Rivlin: Holocaust Horrors Compel Israel to Aid Gassed Syrians

The Fellowship | April 5, 2017

SYRIA-CONFLICT-GAS — EDITORS NOTE: Graphic content / A Syrian medic runs for cover during the air strikes which hit a hospital in Khan Sheikhun, a rebel-held town in the northwestern Syrian Idlib province, on April 4, 2017. Two air strikes hit a hospital in northwestern Syria as doctors inside treated victims of a suspected chemical attack, an AFP correspondent said. The strikes hit the building in Khan Sheikhun, bringing down rubble on top of medics as they struggled to deal with victims of an attack that reportedly killed dozens of people. / AFP PHOTO / Omar haj kadour (Photo credit should read OMAR HAJ KADOUR/AFP via Getty Images)

PM Netanyahu was not the only Israeli leader to condemn yesterday’s gas attacks in neighboring Syria. President Reuven Rivlin also spoke out against what he called a “stain on all humanity.” The Times of Israel’s Raphael Ahren reports that Rivlin also warned that the Jewish people “know all too well how dangerous silence can be, and we cannot remain mute”:

Recalling the Holocaust, President Reuven Rivlin said on Tuesday evening that Israel cannot remain indifferent to the gassing of Syrian civilians, and offered to help survivors of the civil war there.

“We, as a people who survived the greatest of atrocities and rose from the ashes to be a strong and secure nation, we will do all we can to continue to aid the survivors of the horrors in Syria,” the president said in a statement. “We know all too well how dangerous silence can be, and we cannot remain mute.”

Earlier on Tuesday, reports surfaced of an aerial attack with chemical weapons, apparently carried out by the Syrian regime, on the northern city of Idlib, which killed scores of civilians, among them many children.

Footage of people and children choking on what appears to be sarin gas prompted outrage across the globe. Israeli leaders from across the political spectrum condemned the attack and called on the international community to act.

“The pictures we are seeing today from Syria and the reports of the massacre of children, of civilians, with chemical weapons, is a stain on all humanity,” Rivlin said in his statement. “The international community in its entirety must come together to bring an end to this murderous madness, and ensure that such scenes will never be repeated anywhere…”