Netanyahu at Holocaust ceremony: Iran deal shows lesson was not learned

Speaking at annual Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony at Yad Vashem, prime minister compares Iran to the Nazis and warns that appeasement could lead to worse wars.

Roi Yanovsky / y-net news.com

The deal being discussed between Iran and world powers shows that the historical lesson of the Holocaust has not been internalized, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at Wednesday's state ceremony held at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day.

"The day of victory over the Nazis was not only a day of relief and joy," said Netanyahu. "It was a day mixed with terrible sorrow for our people, and it was also a day of soul-searching for leaders of all peoples."
  

The Israeli prime minister used the opportunity to remind those watching of the role of democracies in stopping tyrannical regimes. "Leaders of the enlightened countries understood that it was a window of opportunity to establish a new world order based on protecting freedom, eradicating evil, and opposing tyranny. In a loud and clear voice, they pronounced the central lesson of the Second World War for democracies – we must not turn a blind eye to the expansionist intentions of tyrannical regimes. Appeasement of such regimes increases their propensity for aggression, and if this aggression is not curbed in time, humanity could endure much more difficult wars." 

"Many in the world declare that the lessons learned are also valid today. They declare 'never again'. But as long as these words are not heeded in practice, they are meaningless," said the prime minister. "I wish I could stand here and tell you the world truly learned from this incomprehensible tragedy. Just as the Nazis hoped to crush a civilization, so Iran strives to take over the region and from there spread onwards, with the stated intention of destroying the Jewish state.

"The bad deal that is being worked out with Iran shows that the historical lesson was not internalized. While the civilized world sinks into a coma on a bed of illusions, Iran's rulers encourage subversion and terrorism, they spread destruction and death. The world powers shut their eyes to the masses in Tehran calling 'death to America, death to Israel'."

President Reuven Rivlin addressed the survivors present at the ceremony. "You have guided the entire nation," he said. "Today, seventy years after the liberation of the death camps, we stand before you and we swear an oath, and promise, 'All of us, each and every one of us, have a number tattooed on their arm'. Yet, at the same time and in the same breath we remember: we came from Auschwitz, not because of Auschwitz.

"We cannot let the pogroms, the bellowing smoke of the crematoria blind us or blur our abilities to recognize our past, our identity, our heritage - which are stronger than those who with destroy us."