TEHRAN, April 14: Iran’s hardline leaders fired off a barrage of vitriolic attacks against the United States and Israel on Friday, voicing ‘serious doubts’ over the Holocaust and predicting the ‘elimination’ of the Jewish state.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also used a pro-Palestinian conference in Tehran to rally support from Muslim nations for the cash-strapped, Hamas-led Palestinian government.

“The Zionist regime is an injustice and by its very nature a permanent threat,” President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told the gathering of officials, visiting Palestinian militant leaders and foreign sympathisers.

“Whether you like it or not, the Zionist regime is on the road to being eliminated,” said Mr Ahmadinejad, whose government does not recognise Israel and who drew international condemnation last year when he said Israel should be ‘wiped off the map’.

“If there is serious doubt over the Holocaust, there is no doubt over the catastrophe and holocaust being faced by the Palestinians,” said the president, who had previously dismissed as a ‘myth’ the killing of Jews by the Nazis and their allies during World War II.

“I tell the governments who support Zionism to ... let the migrants (Jews) return to their countries of origin. If you think you owe them something, give them some of your land,” he said.

In his speech, Ayatollah Khamenei accused the United States of conspiring against his country, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon in order to place the entire region under Israeli control.

“The plots by the American government against Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon aimed at governing the Middle East with the control of the Zionist regime will not succeed,” Iran’s all-powerful leader said.

“If, by accident, the American government saw reason, it would respect the wish of the Iraqi people to form its government, respect the Palestinian government, free the prisoners of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, cease the conspiracy (and) not create tension in the Persian Gulf region,” he said.

He also appealed to Muslim countries to help the Hamas-led Palestinian government.—AFP