Gathering in Israel to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration-death camp, world leaders called for constant vigilance against anti-Semitism. But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech was the most instructive, because Netanyahu encapsulated how the Holocaust defines Israeli security strategy in the 21st century.
There was little grandstanding in his speech. Instead, Netanyahu charted a brief history of the Holocaust and how it ended. The former Israeli special forces operator observed how Jews remember “with deep gratitude, the day of liberation, the entry of the Red Army into Auschwitz, the immense sacrifice of the allies, soldiers, and peoples alike.” But, he noted, “For the 6 million of our people, including 1.5 million children, the gates of hell were broken into too late.”
