Newsletter
Newsletter Support JNS

Netanyahu equates Iran’s nuclear program to the Nazi genocide

In a TV interview ahead of the Fifth World Holocaust Forum, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the lesson of Auschwitz is to “stop bad things when they’re small—and Iran is a very bad thing.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin attends the weekly Cabinet meeting, at the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem, on Dec. 29, 2019. Photo by Marc Israel Sellem/POOL.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin attends the weekly Cabinet meeting, at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem, on Dec. 29, 2019. Photo by Marc Israel Sellem/POOL.

Ahead of the Fifth World Holocaust Forum this week in Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu compared the Nazi genocide of the Jewish people to Iran’s nuclear program, warning that attempts to wipe out the Jewish people have not stopped since the Holocaust.

In a TBN television interview clip released on Tuesday morning, Netanyahu said that during the Holocaust “a third of the Jewish people went up in flames. There was nothing we could do.”

The lesson of Auschwitz and the murder of 6 million Jews, he said, is to “stop bad things when they’re small—and Iran is a very bad thing.”

Iran, said Netanyahu, is “not that small, but it could get a lot bigger with nuclear weapons, and I think the first thing is stop that.”

He added that “Iran openly declares every day that it wants to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. And, by the way, Israel has today a population of more than 6 million Jews.”

The second lesson of the Holocaust, said Netanyahu, is to “understand that the Jews will never ever again be defenseless in the face of those who want to destroy them.”

The prime minister also spoke of the “full frontal attack” on the Jewish people’s right to “live in their ancestral homeland, the land of Israel,” referring to the International Criminal Court’s announcement last month that it intends to investigate Israel for alleged war crimes committed in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and eastern Jerusalem.

Netanyahu thanked U.S. President Donald Trump for speaking out against the ICC and urged viewers to do the same.

The interview will air in full on Tuesday evening.

“That’s how we combat antisemitism,” Rabbi Rachel Short told JNS. “We let people see who we are and what we do.”
The United States, Morocco and Israel said they are “undaunted by regional challenges”
The former president’s son pointed to a “bombshell” report that he said had been published a few days earlier, apparently referring to claims by Haaretz.
Rabbi Binyamin Krauss, principal of SAR Academy, told JNS that the gathering is meant to be a “positive statement” that “We’re here. We’re Jewish. We want to be safe and express our Zionism.”