JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel’s prime minister used his annual address at Israel’s national Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony to warn about the dangers of a nuclear Iran.
"We are witness today to the new-old fire of hate, hatred of Jews inflamed by organizations and regimes of extremist Islam, most of all Iran and its satellites," Benjamin Netanyahu said at the start of Yom Hashoah. "Iran’s leaders are rushing to develop nuclear weapons and freely announce their desire to destroy Israel but before these repeated declarations to wipe the Jewish state from the face of the earth, at best we hear faint protest, and even this is fading," he said. "We don’t hear the forceful protest that is required, we don’t hear the strong denouncement, nor the angry voice."
The ceremony was held at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem.
Israel’s president, Shimon Peres, said that the Holocaust is a lesson against all genocide. "We have a right and a duty to demand of the nations of the world that they not repeat the indifference that cost millions of lives, including their own citizens," Peres said.
Earlier Sunday, on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day, IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi said that never again would the Jewish people lack the means to defend themselves.
"We will never again be dependent on the benevolence of others," Ashkenazi said. "Never again will Jewish children be fearful or begging for mercy. Never again will an advocate of evil be able to dictate the future of the Jewish people. In the name of my father and his family who fought for a sovereign and independent state and in the name of the millions who were unable to witness the realization of their dream, I stand here today as the commander of the Hebrew defense force, the Israel Defense Forces."
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