PM Netanyahu: World Not Doing Enough To Avert New Holocaust

Before getting to PM Netanyahu's quotes from Monday, below we see that Congress may be aiding the Syrian Rebels: 

U.S. Congress Secretly Approves Weapons Flow To 'Moderate' Syrian Rebels

 Light arms supplied by the United States are flowing to "moderate" Syrian rebel factions in the south of the country and US funding for months of further deliveries has been approved by Congress, according US and European security officials.

The weapons, most of which are moving to non-Islamist Syrian rebels via Jordan, include a variety of small arms, as well as some more powerful weapons, such as anti-tank rockets.

The deliveries do not include weapons such as shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles, known as MANPADs, which could shoot down military or civilian aircraft, the officials said.

The weapons deliveries have been funded by the US Congress, in votes behind closed doors, through the end of government fiscal year 2014, which ends on Sept. 30, two officials said.

The apparently steady weapons flow contrasts with the situation last summer, when lethal US aid to the Syrian rebels dried up for a time due to congressional reservations.

Congress approved funding for weapons deliveries to the Syrian rebels in classified sections of defense appropriations legislation, two sources familiar with the matter said. It was not clear when the funding was approved, but unclassified defense funding passed Congress in late December.

Some additional budget tweaks may be necessary to ensure that all the approved funding is fully available for disbursement during the current fiscal year.

Yet, officials who support providing US arms to the rebels acknowledge that this has not greatly increased US expectations of victory by anti-Assad forces, whether moderate or militant.

Both US and European officials said that "moderate" rebels had recently consolidated their positions in the Syrian south, where they are pushing out elements linked to al-Qaida. More militant factions remain dominant in the north and east.

Another recent development favorable to more moderate factions is that Kurdish groups that had been providing weapons and other aid financed by donors in the Gulf state of Qatar indiscriminately to both moderate and religious extremist rebel factions had greatly reduced their involvement in the arms traffic, one of the officials said.

Netanyahu: World Not Doing Enough To Avert New Holocaust

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday berated the international community for showing indifference to the threat posed by Iran, comparing Tehran to the Nazi regime and implying that the world was not fulfilling its obligation to prevent a second Jewish holocaust.

“Even today when there is broad agreement that the Holocaust that took place should have been prevented, the world doesn’t feel any sense of urgency regarding a regime that calls for our annihilation, and even welcomes with open arms the man who represents it,” Netanyahu said, referring to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.

“They all just clear their throats and greet [his] smiles with smiles of their own,” he said in comments released to the press for International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Netanyahu added that Israel received “disproportionate” treatment, which “shows us that persecution of the Jews perpetuates 2,000 years of anti-Semitism.”

A statement issued by the office of President Shimon Peres struck a decidedly different note, calling on global citizenry to “not be satisfied by condemning the Holocaust but rather join our hearts and hands to ensure that we live in a world where another Holocaust is impossible.”

“The Holocaust is a great warning to us all,” the president wrote. “Forgetfulness is a menace, we must remember and remember to love and respect everyone no matter the color of their skin or the origin of their birth. Moses taught us that every human being was made in the image of the Lord; no one has the right to take that away. We have a duty to remember the past but also to improve the future; this is not just a memorial day but a call to us all to move ahead, never forgetting the past but never losing hope in the future.”

Earlier Monday, opposition leader Isaac Herzog (Labor) spoke at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in southern Poland and vowed that Israel would continue to fight against racism and its consequences.

Speaking to a group that included nearly half of Israel’s parliament, marking the 69th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camp, Herzog said it was the Jewish state’s mission to learn the lessons of the Holocaust and combat injustice.

“In the name of the State of Israel, I declare that we will continue in every way our life’s mission — to learn and to teach the lesson, to improve the world with righteousness and justice, with benevolence and mercy,” he said.