By JONATHAN COOK<\/strong><\/p>\n Iran is the new Nazi Germany and its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the new Hitler. Or so Israeli officials have been declaring for months as they and their American allies try to persuade the doubters in Washington that an attack on Tehran is essential. And if the latest media reports are to be trusted, it looks like they may again be winning the battle for hearts and minds: Vice-President Dick Cheney is said to be diverting the White House back on track to launch a military strike.<\/p>\n Earlier this year Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel\u2019s opposition leader and the man who appears to be styling himself scaremonger-in-chief, told us: \u201cIt\u2019s 1938 and Iran is Germany. And Iran is racing to arm itself with atomic bombs.\u201d Of Ahmadinejad, he said: \u201cHe is preparing another Holocaust for the Jewish state.\u201d<\/p>\n A few weeks ago, as Israel\u2019s military intelligence claimed — as it has been doing regularly since the early 1990s — that Iran is only a year or so away from the \u201cpoint of no return\u201d on developing a nuclear warhead, Netanyahu was at it again. \u201cIran could be the first undeterrable nuclear power,\u201d he warned, adding: \u201cThis is a Jewish problem like Hitler was a Jewish problem \u2026 The future of the Jewish people depends on the future of Israel.\u201d There is an interesting problem with selling the \u201cIran as Nazi Germany\u201d line. If Ahmadinejad really is Hitler, ready to commit genocide against Israel\u2019s Jews as soon as he can get his hands on a nuclear weapon, why are some 25,000 Jews living peacefully in Iran and more than reluctant to leave despite repeated enticements from Israel and American Jews?<\/p>\n Read the full article here\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “There is an interesting problem with selling the \u201cIran as Nazi Germany\u201d line. If Ahmadinejad really is Hitler, ready to commit genocide against Israel\u2019s Jews as soon as he can get his hands on a nuclear weapon, why are some 25,000 Jews living peacefully in Iran and more than reluctant to leave despite repeated enticements from Israel and American Jews?” Continue reading
\nBut Netanyahu has been far from alone in making extravagant claims about a looming genocide from Iran. Israel\u2019s new president, Shimon Peres, has compared an Iranian nuclear bomb to a \u201cflying concentration camp.\u201d And the prime minister, Ehud Olmert, told a German newspaper last year: \u201c[Ahmadinejad] speaks as Hitler did in his time of the extermination of the entire Jewish nation.\u201d<\/p>\n