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Member states, who wrangled for months over the draft document for the Geneva conference, had ultimately removed controversial statements about Israel; about what constitutes defamation of religion, a position pushed by Muslim states; and about compensation for slavery.

Besides the United States, the countries staying away included Germany, Italy, Poland, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Australia. Canada and Israel announced months ago that they would not attend.

“Following World War II they resorted to military aggressions to make an entire nation homeless under the pretext of Jewish suffering,” Mr. Ahmadinejad said, grinning as he spoke, his remarks coincidentally falling on the day that Jewish communities mark the Holocaust. “And they sent migrants from Europe, the United States and other parts of the world in order to establish a totally racist government in occupied Palestine.”

The speech prompted the normally mild-mannered Mr. Ban and other top United Nations officials to voice uncommon criticism of the leader of a member state. “I have not experienced this kind of destructive proceedings in an assembly, in a conference, by any one member state,” Mr. Ban said.“I deplore the use of this platform by the Iranian president to accuse, divide and even incite,” he said, urging members to “turn away from such a message in both form and substance.”

Navi Pillay, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, criticized Mr. Ahmadinejad for “grandstanding” from a United Nations dais and said his performance should not be an excuse to derail the important topic of the conference. She also made a not-so-subtle dig at Iran’s treatment of its own minorities, after noting that the president’s remarks were outside the scope of the conference. “This is what I would have expected the president of Iran to come and tell us: how he is addressing racial discrimination and intolerance in his country,” Ms. Pillay said.

Israel recalled its ambassador to Switzerland to protest both the conference and meeting Sunday between the Swiss president, Hans-Rudolf Merz, and Mr. Ahmadinejad.

Not everyone at the conference was critical of the speech, which also wandered through topics like the economic collapse and Iraq and Afghanistan. “If we actually believe in freedom of expression, then he has the right to say what he wants to say,” the Pakistani ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Zamir Akram, told The Associated Press. “There were things in there that a lot of people in the Muslim world would be in agreement with, for example the situation in Palestine, in Iraq and in Afghanistan, even if they don’t agree with the way he said it.”

He said the International Criminal Court’s indictment of Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, on war crimes charges was lamentable because it would undermine Darfur peace talks. A request by the African Union and the Arab League for the Security Council to suspend the indictment for a year should be respected, he said. The indictment “helps to deepen a perception that international justice is racist” because the case is the third to be brought against Africans, Mr. d’Escoto said.

Ruhakana Rugunda, the Ugandan ambassador and a Security Council member, said, “I do not consider that decision racist.”

Mr. d’Escoto supported Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s criticism of the United States for falling about $1 billion behind in its United Nations dues. Describing the United States’ attitude toward the Council, Mr. d’Escoto said, “ ‘You either give me the green light to commit the aggression that I want to commit, or I shall declare you irrelevant.’ ” Mark Kornblau, the spokesman for the United States Mission, said, “It’s hard to make sense of Mr. d’Escoto’s increasingly bizarre statements.”

Mr. d’Escoto tends to draw support from countries at odds with Washington, while Western nations accuse him of being stuck in a leftist, Sandinista mind-set. Mr. d’Escoto, a Roman Catholic priest, was Nicaragua’s foreign minister from 1979 to 1990.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon earlier called for an end to violence. Mr Ban urged the authorities in Iran to respect fundamental civil rights, "especially the freedom of assembly and expression", and end arrests.

One of the beaten candidates, pro-reform cleric Mehdi Karoubi, had called for the council to annul the election. "Instead of wasting time on recounting some ballot boxes... cancel the vote," he said in a letter to the council.

This visit marked Lieberman's first to the UN since he was appointed foreign minister.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a backer of Jewish settlers, insists that construction must be allowed to continue to accommodate natural growth of the settler population in the West Bank through births and marriages.

"It's not a main issue in our region," Lieberman said, adding: "If I try to compare what happens now in Iran and what happens in Afghanistan and in Pakistan to the problem of the settlements, it's very clear what ... must be the priority of the international community," Lieberman said Friday.

Netanyahu's endorsement of the idea of a Palestinian state listed a series of conditions rejected by the Palestinians - including a refusal to share control over the holy city of Jerusalem, demilitarization of a Palestinian state, and recognition of Israel as a Jewish state.