Would-be Hitlers should not be treated like human beings

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is in New York, where he will shortly speak to the UN General Assembly.

This man is a throwback to the barbarism of Hitler or Stalin. He is undoubtedly the greatest danger to peace and stability in the world today. But for Jews, it’s worse. It’s personal. Since Hitler, there has not been a constellation of forces arrayed against the Jewish people that is as powerful and single-minded as the one that is led by Ahmadinejad (of course, today, thanks to the success of Zionism, we have the means to fight back).

An organization called Genocide Prevention Now (GPN) has created a timeline of anti-Zionist and antisemitic statements coming from Iran. Dr. Elihu Richter of GPN describes its purpose [forthcoming on the GPN website] and what it tells us:

Genocide Prevention Now (GPN) uses timelines to track the early warning signs of genocidal threats. These timelines enable us to spot trends in hindsight that are often missed in real time, and to suggest forecasts based on past trends. GPN’s chronologic timeline of Iranian incitement — the first of its kind — shows that since 2000, the statements of Iran’s leaders –- political and religious — have become ever more frequent, and the viciousness of these statements, has increased. Terms such as “cancer”, “filthy corpse”, and “microbes” abound. There are ever more calls for jihadi action and shahidi martyrdom to destroy Israel. Alternatively, these calls are cast in the form of predictions, and are accompanied by statements delegitimizing Israel and Zionism, disinformation, defamation and double standards. Ahmadinejad and his Iranian colleagues are explicit about their goal—the destruction of Israel…

Yet there are ups and downs in the intensity and frequency of statements in the timeline. We cannot rule out the possibility that the Iranian leadership made additional other statements which websites or media did not pick up. Of the statements we found and listed, between 2000 and 2006, websites and journalistic media had reported less than 10 such statements of incitement or hate language per year by the Iranian leadership. In the aftermath of the US invasion of Iraq, there were hardly any such statements.

After Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to power in the fall of 2005, the situation suddenly changed. In 2006, there were 7 inflammatory statements. In 2007, they increased to 19, and then in 2008, in the aftermath of the grotesquely flawed US New Intelligence Estimate in November 2007, which stated that Iran had stopped working towards making a nuclear bomb, there were 46. In 2009, there were 28 such statements. In 2010 (through August), there already have been 26. In these years, Iran has moved ever closer to nuclearization, its military power has increased, and its support for terror in Iraq and Afghanistan, Lebanon and Gaza has increased.

GPN’s timeline will soon be available on its website, but in honor of Ahmadinejad’s visit to the UN, you can download it here by right-clicking the following link and selecting ‘save link as’: Iranian incitement to genocide

There is simply no excuse for treating this creature — who already has the blood of many of his own young people on his hands, not to mention that of the Israelis whose deaths at the hands of Hamas and Hizballah he facilitated — as an honored guest in the United States.

There are plenty of  New Yorkers, Jewish and otherwise, who understand what  Ahmadinejad is. If a tenth of them were to picket his hotel (like this), refuse any form of service to his delegation — or indeed the UN — block his motorcade, turn off his electricity, etc., it would be a practical demonstration that we don’t have to pretend that would-be Hitlers are human beings.

Here’s the appropriate spirit:

New York reaction when Ahmadinejad wanted to visit Ground Zero in 2007

New York reaction when Ahmadinejad wanted to visit Ground Zero in 2007

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One Response to “Would-be Hitlers should not be treated like human beings”

  1. NormanF says:

    Where are all the “beautiful” people?

    Where are the antiwar and social justice activists?

    Where is the Left?

    Silence equals consent.

    If we thought we’d never see the paralysis of the 1930s again, we’re wrong.

    The more things change…