Iran and Israel

British delegates joined a dramatic diplomatic walkout today when President Ahmadinejad of Iran told a major UN conference against racism that the state of Israel had been founded "on the pretext of Jewish suffering" during the Second World War.

Around 20 delegates, including envoys from the UK, France, and Finland stood up and left the room at what was considered an anti-Semitic remark by the Iranian leader, who has repeatedly called for Israel to be wiped off the map.

The conference opened as Israel marks Holocaust Remembrance Day - which falls this year on the 120th anniversary of Adolf Hitler's birth. This morning the Israeli Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, told his Cabinet that while Israel commemorates the six million Jews slaughtered by the Nazis, "in Switzerland, the guest of honor is a racist and a Holocaust-denier who doesn’t conceal his intention to wipe Israel off the face of this earth".

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged Monday not to allow Holocaust deniers the chance to carry out a second Holocaust against the Jewish people.

He spoke at the ceremony marking Israel's annual memorial day for the 6 million Jews killed by Nazis and their collaborators during World War II, but the event fell under the shadow of a U.N. anti-racisim conference in Geneva perceived in Israel as anti-Semitic.

Netanyahu criticized the president of Switzerland for meeting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the conference. Netanyahu said the Iranian leader, who has called for Israel to be wiped off the map, has denied the existence of the Holocaust.

"We will not allow the Holocaust deniers to carry out another Holocaust against the Jewish people. This is the supreme duty of the state of Israel. This is my supreme duty as prime minister of Israel," Netanyahu said, speaking at Yad Vashem, Israel's official Holocaust memorial and study center.

Most military analysts believe an Israeli strike would require the green light from the Pentagon: not only would the bombers need US Air Force codes to fly across Iraq but the mission's success would depend on access to detailed American intelligence about the exact location of Iran's nuclear sites. Permission for this was never granted by President Bush and is substantially less likely under President Obama. Washington does not share Benjamin Netanyahu's sense of urgency, with Admiral Dennis Blair, the Director of National Intelligence, saying recently that the US is working with the same set of facts, but interpreting them differently - with Israel taking "more of a worst-case approach to these things"

I don’t know, ya think Israel might be a little more concerned than we are?…I mean how would we react if Belize went whacko, and started saying they were working to develop a nuclear capacity, along with rhetoric that America is the source of all evil and should be wiped out…Does anyone remember how close we came to war with Cuba over a similar issue???

General Petraeus, head of US forces in the Middle East, told Congress that the Israeli Government may be "so threatened by the prospect of an Iranian nuclear weapon that it would take pre-emptive military action to derail or delay it"

My dad was a cop, and used to tell me that when a thug comes at you, keep your gun handy…maybe the tough talk from Israel is in a similar vein?