‘Four million Jews could have been saved,’ Netanyahu states on Yom Hashoah

“If the powers in 1942 had acted…, they could have saved 4 million Jews and millions of other people,” Netanyahu stated at the official Holocaust Memorial Day ceremony at Yad Vashem.

In his address Sunday evening at the official state ceremony marking the start of the Holocaust Memorial Day at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decried the inaction of the Allies during the Holocaust and their failure to save the Jews.

Referring to newly released UN documents showing that the Allies understood the dire situation of Europe’s Jews already in 1942, Netanyahu stressed the importance of a strong Jewish state.

“If the powers in 1942 had acted against the death camps — and all that was needed was repeated bombing of the camps — had they acted then, they could have saved 4 million Jews and millions of other people,” he said.

“The powers knew, and they did not act,” he stated. “When terrible crimes were being committed against the Jews, when our brothers and sisters were being sent to the furnaces, the powers knew and did not act.”

‘We have to be able to defend ourselves’

He stated three causes for the organized slaughter: widespread anti-Semitism, global indifference, and the weakness of the Jewish people in the Diaspora. The lesson is clear, he continued, stressing the importance of a strong State of Israel and its ability to defend itself.

“We have to be able to defend ourselves on our own against any threat against any enemy,” he declared. “From a helpless people, we have turned into a robust nation. From a defenseless nation, we have turned into a powerful country that can defend itself with one of the strongest armies.”

He said this lesson guides him “every morning and every evening.”

Israel has transformed itself into a strong nation with one of the “strongest defensive forces in the world,” Netanyahu added, warning that “those that seek to destroy us will put themselves in danger of destruction.”

The Israeli leader also condemned the “hypocrisy” of the United Nations (UN), which he said, transfers its “hatred of the Jews to hatred of the Jewish state.”

By: World Israel News Staff