Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has denounced Iran as “the most anti-Semitic regime on the planet” at a gathering of world leaders at a Holocaust memorial event.
Israel has hailed the World Holocaust Forum at the Yad Vashem memorial centre, marking the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp during World War II, as the biggest international gathering in its history.
The conference is being held against the backdrop of a rise in anti-Semitic attacks in the US and Europe.
“At the core of Israel’s establishment is the command – there will not be another Holocaust. As prime minister of Israel, that is my greatest commitment,” Netanyahu said in his address to world leaders, who included Russian President Vladimir Putin and US Vice President Mike Pence.
Netanyahu then lashed out at his country’s arch-foe Iran, whose nuclear ambitions he says are aimed at building atomic weapons with the aim of destroying Israel. Tehran denies it is seeking nuclear arms.
“I am concerned that we have yet to see a unified and resolute stance against the most anti-Semitic regime on the planet – a regime that openly seeks to develop nuclear weapons and annihilate the one and only Jewish state,” Netanyahu said on Thursday.
“Israel salutes President (Donald) Trump and Vice President Pence for confronting the tyrants of Tehran,” he added.
In 2018, Washington abandoned the nuclear deal that Iran signed with world powers in 2015. Under the accord, Tehran agreed to curb its nuclear program in return for a lifting of international sanctions against it.
Read the article by Jeffrey Heller in the Shepparton News (by AAP Newswire) and The Cessnock Advertiser.