TEL AVIV – Ahead of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu drew a comparison between the Holocaust and Iran’s nuclear program.

“A third of the Jewish people went up in flames. There was nothing we could do,” he said in a television interview with TBN, the largest Christian network in the world.

“So we now have the capacity to defend ourselves, and I think the lesson of Auschwitz is: One, stop bad things when they’re small, and Iran is a very bad thing. It’s not that small but it could get a lot bigger with nuclear weapons, and I think the first thing is stop that,” he told the host, Matt Crouch.

“And second, understand that the Jews will never, ever again be defenseless in the face of those who want to destroy them. These are the two things that I think are important.”

“Now, after the Holocaust and the State of Israel was established, the attempts to destroy the Jewish people have not disappeared,” Netanyahu said. “Iran openly declares every day that it wants to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. And by the way, Israel has today a population of more than six million Jews.”

Some 50 world leaders will gather on Wednesday and Thursday in Jerusalem to attend the events marking the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz on January 27, 1945.

In the TBN interview, Netanyahu also slammed the International Criminal Court on its plans to launch a probe into alleged Israeli war crimes.

“The U.S. government, under President Trump has spoken forcefully against the ICC for this travesty, and I urge all your viewers to do the same. To ask for concrete actions, sanction against the international court, its officials, prosecutors, everyone.

“They’re basically in a full frontal attack on the democracies, both on the democracies’ right to defend themselves, and on Israel’s right, the Jewish people’s right, to live in their ancestral homeland, the Land of Israel.”

Last month, the ICC’s chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, said there is a “basis” to probe Israel’s actions in the Palestinian territories, including alleged war crimes in Gaza during 2014’s Operation Protective Edge.

Netanyahu slammed the court for its announcement, which he called “pure antisemitism.”

The US, Canada, Australia and Hungary denounced the move.