Vice Premier Silvan Shalom on Tuesday called Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speech at the UN racism conference "shameful."

Shalom said Iran "is trying to do everything they can in order to wipe Israel off the map and at the same time to undermine the moderate Arab Muslim regimes in the Middle East," but he insisted that "Israel will continue to exist."

Shalom was speaking at the former Nazi death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau where he was to later take part in the annual March of the Living.