Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked
Justice Minister Ayelet ShakedFlash90

The Holocaust began with incitement and persecution against Jews in Germany, Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked (Jewish Home) said during International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Friday, emphasizing that the seeds of the massacre were sown years before the killing began.

Speaking at an event to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust, Shaked said: "It is clear to us today, that the Holocaust did not start in 1939. The Holocaust, came about as a direct result of a long-running campaign of verbal and written incitement to searing hatred of Jews."

"Long before the first camp opened its gates, and started gassing and burning, or the first ghetto was populated, Jews were being persecuted in the streets of Europe, solely due to the fact that they were Jews."

She compared the years of incitement against the Jewish people which preceded the Holocaust to the incitement against the Jewish people and the State of Israel, today, and accused global powers of refusing to act to prevent acts of genocide, just as they refused to act to stop the Holocaust in the 1930s and 40s.

"Incitement to violence, hatred, and bigotry is not just a localized problem, but a deep-rooted disease, which, left unconfronted, will destroy us all. Words can be and are, just as deadly as bullets, and as dangerous as stones.

"The fact that the world turns a blind eye to the Iranian supported massacres in Syria; and chooses to relentlessly denounce the only country in the Middle East, which truly holds dear the value of human life, is a glaring indicator of the world's double-standards and its unwillingness to confront the real forces of evil."

Shaked blamed the anti-Israel resolution passed by the UN Security Council last month for recent terror attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians.

"In the days following the recent anti-Israel decision at the UNSC, dozens of Palestinians took to the streets and called to murder Jews wherever they could be found.

"Soon thereafter, four young lives were cut short under the wheels of a truck driven by a cowardly terrorist.

"A terrorist, driven by incitement to hatred, who epitomized the evolving ideology of modern anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism."

She accused the BDS movement and the Palestinian Authority of anti-Semitism and incitement against Israel and the Jewish people.

"Modern anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism is made up not just of conventional means, but also manifests itself in the BDS movement, virtual terrorism in the form of new media, cyber or press incitement, the legal battles against Israel and IDF soldiers at the International Criminal Court in the Hague, and the political battles of the UN.

"It is well known, that the Palestinian Authority with Mahmoud Abbas at their head, have become experts at propagating modern anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism which incites to the murder of Jews."

Shaked said that Israel would act to curb anti-Semitic incitement online, and that the war against Israel was motivated by anti-Semitism and not Israel's refusal to make further far-reaching concessions to the PA.

"Here in Israel, Jews are not being murdered because of widespread Palestinian frustration over the stalling of the peace process. They are being murdered because of anti-Semitism, and anti-Zionism, and incitement to terror, no matter what face it takes on, no matter what twisted justification it feeds off, whether it be in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Paris or Istanbul."