Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to compare Iran with the Nazis, as he stood at the Holocaust memorial Platform 17 in Berlin and spoke of the necessity of halting catastrophe in its early stages.
“The main lesson we have learned is that when you are faced with such evil, you have to obstruct the evil designs early on to prevent catastrophe,” Netanyahu said as he stood with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
“The main lesson we have learned is that when you are faced with such evil, you have to obstruct the evil designs early on to prevent catastrophe.”
Benjamin Netanyahu
Below their feet lay the train tracks from which more than 50,000 members of Berlin’s Jewish community were deported to concentration camps from a residential neighborhood of single-family homes in the city.
The dates of the transports were etched into the sides of the platform.
Netanyahu on the tracks
Standing by the tracks on a cold but sunny March morning, Netanyahu recalled that “less than 80 years ago, six weeks before the end of the war, when Berlin was already in ruin, the Nazis sent the last shipment of Jews to be exterminated.
“Our world has changed,” he told the small crowd at the tracks. “Germany has changed. The Jewish state was reborn.“
What has remained constant, Netanyahu pointed out, is that “calls for the annihilation of our people has not stopped.
“We are now faced with other calls for the destruction of the Jewish state.”
“The Jewish people must have the capacity to defend themselves by themselves against any threat,” he added. we also welcome the friendship of those who share our concerns to prevent rogue regimes with crazy ideologies from destroying our world.”
Netanyahu did not mention Iran and its pursuit of nuclear weapons or its calls to annihilate the Jewish state during the ceremony, but his words appeared to indicate that he was referring to the Islamic Republic, whose nuclear program is one of the top issues he plans to discuss with Scholz.
At Platform 17 Netanyahu thanked Scholz for Germany’s “trusted alliance” with Israel and for hosting the ceremony.
Scholz reaffirmed his country's support for the Jewish state and the protection of German Jewish citizens.
"We will not forget the responsibility that we have based on this history and will always live up to it. We will live up to our responsibility and protect Jewish life in Germany. We will also live up to our responsibility through our close ties and friendship with Israel.
"Israel's security is a German raison d'etre, and standing here it is also clear why that is correct and will remain so in the future," Scholz stated.