Israel would not rely blindly on the international community to stop Tehran from developing an atom bomb, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday, indicating that a unilateral Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear sites remained an option, dpa reported.
"We appreciate the efforts of the international community to stop Iran's nuclear programme, but we won't at any stage place our fate in the hands of others, also not in those of the best among our friends," he said, referring to the United States.
Netanyahu spoke during a ceremony at Jerusalem's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial centre, which kicked off Israel's annual Remembrance Day for the 6 million Jews killed by Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II.
Holocaust survivors lit six torches, one for each million of the Jews killed.
The premier compared the so-called appeasement of Nazi Germany before World War II with the attitude of politicians who believe the world should reconcile with a nuclear Iran.
"That wasn't said just then. That is being said today. Israel, says today the leader of Iran, is a cancerous growth which must be uprooted from the Middle East.
"The murderous hatred against the Jews, that hatred hasn't disappeared from the world. It has just been replaced by murderous hatred for the Jewish state."
Ahead of World War II, "many didn't recognize the danger on time," he said.
"We won't reach a situation again where it will be too late," Netanyahu said, adding that the essence of the establishment of Israel from the ashes of the Holocaust was "the independent ability to take the necessary decisions ... to defend ourselves."
"In this place and on this day, I commit, there will never be another Shoah," he said.