at Iran's hard-line leader.

Vice Premier Silvan Shalom, also speaking at Auschwitz prior to the March of the Living ceremony, called Ahmadinejad's speech "shameful."

"Iran is trying to do everything it can in order to wipe Israel off the map and to undermine the moderate Arab Muslim regimes in the Middle East," Shalom said.

During a Knesset ceremony marking Holocaust Memorial Day, President Shimon Peres and Defense Minister Ehud Barak read out the names of relatives who perished.

"[They] were slaughtered, along with 2,060 members of their community in the town of Wiszniewo in August 1942, by the Nazis and their local accomplices, who gathered the residents of the ghetto in a synagogue that was made of wood and brutally murdered them with gunshots and fire," said Peres.

"My grandfather, who walked at the head of the community wrapped in a tallit [prayer shawl], straight to the synagogue that was torched by the Nazis. My grandmother, Rebecca Meltzer; my grandfather, Tzvi "Herschel" Meltzer; my teacher and rabbi who during our separation at the train station, upon my immigration to the Land of Israel, told me [these] words: Be a Jew."

Six million Jews were killed during the Nazi Holocaust.

At 10 A.M., the whole country came to a standstill for two mournful minutes as air-raid sirens pierced the air.

Cars came to a halt and people froze in their tracks, many with heads bowed, in memory of the victims.

An official wreath-laying ceremony at Yad Vashem followed.

In deference to the solemnity of the day, restaurants, bars and places of entertainment were closed.

Durban delegates adopt declaration

Meanwhile, more than 100 countries at the United Nations-sponsored Durban II unanimously approved a declaration calling on the world to combat intolerance yesterday, as they sought to shake off the impact of the walk-out triggered by Ahmadinejad.

The text, which "reaffirms" a contentious 2001 document that refers six times to Israel and the Middle East, was adopted by consensus and without debate at a public session, well before the end of the week-long meeting.

Israel is not explicitly mentioned anywhere in the current agreement, which seeks to avoid any offense but has angered many in the Muslim world for its failure to point a finger directly at Israel for its policies toward the Palestinians.