Iran has broken the "idol" of the Holocaust underpinning the creation of the Israeli state and US hegemony, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Saturday in a speech marking the anniversary of his country's 1979 Islamic revolution.
"The Iranian nation has smashed a new and modern idol. The world arrogance (the United States) and colonialists (the West), in order to dominate the world, created an idol called the Zionist regime (Israel)," Ahmadinejad told a crowd of thousands in central Tehran.
"The spirit of this idol was a story called the Holocaust... The Iranian nation with courage and wisdom smashed this idol to free the people of the West (of its hold)," he said.
Ahmadinejad, who in the past has rejected the Holocaust as a "myth", shared the stage with the leader of Hamas in Gaza, Ismail Haniya, who reaffirmed that his group "will never recognize Israel."
Iran denies Israel's right to exist and has said it will back any group trying to put an end to the Jewish state.