Rivlin: Past horrors, present threats won’t dictate our future

President Reuven Rivlin on Wednesday said the State of Israel was not established as compensation for the Holocaust. He maintained that Israel took the security threats it is facing seriously, but said both past horrors and present threats would not “dictate our lives.”

Speaking at the annual Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony at Yad Vashem, the president’s hopeful tone diverged sharply from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s fierce criticism that the emerging Iran deal indicated the world had not learned the lessons of the Holocaust.

“We will not belittle any threats. Nor belittle shameful statements calling for the extinction of the Jewish people. Yet, while we are prepared, we are not scared,” Rivlin said. “The horrors of the past and the threats of the present will not dictate our lives, nor shape the lives of our children. They will not dim our hopes for a future of creativity and prosperity.”

The president rejected the notion that the modern State of Israel emerged to compensate the Jews for the atrocities of the Holocaust, arguing that the Jewish people had a right to their homeland that predated the war.

“There are those who mistakenly think that the State of Israel is some form of compensation for the Holocaust. There is no greater mistake. The State of Israel is not a compensation for the Holocaust. The State of Israel was established, in its own right, out of a love and longing for an ancient homeland, by virtue of a dream that came true, a dream that became a reality. Not out of the fear of extinction or out of hatred of the other,” he said.

The president also expressed his deep appreciation for the survivors of the Holocaust who rebuilt their lives in Israel, stressing that the strength and determination exemplified by the survivors continues to inspire the leaders and citizens of the Jewish state.

“Seventy years after the liberation of the death camps, we stand before you and we swear an oath. All of us, each and every one of us, has a number tattooed on their arm, yet, at the same time and in the same breath, we remember: we came from Auschwitz, not because of Auschwitz,” Rivlin said.

The president paused, and repeated again: “Each and every one of us has a number tattooed on their arm.”

The president, a native of Jerusalem, said he vividly recalled how the survivors trickled into Israel when he was in first grade at school.

Following Rivlin, Netanyahu addressed the crowd at the ceremony and compared Iran’s violent and expansionist aspirations in the Middle East to the Nazi campaign to conquer Europe during World War II.

The main lesson of the Second World War, for democracies, is that they cannot turn a blind eye to tyrannical regimes,” Netanyahu said.

“Appeasement towards these regimes increases their aggressiveness,” the Israeli leader continued. “If this aggressiveness is not curbed in time, humanity may find itself in far greater wars in the future.”

Netanyahu noted that “ahead of World War II, the world attempted to appease the Nazis. They wanted quiet at any price, and the terrible price did come.” Six million Jews were murdered, as were millions of others. The lesson was clear, he said: Only standing firm in the face of violent, tyrannical regimes could ensure the future of humanity. But that lesson, he said, had evidently been forgotten.

“Even if we are forced to stand alone, we will not falter,” he said. Israel’s leaders would “ensure our right and capacity and determination to defend ourselves.” While the Jews had no power 70 years ago, “today we can make ourselves heard and we are determined to ensure our existence and our future.”

Vowed Netanyahu: “We will not allow the State of Israel to become a passing phase in the history of our people.”