News
Commemorating Holocaust Memorial Day, Netanyahu commits to Jewish security
In an address commemorating International Holocaust Memorial Day, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged that the State of Israel will ensure the security of the Jewish people.
Speaking at an event at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, Netanyahu said “Preserving the memory of the Holocaust is more important today than ever before.” Noting recent deadly anti-Semitic attacks in Paris and Brussels, he commented “We live in an age of resurgent and violent anti-Semitism” where such incidents are “taking place in the intolerant Middle East and in the very heart of the liberal and tolerant West.”
Netanyahu went on to outline how the State of Israel has altered the Jewish reality since the horrors of Nazism. He said, “We are no longer a powerless people begging others to protect us. Today we are an independent and sovereign people in our ancestral homeland.” However, this meant said Netanyahu that “Israel is assaulted with the same slurs and libels that have been levelled at the Jews since time immemorial.”
Although he thanked friends across the world, especially the United States, who help battle against “the twin diseases” of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, Netanyahu said “the Government of Israel … holds the ultimate responsibility for the security of the one and only Jewish state.” He therefore pledged that, “Israel will reject any agreement that leaves Iran as a nuclear threshold state,” warning “The pending agreement with Iran is an agreement that endangers the State of Israel.”
Netanyahu emphasised that, “The ayatollahs in Iran, they deny the Holocaust while planning another genocide against our people.” Summarising, he said “Israel will always do what needs to be done to ensure the security of the Jewish people and the one and only Jewish state. That is the significance of this day.”
Although Israel has its own Holocaust Memorial Day, President Reuven Rivlin is scheduled to address a special United Nations session in New York today while Minister Silvan Shalom joined a delegation at Auschwitz yesterday.