In a video broadcast to a public policy meeting of American and Israeli leaders, the Prime Minister compared Hitler’s Nazi Germany to the Ayatollah’s Islamic Republic.
By: Ebin Sandler, World Israel News
In recorded remarks played at the Brookings Institution’s Saban Forum in Washington, DC, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu drew striking comparisons between Germany’s fascist ruling party in the World War II era and Iran’s modern day regime. Netanyahu noted that the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia had also recently referred to Iran’s Supreme Leader as the “new Hitler of the Middle East.”
While the leader of the Jewish state acknowledged “important differences between Nazi Germany and the Islamic Republic of Iran,” he fleshed out the comparison, noting that both regimes “have two important things in common: one, a ruthless commitment to impose tyranny and terror, and second, a ruthless commitment to murder Jews.”
Netanyahu’s remarks represent a reference to the Islamic Republic’s stated goal of eliminating the State of Israel, an oft repeated refrain of former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and of the current Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
These statements, coupled with the Islamic Republic’s pursuit of a nuclear program that has the potential to be used to develop nuclear weapons, have resulted in Israeli vigilance with regard to Iran’s encroachment along its borders in Syria and Lebanon.
“I’m sure many of you have heard Iran’s silver-tonged foreign minister charmingly explain that Iran is a moderate power which harbors no hatred toward anyone,” Netanyahu intoned, referring to Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. “Mr. Zarif: Tell that to the journalists tortured in Evin prison. Tell that to students shot in the streets. Tell that to hundreds of thousands of dead Syrians killed by Iran’s proxies.”
In addition to these victims of the Ayatollah’s government, Netanyahu also mentioned “the Bahais and Christians denied any semblance of human rights” in Iran, in addition to the “Jews in Argentina who were blown up in a community center by the Iranian regime” and the “Israeli mothers and fathers whose children are routinely condemned to annihilation by Iran’s fanatic leaders.”
Netanyahu invoked incredulous European responses to fascist leaders such as Hitler and Mussolini before the outbreak of World War II, and specifically the refusal to take seriously genocidal threats made by such leaders. Netanyahu expressed unwillingness to dismiss similar threats by Iran in the current day and age.
In response to Iran’s position on Israel, Netanyahu declared, “We will not allow a regime hell-bent on the annihilation of the Jewish state to acquire nuclear weapons. We will not allow that regime to entrench itself militarily in Syria, as it seeks to do, for the express purpose of eradicating our state.”
Netanyahu also made explicit reference to the Iran nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
“I know none of you want to see the Iranian regime armed with nuclear weapons. But the JCPOA will leave Iran able to produce the fuel for an entire nuclear arsenal in about a decade. President Trump has created an opportunity to fix the great flaws of the JCPOA. I urge you, in the policy community, to help decision makers in the capitals of Europe and Capitol Hill, to take advantage of this opportunity,” Netanyahu told the audience assembled at the Saban Forum.