Netanyahu lashes out at UN General Assembly

Israeli PM describes Human Rights Council as a 'terrorist rights council' and accuses it of anti-semitism.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has attracted criticism from the United States and Palestine after he warned the United Nations that Hamas and the Islamic State group (IS) are "branches of the same poisonous tree," both attempting to impose militant Islam on the world.

Drawing parallels with Nazism, he likened the militant groups to "another fanatic ideology that swept into power eight decades ago" 

Netanyahu’s speech to the UN also hit back at Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, who accused Israel last week of carrying out war crimes and waging a "war of genocide" during the fighting in Gaza. The Israeli leader said Hamas committed "the real war crimes" in Gaza by using Palestinian civilians as human shields.

Addressing the UN General Assembly's annual ministerial meeting, the Israeli leader argued that Israel's fight against Hamas and the US military campaign against the Islamic State are part of the same cause - the defeat of Islamic extremism.

Netanyahu criticised world leaders for condemning the Jewish state for its war with Hamas, while praising president Barack Obama for attacking Islamic State militants and other extremists in Syria and Iraq.

"They evidently don't understand that (IS) and Hamas are branches of the same poisonous tree," the prime minister said. "When it comes to its ultimate goals", Hamas is IS, and IS is Hamas because the two organisations, together other Muslim extremist movements, share the goal of imposing militant Islam on the world.

The Israeli leader had harsh words for the UN Human Rights Council, accusing it of continually singling out Israel for criticism when other parts of the world are awash in atrocities. Calling the Human Rights Council's name "an oxymoron" he said that the body has become "a terrorist rights council" , describing it as harbouring anti-semitism which “masquerades as legitimate criticism of Israel."

Hanan Ashrawi, from the Palestine Liberation Organisation's executive committee, criticised Mr Netanyahu's speech as "a blatant manipulation of facts" aimed at misleading world leaders.

In Washington, the State Department dismissed Netanyahu’s grouping of Hamas and Islamic State, saying that while the US considers both to be terrorist organisations, "we obviously believe that (Islamic State) poses a different threat to the United States".