Netanyahu vows no second Holocaust

JERUSALEM – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged Monday not to allow Holocaust deniers the chance to carry out a second Holocaust against the Jewish people.

He spoke at the ceremony marking Israel’s annual memorial day for the 6 million Jews killed by Nazis and their collaborators during World War II, but the event fell under the shadow of a U.N. anti-racism conference in Geneva perceived in Israel as anti-Semitic.

Netanyahu criticized the president of Switzerland for meeting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the conference. Netanyahu said the Iranian leader, who has called for Israel to be wiped off the map, has denied the existence of the Holocaust.

“We will not allow the Holocaust deniers to carry out another Holocaust against the Jewish people. This is the supreme duty of the state of Israel. This is my supreme duty as prime minister of Israel,” Netanyahu said, speaking at Yad Vashem, Israel’s official Holocaust memorial and study center.

In research released to coincide with the memorial day, a study found that anti-Semitic incidents worldwide declined in 2008 but spiked during Israel’s offensive in the Gaza Strip in January. In its annual report on anti-Semitism, The Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism and Racism at Tel Aviv University found that anti-Jewish incidents dropped 11 percent in 2008, including 560 cases of violence, compared to 632 in 2007.

But Israel’s military offensive against Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip reversed the trend. The researchers estimated that there were 1,000 incidents during January, more than 10 times the number in January 2008.