This week, in what was described as an historic event, the people of the world represented by the United Nations held a special meeting to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

As reported by The Jerusalem Post , the event marked "the first time that the United Nations [had dedicated] a session to memorializing the victims of the Holocaust."

The theme of Monday´s special session was:"The evil which murdered six million Jews in the death camps still threatens us today."

Us?

It never murdered "us" in the death camps. It never rounded up and mass murdered any of the civilian nationals whose representatives sit in the General Assembly, nor does it threaten genocide against any of those nationals today.

The theme should have read: "The evil which murdered six million Jews in the death camps still threatens the Jews today."

For the hatred that drove men to incite against the Jews, demonize them, mark them for "special treatment," round them up in ghettos, herd them into trains and drive millions of them through the doors of the gas chambers, is alive and well in our 21st Century world.

And many UN member states are infested with this unique hatred; this most enduring form of hatred --hatred of the Jew.

The spirit which 65 years ago possessed one man and his nation to carry out the genocide of Europe´s Jews did not perish with Hitler in his bunker, nor has it been purged from the planet in the years since the survivors of Auschwitz were set free.

Today that spirit prevails in the hearts and minds of millions of people throughout the Middle East --people who regard Hitler as a hero and who, just as he did, publicly proclaim their intention to complete what he began.

There are member states of the UN whose leaders and citizens would welcome the destruction of world Jewry, beginning with the eradication of the Jewish state.

Some of these nations are actively arming themselves to be the instruments of that destruction:

Iran is pursuing an aggressive nuclear program, has expressed its determination to produce its own atomic weapons of mass destruction within the next few years, and has warned that, should Jerusalem try to sabotage this effort, it will immediately move to obliterate the State of Israel.

This week the chief of Israel´s Mossad warned that Iran´s nuclear program was nearly past the point of no return.

Syria, widely suspected of squirreling away Saddam Hussein´s non- conventional weapons, is manufacturing its own VX Gas warheads to mount on its arsenal of SCUD missiles.

Lebanon?s Hizballah has around 20,000 missiles aimed into northern Israel. Last July, the Syria-supported group took delivery of extended range missiles together with non-conventional warheads for some of its rockets.

Saudi Arabia is bristling with the most advanced weapons systems in the world, and has refused to redeploy its US-made warplanes away from positions from which they can easily strike Israel, while the House of Saud is under constant threat of being overthrown in a coup that would see Islamic radicals taking control of its military machine.

And Egypt, a country that has a peace treaty with Israel, and which is not militarily threatened by any of its neighbors, is upgrading its armed forces to the tune of billions of dollars, and holding war- games in which Israel is the enemy. A former Egyptian Minister of War has stated publicly that in the next Arab-Israeli war, Egypt?s peace treaty with Israel will go into the trash can, and his country will join its Arab brothers against the Jews.

Experts recently announced that Saudi Arabia and Egypt are both developing nuclear capabilities.

As these preparations for Holocaust II are underway, instead of exposing, confronting and dealing with them, while lining up to solidly defend Israel against them, the same nations whose leaders regularly vow that "never again" will they allow it to happen, are weakening Israel through their land-for-peace policies, and helping to prepare the way for just such a Holocaust.

For 15 years I have watched as this road has been paved. Against the roar of the world´s approval and support of the "peace process" a few people have tried to sound warnings -- not about another Holocaust per se , but about the grave dangers posed by the diplomatic process (known variously as Madrid, Oslo, the Road Map and Geneva), and where it is leading.

At what point, when you see approaching danger, should you alert those in its path? If you holler too early, and they see no evidence of the threat, they?ll dismiss you like the boy who cried "wolf," and disregard your warning.

If you leave it too late, you restrict the intended victim´s ability to respond by either combating the danger or fleeing from it.

Since 1991, Israel has been under unrelenting pressure to relinquish control over strategic and historic central parts of its tiny land, in exchange for which it has been repeatedly promised peace.

It is the determined intention of the entire world today, led by the United States, that Israel will let go of that land and allow on it the creation of another Arab state whose citizens are fully aligned in intent, with the rest of their Arab brothers, to destroy utterly what would be left of Israel.

The world expects Israel to agree to withdraw behind a border that, at its waist, is just nine miles wide, with 75 percent of its population living in this narrow coastal plain beneath the looming high ground of what would be Palestine.

So dearly does the world want to see peace come to the Middle East that Israel must be willing to risk its existence for it.

Israel has been taking "risks-for-peace" since 1993; incrementally handing over more and more land to the Palestinian Arabs, and in exchange burying more and more of its Jews. There is not one jot of evidence to support the belief that Israel will ever receive peace in exchange for trading its land.

With the weapons being acquired and developed by the Arab states today, another surprise attack like the one that took place on Yom Kippur in 1973 would result in a war that would be over, not in six days, but in six hours. A dozen non-conventional warheads launched against the strip of land between Jaffa and Netanya -- and Israel would be no more.

Israel?s enemies declare their intentions, pray for their success, and fan the flames of hatred towards the Jewish state as they prepare to inflict "Allah?s will" upon them.

Most Jews refuse to see it. To them, the Holocaust was unique, incomparable, the blackest moment in their 4000-year history. They simply cannot imagine it happening again.

The Western world doesn´t, or won´t, see it, and pursues it policies of pressuring Israel to appease the Arabs, while mouthing the meaningless words: "Never again."

The Holocaust was not an aberration that took place in the depths of the Dark Ages. It happened just the other day, a mere 65 years ago, in the lifetime of people who are still with us today. Nor did it come out of the blue, sprung suddenly, without warning, on an unsuspecting world.

We knew it was coming. In the years before he came to power, Hitler had openly articulated his hatred of Jews and his belief that it would be a service to mankind to annihilate them.

Top secret documents declassified in recent years have revealed that senior US and British officials knew what the Fuhrer was planning for Europe?s Jews, but did nothing to stop him. As the menace of Nazism loomed, instead of dealing with it, Western powers sought to pacify it by sacrificing other small nations in their stead.

These nations knew that the Jews were in Hitler´s sights. An international conference was convened in France in 1936 to discuss which countries would help to save Jews by enabling them to immigrate. Nation after nation offered all manner of excuses, and slammed their doors shut to the Jews.

The defense that "we never knew" has been exposed as a lie. Even after the true purpose of Auschwitz was revealed, the allies refused to bomb it, a refusal which cost tens or even hundreds of thousands of lives.

If, God forbid, the Middle Eastern Islamic states achieve their goal of waging a successful genocidal war against Israel?s nearly six million Jews with their combined weapons of mass destruction, today´s nations and superpowers will not be able to say that they never knew.

They know. And while mouthing their meaningless mantra, they are doing nothing to prevent it. (© 2001-2005 Koret Communications Ltd. 01/28/05)