President Donald Trump said in a pre-recorded message on Sunday that “we must not ignore” a regime that threatens Israel’s existence, seemingly alluding to Iran.
“On Yom HaShoah, we look back at the darkest chapter of human history,” the president told the World Jewish Congress on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day. “We mourn, we remember, we pray, and we pledge: Never again. I say it, never again.”
“Only decades removed” since the end of the Holocaust, when “six million Jews, two-thirds of the Jews in Europe” were murdered by the Nazis, “we see a great nation risen from the desert and we see a proud Star of David waving above the State of Israel,” Trump said.
Calling the star on the Israeli flag a “symbol of Jewish perseverance,” the president recalled a statement attributed to Theodore Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism: “If you will it, it is no dream.”
Trump added that in memory of those who were lost, “we renew our commitment and our determination not to disregard the warnings of our own times.”
“We must stamp out prejudice and anti-Semitism everywhere it is found,” he declared. “We must defeat terrorism, and we must not ignore the threats of a regime that talks openly of Israel’s destruction. We cannot let that ever even be thought of.”
Trump shared the story of a Jewish musician who fled Germany in 1937 and made his way to “the ancient land of Israel.” Some years later, a British diplomat who once knew the musician saw him living in a hut, in Israel, with nothing but his piano. The diplomat observed, “This must be a terrible change for you.” The musician replied, “It is a change – from hell to heaven.”
The president ended his message by calling Israel a dream “for millions, a dream that burned in the hearts of oppressed and fallen and which now draws the breath of life from a joyous people each and every day.”
President Trump’s reference to Iran’s belligerent rhetoric against Israel was also expressed by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson last week. In remarks to the press about the administration’s approach to the Islamic Republic, Tillerson noted that Iran recently displayed banners saying “death to Israel” at a military parade and uses its resources to foment chaos across the Middle East.
[Photo: World Jewish Congress / YouTube ]