Benjamin Netanyahu, a front-runner for the Israeli premiership, has been severely criticised by a former Speaker of the Knesset and head of the Jewish Agency for comparing the threat posed by Iran to that of pre-war Nazi Germany.

Mr Netanyahu, whose Likud Party is running neck and neck in the polls with Kadima, led by Tzipi Livni, has gone further than his rivals in implying he might authorise a unilateral attack on Iranian nuclear installations.

Avraham Burg, whose new book The Holocaust Is Over: We Must Rise From Its Ashes is out in Britain this weekend, says in an interview with The Independent Magazine that the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is “no doubt a problem”. Mr Burg adds: “He is an issue in the Western world and for Israel’s sense of confidence in particular.” But he continues: “What is [Mr Netanyahu’s] soundbite? ‘It is [19]38 all over again. Do me a favour. Did we have such a powerful …