Love of the Land: Iran's Nuclear Anti-Zionism is Genocidal, Not Political

Iran's Nuclear Anti-Zionism is Genocidal, Not Political

Kenneth L. Marcus
Jewish Policy Center/inFocus
Winter 2009

Charles Asher Small, director of Yale's Interdisciplinary Initiative for the Study of Anti-Semitism, tells the story of the reception he received from Rwandan activists at this year's Durban II Conference. As Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rose to the Geneva stage, the Rwandans asked Small why the Jewish community is not doing more to prevent the obvious consummation of Ahmadinejad's fiery rhetoric. The Rwandans had heard similar propaganda before.

They used this language against your people in the 1940's, they said, and they used it against our people in the 1990's. Why do you not see that Iran's treatment of Israel today is no different?

From bitter experience, the Rwandans recognized genocidal intent in the Iranian leader's invective. They could not understand how a people that had its own state, organizations and resources is not able to understand and combat the growing threat that Iran presents.

The Threats

Broadly speaking, there are three ways Iran's fast-developing nuclear arsenal could be put to use in its confrontation with Israel, the United States, and the West: strategic, political, and geopolitical. Experts often argue that the real danger of an Iranian nuclear weapon has less to do with whether the weapons would be fired, and more to do with how their mere possession would alter the balance of power. This could be true. Yet, if Iran's leadership should use these weapons to annihilate the people of Israel, the surprise will not be that they have done so, but that the world had failed to recognize the unmistakable signs that they would.

Ahmadinejad notoriously declared in 2006 that, "Israel should be wiped off the map." Repeatedly, and in many public venues, the Iranian leader has heaped extraordinary scorn on Israel and its Zionist supporters. Ahmadinejad's aspersions often fall into the two categories that genocide scholars characterize as hallmarks of mass-murderous incitement: dehumanization and demonization.

Denying the personhood of the Israeli people, he lectured in 2006 that Israelis are not human beings: "They are like cattle, nay, more misguided." At the same time, he attributes to Jews a diabolical evil: "Next to them," he stated, "all the criminals of the world seem righteous."

Following a pattern of other world historical figures responsible for genocide, Ahmadinejad predicted in 2008 the consequences for the target people: "Thanks to God, your wish will soon be realized, and this germ of corruption will be wiped off the face of the world."

As if to dispel any ambiguities about his intentions, he paraded a Shahab-3 missile through the streets of Tehran in 2008 with the message, "Israel must be wiped off the map."

The Case for Prosecution

There is a legal significance to Ahmadinejad's murderous charges. Several prominent international human rights lawyers and jurists have urged that Ahmadinejad be prosecuted for incitement to genocide.

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Love of the Land: Iran's Nuclear Anti-Zionism is Genocidal, Not Political