Iran said yesterday Israel?s treatment of the Palestinians constituted a greater crime than the Holocaust, the latest in a series of remarks suggesting the genocide was exaggerated to boost Israeli interests.

?I believe the crimes committed by the Zionist regime are greater than the Holocaust?, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told a news conference.

?Unfortunately, the Zionist regime is blackmailing the Europeans with the Holocaust?, he added.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has labelled the Holocaust a myth and has called for Israel to be wiped off the map, comments that drew almost universal international condemnation.

He has called for an academic conference on the Holocaust which he thinks will prove that the number of deaths was exaggerated. Western leaders have criticised the proposal as distasteful.

Iran?s press and officials have rounded on the West for what they see as hypocrisy, arguing satirical cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad are allowed but that frank discussion of the historical details of the Holocaust are not.

?Vocal advocateof the Palestinian?

The United Nations Security Council sharply rebuked Iran for doubting that 6 million Jews were murdered by the Nazis and their allies between 1933 and 1945.

Iran has been a vocal advocate of the Palestinian cause since the revolution, but insists its support is purely moral and does not extend to funds and arms, as Washington alleges.