Washington – President Barack Obama pledged Thursday at a ceremony remembering the millions of Jews who were slaughtered in World War II to confront “those who tell lies about history” and deny the Holocaust.
Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
“There are those who insist the Holocaust never happened, who perpetrate every form of intolerance — racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, xenophobia, sexism and more,” Obama told a gathering in the Capitol Rotunda, including Jews who survived the World War II slaughter and non-Jews who sheltered them.
“We have an opportunity and an obligation to confront these scourges,” said Obama, speaking just days after Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at a UN conference on racism, denounced Israel as “the most cruel and repressive racist regime.”
“We have the opportunity … to commit ourselves to resisting injustice, intolerance and indifference in whatever forms they may take, whether confronting those who tells lies about history or doing everything we can to prevent and end atrocities like those that took place in Rwanda, those taking place in Darfur,” said Obama, who spoke after Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel.
Wiesel, who survived the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz, where his mother and sister perished, directly took on Ahmadinejad.
The Iranian leader has become “the number one Holocaust denier in the world,” said Wiesel.
“He used the solemn setting of a United Nations gathering again to insult the state of Israel in a way that no civilized person should ever do,” the Nobel laureate said.
The United States and several other countries, including Israel, did not attend the UN meeting in Geneva, and many European delegates walked out in protest at the Iranian leader’s statements.
Israeli deputy prime minister Silvan Shalom said Tuesday in Poland, where the Nazis ran many of their death camps, that what Iran was trying to do “is not far away at all from what Hitler did to the Jewish people just 65 years ago.”
ya right what By chatting with them. Obama is a fony he ruining this great county.
Huh? Do your job, Obama. We did not elect you to waste time messing with Holocausts and their deniers.
We elected you to LEAD this country. That means to make others respect us, not love us.
I do not care if the world hates the USA. I want them to respect our strength, and our resolve to defend ourselves and our allies.
In that you are a total failure, Mr. President.
The same goes for those embarrassing gifts you gave to the British leaders…. my face is still red.
Stop “Running for President” and start being one. Please. I voted for you.
BH! Kol Hakavod President Obama for his beautiful speech today. Everyone should be required as well to listen to what Sallai Merridor and Elie Wiesel both said. They gave great speeches. The entire event – from the military flag procession of camp flags to the kel molehs and the including Joe Lieberman and even Donald Payne (who was nearly attacked in somalia last week) and lighting candles with the righteous gentiles was a truly magnidficent event and a testament to this great country and the great time in which we live. Yashar Koach and kol hakavod to America. The entire event is acrchived and can be viewed at the holocaust memorial museum’s website.
statements like these will give him cover when he screws Israel for the arabs
Why is he not sincere? why when bush does it it means he is the best friend ever but for him its pandering? sounds to me like a bunch of blind partisan hackery…guess thats what happens when you dont get any real education.