On Thursday, Mr. Chávez said Latin Americans were inclined to think the best of the new American government, but questioned its lack of action to reverse the overthrow of President Manuel Zelaya in Honduras, as well as the government’s military support of the Colombian government and its continuation of the 50-year embargo against Cuba.

Image Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel displayed concentration camp plans in attacking the Holocaust denials of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran. Credit... Todd Heisler/The New York Times

“Is there one Obama or is there two?” Mr. Chávez said, using variations of the line several times throughout his rambling, 60-minute speech, well over the 15-minute limit. “Let us hope that the one we heard yesterday will prevail.” Asked about his remark at a rowdy news conference afterward, Mr. Chávez insisted that he was not denigrating Mr. Obama. “I don’t want to attack him personally,” he said. “I don’t want to say he is a fake.”

In an address to the General Assembly earlier in the day, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel heatedly denounced President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran for frequently rejecting the Holocaust as a historical fact. Mr. Netanyahu also spent considerable time denying that Israel had committed war crimes during its three-week military attack on Gaza last winter, as it was recently accused of doing in a report by a fact-finding mission from the Human Rights Council.