Oct. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad renewed his condemnation of Israel at a rally in support of Palestinians, less than two weeks after a U.S. visit in which he defended his questioning of the realities of the Holocaust.

Ahmadinejad repeated a suggestion that Israeli Jews be resettled in Europe or ``big lands such as Canada and Alaska,'' and called for a vote in Israel and the occupied territories on the future status of the region, the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency said. Today's rally in Tehran was part of Quds Day, an annual event dedicated to solidarity with Palestinians.

``Let a referendum be held in Palestine,'' Ahmadinejad told the rally, according to IRNA. He also called for a ``fact-finding group'' to investigate the ``black box'' of World War II, alluding to his repeated questioning of whether the killing of Jews by the Nazi regime during World War II took place.

Ahmadinejad has stepped up his defiance of the U.S. and its allies, declaring last month that his country won't answer to the United Nations Security Council over its disputed nuclear program. The council is considering a third round of sanctions against Iran, which the U.S. accuses of trying to build an atomic bomb. The Islamic Republic says the program is intended to produce nuclear fuel to generate electricity.

Columbia Address

The Iranian president, in a Sept. 24 address at Columbia University, said Palestinians were paying for the Holocaust with the violence in the Middle East, and that the ``historical event'' required more research. He once sponsored a conference that questioned the existence of the Holocaust,

The widely cited figure of 6 million for the number of Jewish people who died in the Holocaust is derived from the initial estimate of 5.7 million during the 1945 Nuremberg trial of Nazi leaders, the Anti-Defamation League said on its Web site. Subsequent studies of European Jewry have shown this tally to be essentially accurate, the group said.

During his speech at Columbia, thousands of protesters demonstrated outside. Columbia President Lee Bollinger, who opened the event by calling his guest a ``petty and cruel dictator,'' defended the university's invitation to Ahmadinejad, saying free-speech principles in the U.S. require open debate.

``I ask you, why have women, members of the Ba'hai faith, homosexuals and so many of our colleagues become targets of persecution in your country?'' Bollinger said before Ahmadinejad spoke.

Israel's government condemned the Iranian president for today's remarks, Agence France-Presse reported.

``The extremist and hateful words of the Iranian leader should reinforce the international community's determination to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons,'' Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev told AFP.

To contact the reporter on this story: Patrick Donahue in Berlin at pdonahue1@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: October 5, 2007 19:51 EDT