The people of Israel remembered the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust. Sirens wailed nationwide for two minutes in the morning. Cars stopped on the streets, passers-by paused in silent remembrance. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Izchak Herzog laid wreaths at the Yad Vashem memorial. Meanwhile, Iran again threatened the country with destruction.
Yom Hashoah has been observed in Israel since 1951. This year commemorates the Jewish uprising against German SS troops in the Warsaw Ghetto, which began on April 19, 1943. The desperate fight against the numerically far superior Germans ended about four weeks later. Few Warsaw Jews survived. On Wednesday, Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier will give a speech at the central commemoration ceremony in Warsaw.
Netanyahu said at Yad Vashem on Monday evening that the history of the uprising obliges the Israelis to internal unity. “Only in this way can we defeat those who want to destroy us.” Today it is Iran, which must be prevented from arming itself with nuclear weapons.
Just a few hours later, Iran threatened the country again. “The slightest mistake on your part against the security of our country will be met with the destruction of the cities of Tel Aviv and Haifa,” Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said on state television.
Reza Pahlavi as a guest
Iranian presidents have threatened arch-enemy Israel with destruction in the past. Hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was president from 2005 to 2013, was particularly controversial. Raisi came to power in the summer of 2021. The conservative cleric’s style of government has been widely criticized since then. April 18 is a holiday in the Islamic Republic in honor of the national armed forces.
For the first time, Iran’s ex-crown prince, Reza Pahlavi, was present at the Holocaust commemoration events in Israel. He was accompanied by the Israeli secret service minister, Gila Gamliel, who spoke of a “historic visit”. Pahlavi is the “highest-ranking Iranian personality who has ever paid a public visit to Israel”. Pahlavi visited the Western Wall in Jerusalem on Tuesday.
Since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, after which the son of the former monarch was unable to return to his homeland, Israel has been considered Tehran’s archenemy. Pahlavi has rarely spoken publicly in the past. However, since the start of the women-led protest movement in Iran last year, the 62-year-old has appeared more prominently and called for a democratic Iran.
