Three years after
the Allies had uncovered the full horror of the Holocaust, the
United Nations convened a committee to draft a treaty aimed at
preventing its reoccurrence anywhere in the world.
On
Dec. 8, 1948, the U.N. General Assembly adopted the United Nations'
"Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of
Genocide."
Exactly
one year later, on Dec. 8, 1949, Iran became a signatory to the
Genocide Treaty and formally ratified the treaty Aug. 14, 1956.
Last
year, the U.S. House of Representatives passed by a 411-2 margin the
Rothman-Kirk Resolution calling on the U.N. to indict Iran for
violating the Genocide Treaty.
Article
3(c) of the Genocide Treaty makes "Direct and public incitement
to commit genocide" a punishable act under the Convention. And
Article 4 says, "Persons committing genocide or any of the
other acts enumerated in Article 3 shall be punished, whether they
are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private
individuals."
Sadly, it appears that the only
nation not protected under the 1948 Genocide Treaty is the nation
whose tragedy prompted the Conventions in the first place. The
one people against whom anyone can utter genocidal threats with
impunity remains, as always, the Jewish people.
Hamas regularly incites genocide
against Israel. The annihilation of Israel is not only part
of its charter; it is the ONLY reason for the group's
existence. Hamas not only "directly and publicly"
incites genocide against Israel as a matter of routine; it actively
participates in its pursuit.
Hezbollah exists specifically for
the purpose of Israel's destruction. Hezbollah doesn't even try
to hide behind the "Zionist entity" camouflage that is
aimed at disguising the destruction of the Jewish people with the
destruction of the political state of Israel.
Hezbollah's war is against the
Jews, whether they be in Jerusalem or Buenos Aires.
Like Hamas, Hezbollah doesn't simply
incite genocide, but actively participates in it. A Jew who falls
into the hands of Hamas or Hezbollah is as good as dead, for no
other reason than because he is a Jew.
Claiming their war is really against
the "Zionist state of Israel" is a smokescreen. Hamas and
Hezbollah don't kidnap and murder Israeli Arabs, even though they
are also Israeli citizens. They kidnap and murder Jews –
if they also happen to be Israeli, so much the better.
Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
regularly incites genocide against Israel. He's called for it to
be wiped from the map and promised that one day, Israel would
"disappear" in a bright flash.
This week, in a speech broadcast on
Iran's state TV, he thundered, "World powers have created a
black and dirty microbe named the Zionist regime and have unleashed
it like a savage animal on the nations of the region."
Addressing the death of the bloody
terror chief Imad Mugniyeh, Ahmadinejad said, "They [the Jews]
assassinate pure and pious people and then they celebrate it."
Ahmadinejad, Hezbollah's Hassan
Nasrallah and Hamas' Ismail Haniyeh are not merely rhetorical
spokesman.
The Hezbollah and Hamas rockets that
rain down on Israel are aimed at civilians, not military targets.
The rocketeers are supplied and trained by Iran's Revolutionary
Guard Corps. None of this is being carried out in secret – Tehran
doesn't even make a pretense of deniability.
In the 1920s, Adolf Hitler published
his manifesto, "Mein Kampf," in which he outlined in
precise detail his plan to initiate World War II, conquer adjoining
nations for "lebensraum" (living space) and to eliminate
the "mongrel races" – in particular, the Jews.
In the decades since World War
II, historians have puzzled over how the world at that time could
have failed to see the signs and to act. After all, the
perpetrator telegraphed his intentions a decade in advance – and
in writing.
In the end, they concluded that
Hitler's evil was so unique, so depraved, so utterly over-the-top,
that the world couldn't believe it was real. Despite all the
blatant, clear warnings, they refused to believe their eyes until it
was too late.
If the Lord were to delay His
return, historians decades from now would wonder how this
generation's leaders saw the same signs, and even with the added
benefit of the historical lesson of Hitler's holocaust, they still
"refused to believe the signs they saw were real."
They'll just once again shake their heads, sigh and remind themselves of George Bernard Shaw's oft repeated observation: "The one thing man learns from studying history is that man learns nothing from history." And once again they will vow, "Never again!" … again.