U.S.: Hamas, Iran rekindling hatred of Jews

At a national commemoration at the U.S. Capitol, Zoellick said the victory by Hamas in January's Palestinian elections hearkened back to Israel's founding in 1947 when its neighbors refused to recognize its right to exist.

"In its response to the recent terrorist Passover bombing in Israel, Hamas continued to justify terrorism and feed hatred," the number two U.S. diplomat said in prepared remarks.

"Instead of facing up to the challenges of creating a democratic Palestinian state, Hamas has retreated to blaming the Palestinians' problems on the Jews."

Zoellick also lashed out at "equally troubling" statements by Iran's hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad calling for Israel to be wiped off the face of the map.

The official did not equate the actions of Hamas or Iran with the systematic murder of six million Jews by the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler before and during World War II, but he did say the Nazis showed that "when national anxieties mix with widespread prejudice, the result can be a visceral hatred masquerading as reason that blames one group for the failure of an entire society."

"In Iran and with Hamas, we are seeing scenes from the rise of political Islam. Theirs is a violent strain of radicalism that seeks to pervert a religion into an ideology of hatred and racism," he said.

'There is no time to waste'

Zoellick also called for stepped-up efforts to resolve the conflict in Sudan's western region of Darfur, where three years of fighting between rebels and government-backed militias have left up to 300,000 people dead.

With thousands of people expected to rally in Washington this weekend to demand an end to the Darfur carnage, Zoellick urged renewed efforts to distribute relief supplies, advance peace talks and bolster security.

Khartoum has been blocking US efforts to expand a 7,000-strong African Union peacekeeping contingent in Darfur into a larger UN force with greater NATO support.

"There is resistance to overcome," said Zoellick, whose government has branded the bloodshed in Darfur as genocide. "But it must be done. There is no time to waste."

'We stand in solidarity with Jews'

Israel's Ambassador to Washington Danny Ayalon said during the ceremony: "The main message of the State of Israel is 'never again."

"If Israel existed the Holocaust would have never happened," said Ayalon, expressing his regret that 60 years on there is "a crazy, cruel and extreme dictator, obsessed with the annihilation of the Jewish people in Israel." Ayalon added that this time the dictator resides in Tehran and not Berlin, alluding to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Meanwhile, the South African Jewish community in Cape Town for the first time sounded a powerful siren to remember the 6 million Jews who fell in the Holocaust.

David Hersch, Chairman of the Western Province Zionist Council said: "We stand in solidarity with Jews around the world. Today we commemorate the murder of six million Jews by the Nazis, the obscenity of the Holocaust and the genocide perpetrated against the Jewish people."

Yitzhak Benhorin contributed to this report