Holocaust speakers warn Obama on Iran

WASHINGTON, April 23 (UPI) -- Speakers at a ceremony in Washington warned President Barack Obama Wednesday against allowing Iran to acquire nuclear weapons.

Israeli Ambassador to the United States Sallai Meridor did not refer explicitly to Iran, talking instead about a regime "terrorizing its neighbors," Politico reported. Joel Geiderman, vice chairman of the National Holocaust Memorial Museum, compared the government of Iran to the Nazi regime in Germany.

"At least one whole nation has been targeted for destruction with the threat to wipe it off the map," Geiderman said. "History should have taught us that democracies that let such pledges stand do so at their own peril."

Obama attended the National Commemoration of the Days of Remembrance in the Capitol Rotunda. He did not mention Iran but criticized Holocaust deniers.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has suggested the Holocaust did not happen.

"But we must also remember that bearing witness is not the end of our obligation. It's just the beginning," Obama said. "We know that evil has yet to run its course on Earth. We've seen it, in this century, in the mass graves and the ashes of villages burned to the ground and children used as soldiers and rape used as a weapon of war."