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PM Netanyahu’s Statement at the International Holocaust Remembrance
PM Netanyahu’s Statement at the International Holocaust Remembrance Day
Event at Yad Vashem
(Communicated by the Prime Minister’s Media Adviser)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, this afternoon (Thursday, 26 January
2017), addressed the International Holocaust Remembrance Day Event at Yad
Vashem in Jerusalem:
“This is an international day and there are representatives here from many
countries, from around the world.
This day of commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust is
fraught with significance. We fulfill at once our obligation never to
forget, because every victim had a story, a family, a childhood, a future
cut short. And as you go in these halls, in Yad Vashem, you see these
individuals’ stories, and this is made more poignant and more
heart-wrenching by just thinking about each single person, or a single
person, then thinking about the multiplication of the horror.
In a few short years, six million of our people were wiped away, literally
incinerated. And the forces of evil had built an industry of mass murder.
So, as we remember the victims, and this crime, we must never forget the
roots of our greatest disaster – the insatiable hatred for the Jewish
people. This hatred culminated in murder, but it began with intolerance.
The Holocaust, thank G-d, is behind us, but the hatred and intolerance that
drove it is not.
Anti-Semitism, which is the world’s oldest hatred, is experiencing a revival
in the enlightened West, you can see this in European capitals, just
unbelievable. The rise of anti-Semitism, the resurgence of anti-Semitism
that is happening, and few would have imagined that this would be possible a
few years ago.
It’s true that governments have shown responsibility, and on the whole have
taken this up, in Eastern Europe and in Western Europe alike. But it is also
true that this hatred is bubbling, coming out of these cracks, coming out in
the open again.
Yet, as disturbing as this is, the greatest danger that we face, of the
hatred for the Jewish people and the Jewish state, comes from the East. It
comes from Iran. It comes from the ayatollah regime that is fanning these
flames and calling outright for the destruction of the Jewish state.
I want you to think about a regime that openly declared its intention to
eliminate every black person, every gay person, every European. I think the
entire world would be outraged, and rightly so.
But when a regime merely calls to wipe out every Israeli – which is what
they say day in day out, their most prominent leaders, they say it – what do
we encounter? A deafening silence.
Now, that may change. I hope it will change. I believe it will change.
Because I spoke a few days ago to President Trump and he spoke about the
Iranian aggression. He spoke about Iran’s commitment to destroy Israel. He
spoke about the nature of this nuclear agreement and the danger it poses. We
spoke about it together.
I’m talking now not only in political terms. I’m talking about every person
in the world, any person of conscience who’d speak out about the resurgence
of the same attitude that decades ago openly said we’re out to destroy the
Jewish people and today the same attitude that says we’re out to destroy the
Jewish people of Israel or we’re out to destroy the Jewish state – it must
encounter forceful consistent powerful resistance, in words and also in
deeds.
As Prime Minister of Israel, I will not be silent, I haven’t been silent,
and we don’t intend to be inactive either.
We don’t merely intend to speak out but we will take all the measures we
need to defend ourselves, and we will take all the measures necessary to
prevent Iran from getting the means of mass murder to carry out their
horrible plans.
We cannot and will not be silent in the face of Iran’s stated aim of
destroying Israel.
But we also know that the issue is not merely the Jewish state or the Jewish
people. Because we’ve seen that this hatred, when it goes unchecked, spreads
around the world, and in fact, in many ways, that is what is happening.
So it’s up to the forces of civilization, the forces of conscience, the
forces of responsibility to join together to stop this process.
The regime that spawned the Holocaust ended up in the dustbin of history.
That’s a lesson for Iran. It’s a lesson to every enemy of the Jewish people
and the Jewish state.
We will never forget the victims. We will never allow another Holocaust to
take place.
I take comfort in a lot of foreign leaders who have come to this place, to
Yad Vashem. We go through the halls, we see the exhibits; they’re visibly
shaken. And when we come out, I say to that leader or whoever it would be, I
say, you know, as Prime Minister of Israel I have one job – to make sure
that we will never need more institutions like Yad Vashem. And that’s what
we all have to be committed for.
Thank you for your help and your participation in this noble and
indispensable effort. Thank you all. “
Source: http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=72090
