• Obama Pays Tribute to American Heroes of the Holocaust - Dave Boyer
  President Barack Obama, speaking at the Israeli Embassy in Washington on Wednesday to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day, paid tribute to Americans who saved Jews from the Holocaust during World War II.
      Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority, bestowed its Righteous Among the Nations award posthumously on Master Sgt. Roddie Edmonds of Knoxville, Tennessee. As a prisoner of war in January 1945, Sgt. Edmonds was told by his Nazi captors to reveal which of his fellow prisoners of war were Jewish. At the barrel of a gun, Sgt. Edmonds refused, declaring, "We are all Jews."
      Also honored was Lois Gunden, a French teacher from Indiana, who founded a children's home on the French coast that acted as a safe house for Jewish families. (Washington Times-CNN)
      See also Remarks by President Obama on Holocaust Remembrance Day (White House)
      See also below Observations - Netanyahu: Jews Are Once Again Being Targeted Just for Being Jews (Prime Minister's Office)
• Ayatollah Khamenei Publishes Holocaust Denial Video for International Holocaust Remembrance Day
  Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei published on his official website a three-minute video in which he expresses doubt about whether the Holocaust actually happened and rages about Europe's ban on public questioning of the validity of the Holocaust. The video also features images of leading European Holocaust deniers. (MEMRI)

• Israel Slams UN Chief for Justifying Palestinian Terrorism - Shlomo Cesana
  UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the UN Security Council on Tuesday: "As oppressed peoples have demonstrated throughout the ages, it is human nature to react to occupation." He called Israeli settlement activity "an affront to the Palestinian people and to the international community."
      In response, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: "The UN Secretary General's remarks give a tailwind to terrorism. There is no justification for terrorism. The Palestinian murderers do not want to build a state - they want to destroy a state and they say this openly. They want to murder Jews simply because they are Jews and they say this openly. They do not murder for peace and they do not murder for human rights."
      Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said: "During the past four months, Israelis have been stabbed in their homes, shot at in the streets, and run over by terrorists using cars as weapons. Over the course of this wave of violence, 30 people have been killed, and hundreds have been injured. During this period of time, the Council has adopted 12 resolutions against terrorism, and condemned terrorist attacks in France, Sinai, Lebanon, Mali, Tunisia, Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Somalia, and Sudan. Not once were the lives of Israelis murdered by terrorists recognized by this Council."
      Yair Lapid, leader of the opposition Yesh Atid party, said: "Terrorism against innocent civilians cannot be justified; we must not provide explanations for it. It is inconceivable that anyone in the world - certainly not the UN secretary-general - says that terror is the 'result' of something."  (Israel Hayom)
• Palestinian Stabs Israeli near Jerusalem on Wednesday
  A Palestinian terrorist stabbed and seriously wounded an Israeli man at a gas station in Givat Ze'ev near Jerusalem on Wednesday night. Witnesses captured the assailant. (Jerusalem Post)
• Tel Aviv Stabber Planned New Attack - Yonah Jeremy Bob
  Terrorist Nashat Milham, the Israeli Arab who murdered three Israelis on Jan. 1 in Tel Aviv, had three accomplices who helped him hide after the attack, the Israel Security Agency said Wednesday. Milham planned and carried out the shooting under the influence of Islamic State, Salafi-jihadist ideology, the ISA said.
      Amin Milhem, 23, Muhammad Milhem, 22, both relatives, and Ayoub Salama Rashid, 22, were indicted on Wednesday for aiding Nashat Milham. Nashat told Amin that he intended to carry out an additional terror attack in Afula, that he still had 32 bullets for his gun and he asked Amin to get him more bullets. Rashid also planned to get Nashat more ammunition and discussed helping him with the next terror attack. (Jerusalem Post)

• Is It "Human Nature" to Kill Jews? - Jonathan S. Tobin
  On Tuesday, the UN Security Council met to discuss "The Situation in the Middle East." But instead of tackling the difficult problem of how to end the civil war in Syria that has taken hundreds of thousands of lives or the rise of ISIS, the UN preferred to devote its time and energy to Israel's continued presence in the West Bank, as UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon rationalized Palestinian terror by declaring, "it is human nature to react to occupation."
      Ban ignores the fact that Israel has repeatedly offered the Palestinian Authority statehood and withdrawal from almost all of the West Bank. If the goal of the Palestinians were truly statehood, they would have jumped on the deals put on the table in 2000, 2001, and 2008, all of which would have granted them sovereignty over this territory as well as a share of Jerusalem. But Palestinian leaders have never been willing to accept the legitimacy of a Jewish state no matter where its borders might be drawn. That's why all discussion of Palestinian "frustration" is deeply misleading.
      The Palestinian refusal to negotiate peace has made it obvious that the widespread belief that the settlements are the obstacles to peace is absurd. Palestinian public opinion continues to view the Jewish presence in any part of the country as unacceptable. Whether Jews are sitting in a cafe in Tel Aviv or in a West Bank settlement, Palestinians think they deserve death. It is not "human nature" that drives Palestinians to seek out random Israelis to stab or shoot, but rather a Palestinian ideology that views territorial compromise as treason. (Commentary)
• Moderate Iran Is a Fantasy - Giulio Maria Terzi
  Unfortunately the odds are that the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action will neither make the Middle East safer nor fundamentally change the nature of the Iranian regime and its conduct in the region. It seems quite evident that the nuclear agreement has given the regime added motivation to crack down on Iranian civil society, become more belligerent in the region, and keep Western influence at bay.
      Meanwhile, European governments are willing to talk with President Rouhani about oil deals and trade partnerships even if it means ignoring Iran's worsening human rights situation, its sponsorship of terror, and its destabilizing activities in the Middle East. Italy, France and the EU should not only use Rouhani's visit to explore trading opportunities. First and foremost, Rouhani's visit should be a test of his willingness to change Iran's egregious conduct and an opportunity to hold him accountable for his actions.
      Until Iran can demonstrate a real commitment to moderation: releasing political prisoners, safeguarding the rights of citizens, withdrawing support for terrorist groups, retracting hateful propaganda, and ending their meddling in the affairs of other countries, the narrative of Iranian moderation will remain a fantasy. The writer is a former foreign minister of Italy and was its ambassador to the U.S. and the UN. (Politico)

International Holocaust Remembrance Day: Jews Are Once Again Being Targeted Just for Being Jews - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Prime Minister's Office)

• Preserving the memory of the Holocaust is more important today than ever, for in this period of resurgent and sometimes violent anti-Semitism, it is commemorations like this that remind us all where the oldest and most enduring hatred can lead.
• Unfortunately, in Europe and elsewhere, Jews are once again being targeted just for being Jews. Around the world, Jewish communities are increasingly living in fear. We see anti-Semitism directed against individual Jews, and we also see this hatred directed against the collective Jew, against the Jewish state. Israel is targeted with the same slurs and the same libels that were leveled against the Jewish people since time immemorial.
• Islamic extremists incorporate the most outrageous anti-Semitism into their murderous doctrines. We see this in Gaza; we see it in Raqqa; we see it in Tehran. And even respected Western opinion leaders have become afflicted with hatred for the Jewish people and the Jewish state.
• The obsession with the Jews - the fixation on the Jewish state - defies any rational explanation. While across the region, Islamist militants brutalize entire populations, enslave and rape women, murder Christians and gays, the UN Human Rights Council repeatedly condemns Israel.
• But one thing has changed. The Jews have changed. We are no longer a stateless people endlessly searching for a safe haven. We are no longer a powerless people begging others to offer us protection. Today we are an independent and sovereign people in our own homeland.
• Today we can speak out against the voices of hatred and those seeking our destruction. Today we can protect ourselves and defend our freedom. But where is the rest of civilization?
• When a state like Iran and movements like Daesh [ISIS] and Hamas openly declare their goal of committing another Holocaust, we will not let it happen. But Europe and the rest of the world must stand up together with us. Not for our sake; for theirs.
  
      See also The Abuse of Holocaust Memory: Distortions and Responses - Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld
  Denial of the Holocaust is the best-known and most-studied distortion of its memory. Other categories of abuse include Holocaust justification, deflection, whitewashing, de-Judaization, equivalence, inversion, and trivialization, as well as obliterating Holocaust memory. This book analyzes the categories of distortion and the responses to them. Also included are case studies that analyze Holocaust distortion in several European countries and the Muslim world. (Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs-ADL)