Israel comes to a standstill to remember six million Holocaust victims as Netanyahu warns Iran is also an ‘extremist regime threatening us’

Daily Mail

Israelis came to a halt to observe two minutes of solemn silence as a siren blared, marking the annual remembrance of the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust.

Drivers exited their vehicles and students at schools stood in ceremonies beginning with the siren at 10am on Wednesday, while outside shops and offices, Israelis stood still, many with heads bowed.  

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attended a wreath-laying ceremony at Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial that night, alongside dignitaries, survivors and delegations from throughout Israel.

The Israeli leader compared the aggression of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime, which systematically killed six million Jews, to Iran and said neither were sufficiently challenged by Western powers.

‘Today, too, there’s an extremist regime that’s threatening us, threatening the peace of the entire world. That regime explicitly declares that it intends on destroying us, the Jewish state,’ he said of Iran.

‘I have a message to the rulers of Iran – don’t test Israel’s resolve.’

Mr Netanyahu called on world governments to stand up to ‘evil and aggression’ days after Israeli missiles struck a Syrian airbase in retaliation for its chemical attack on civilians.

‘The events of the last days teach that standing up to evil and aggression is a mission that is incumbent upon every generation,’ he said.

‘We saw the Syrian children who were slaughtered with chemical weapons. Our hearts were rent by the horrific sights… We nip the aggression in its bud. These aren’t empty words, we back them up with action.’

Israel has refused to comment on Monday’s airstrike that killed 14 people including several Irainian fighters loyal to Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, but U.S. officials confirmed it was responsible.

However, it has acknowledged carrying out dozens of air strikes in Syria since 2013 to stop what it said were advanced arms deliveries to Iran-backed Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite group fighting alongside Damascus.

Mr Netanyahu slammed the nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers to halt its weapons program in exchange for relaxed sanctions, saying it wouldn’t stop them.

‘Signing the agreement with Iran not only didn’t curb their aggression, it increased it,’ he said, before going on to make an on-the-nose comparison to appeasement of the Nazis in the 1930s.

‘The lack of willingness among the powers of the West to stand firm in the face of the tyrannical regime, their lack of willingness to pay the price of stopping aggression at an early stage, led to humanity paying a much greater price later on.’

Elsewhere in the country, restaurants and cafes in the ordinarily bustling streets of Tel Aviv shuttered, and TV and radio stations played Holocaust-themed programs.

Holocaust survivors lit six torches at the Wednesday memorial to mark the six million Jews massacred by the Nazis during World War II.

An hour after the siren, members of the public were to recite names of Holocaust victims in the ‘Unto Every Person There Is A Name’ ceremony at Yad Vashem as well as in the Israeli parliament, or Knesset.

A third of the world’s Jews were murdered in the Holocaust. Israel was established afterward in 1948, and hundreds of thousands of survivors fled to the Jewish state.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5606795/Israel-comes-halt-remember-Holocaust-victims.html#ixzz5CVFvu4OB
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