Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has reiterated his doubt about the Holocaust and called on Muslim nations to take a proactive stand on the Palestinian issue.

The president's comments, published yesterday on Iranian state television's website, were the second time in a week that he has expressed doubt about the Nazi destruction of European Jewry during World War II. Ahmadinejad provoked an international outcry in October when he called Israel a "disgraceful blot" that should be "wiped off the map."

"If the killing of Jews in Europe is true," the website quoted Ahmadinejad as saying, "and the Zionists are being supported because of this excuse, why should the Palestinian nation pay the price?"

The president made the remarks on Monday at an Islamic conference in Teheran that was attended by Khaled Mashaal, the political leader of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, the website reported.

"The Islamic world should give up its policy of passivity and deal with the Palestinian issue more actively," Ahmadinejad said, according to the website. He did not elaborate.

He said the West could not play a neutral role in the Palestinian-Israeli issue. "The West's policy has always been in favour of the Zionist regime and to the detriment of the Islamic world. It can't be a judge or mediator now," Ahmadinejad said.

Ahmadinejad provoked an angry reaction from Israel, Europe and the United States on Thursday when he told reporters in Saudi Arabia that Israel should be moved to Europe if the West wanted to make up for the Holocaust.

On Sunday, an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman said "The president's comments on Israel did not include any new contents, but they have been misinterpreted by some countries and organizations."

The spokesman explained that the president's real meaning of the comments was that the Europeans must compensate the Jews at their own price if they felt it necessary to do so.

Source: China Daily