On January 30, 1939, Hitler addressed Germany's parliament, the Reichstag.
"Europe cannot find peace until the Jewish question has been solved....One thing I should like to say on this day [the sixth anniversary of his being appointed chancellor of the Reich], which may be memorable for others as well as for us Germans. In the course of my life I have very often been a prophet and have usually been ridiculed for it....Today I will once more be a prophet: if the international Jewish financiers in and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, then the result will not be the Bolshevization of the earth, and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe."
On Monday, February 18, 2008, according to the FARS news agency, Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps commander, Muhammed Ali Jafari, wrote these words in a letter of condolence, following last week's assassination of Imad Mughniyeh:
"The cancerous growth, Israel, will soon disappear. I am convinced that with every passing day, Hezbollah's might is increasing and in the near future, we will witness the disappearance of this cancerous growth Israel by means of the Hezbollah fighters' radiation.There's no doubt that the death of this loyal fighter will strengthen the resolve of all revolutionary Muslims and fighters in the struggle against the Zionist regime, particularly the resolve of those who fought by this martyr's side."
Nearly 70 years after Hitler's chilling words concerning the annihilation of the Jewish people, Iran's leaders are declaring Israel -- born out of the ashes of Hitler's Holocaust -- will disappear.
Jafari's words parallel Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who regularly makes similar declarations. For example, two years ago, he declared. "We ask the West to remove what they created 60 years ago and if they do not listen to our recommendations, then the Palestinian nation and other nations will eventually do this for them. Do the removal of Israel before it is too late and save yourself from the fury of regional nations."
Some analysts believe it's as if the specter of Hitler has emerged from history's shadows and is echoed in the leaders of Iran. Like 1939 being repeated. But this time, unlike Hitler, who wanted but never produced an atomic bomb, Iran appears on the verge of this technological achievement.
And Iran's leaders are invoking a religious right to do so. On Sunday, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared, "The Iranian people openly announce that they will defend their rights. Allah will reprimand them if they do not do so."