Israel’s strategic affairs minister accused some Europeans of being willing to see the Jewish state destroyed by Iran. Avigdor Lieberman said Wednesday that there were unspecified “political elements” in Europe that were resisting U.S. calls for effective sanctions against Iran’s nuclear program, and compared this to Western leaders who capitulated to Nazi Germany’s conquest of Czechoslovakia in 1938. “There are elements in Europe that are willing to sacrifice Israel in exchange for their security, for their trade interests,” Lieberman told Israel Radio, recapping a speech he gave earlier in the day to a visiting American Jewish Committee delegation. “We have seen this phenomenon once before, in the run-up to World War II. It is the same way they sacrificed Czechoslovakia and the same way they ignored the Jews’ predicament even though it was clear to all the heads of states what was happening to the Jews,” he said. An E.U. official rejected the charge, saying the European Union was dedicated through negotiations to preventing Iran from attaining nuclear weapons.
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