If the Words Don't Fit.....

"The US House of Representatives voted 411-2 on June 20, 2007, to call on the UN Security Council to charge Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with violating the 1948 UN Genocide Convention because of his calls for the destruction of the State of Israel."
AIPAC's Near East Report for July 14-20, 2007

The President of Iran has called for the elimination of the State of Israel several times, using somewhat different phrases. Since all his speeches are in Farsi, we (as well as members of Congress) must rely on translations to determine if he really broke the Genocide Convention. Since the Farsi speeches often included idiomatic or otherwise ambiguous expressions, genuine disagreements have sprung up between translators over the real meaning. For example, a famous call for "wiping Israel off the map" has also been translated as "the Zionist regime....will vanish from the pages of time." (He was quoting Ayatollah Ruollah Khomeini, a bitter enemy of Israel) Since I don't know Farsi, I don't know who is right on this.

A thorough Internet search of Ahmadinejad's public statements turned up plenty of calls for elimination of the State of Israel, but none at all for the elimination of the people of Israel; but only destroying the latter would constitute genocide. Over 25,000 Jews live in Iran, and there is no evidence that Ahmadinejad has done anything to threaten them. Only a handful have emigrated since he took office in 2005, despite big incentives to move to Israel.

Calls by national leaders for the elimination of another government are not especially rare, and have not historically been labeled attempted genocide. For example, in 1961 Soviet Premier Nikita Khruschev predicted that "We will bury you (the West)." He later said that he meant this economically, not militarily. Still scary.

In August, 1984, President Ronald Reagan quipped into a microphone he thought was off " My fellow Americans,...I have signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in 5 minutes." Reagan characterized this comment as a joke, though I doubt that Russians who heard about it found it the least bit funny, especially since Reagan was then placing nuclear weapons on the periphery of the Soviet Union.

So far President Bush, whose emissaries are meeting with those of Iran to discuss stabilization of Iraq, has not (yet) instructed the US Ambassador to the UN to offer a resolution charging Ahmadinejad as Congress proposed. In the unlikely event that the Security Council approves the charge, it is even more improbable that the Guardian Council of Iran would allow Ahmadinejad to be extradited to The Hague for trial, even after his term as President expires in 2009. In September of 2001, a council of Muslim legal experts advised the Taliban government of Afghanistan that it would be forbidden by Sharia (Islamic law) to hand over a Muslim (Osama bin Laden) to an infidel court; I would expect the ayatollahs of Iran to follow the same ruling with respect to Ahmadinejad.

But even if he could be put on trial before the International Tribunal at The Hague, convicting him might be harder than pinning a double-murder rap on O J Simpson in South LA. That is because in a criminal case the benefit of the doubt regarding ambiguous statements and translations must be given to the defendant, and Ahmadinejad's orations could plausibly be interpreted as calls for "regime change" in Israel, rather than genocide.

For example, if sometime in the future Arabs outnumber Jews in Israel, the Knesset may change the name of the country to Palestine, establish Islam as the state religion, and relegate Jews to the status of "dhimmi" (inferior persons), as they are in Iran. Such a course of events, as obnoxious as it would be to us, would in effect remove Israel from the the map without any violence, let alone genocide.

A genocide trial ending in acquittal, which is fairly likely, would be a tremendous victory for anti-Israel and anti-Semitic forces worldwide. Ahmadinejad, now increasingly unpopular in Iran and unlikely to win re-election, would be a global hero. He would be the toast of the college lecture circuit and talk shows.

And who are the lonely two members of the House of Representatives who would spare Ahmadinejad and the world this genocide trial? They are Dennis Kucinich (D, Ohio) and Ron Paul (R, Texas), both of whom are seeking their party's 2008 presidential nomination. Kucinich, a left-wing liberal, and Paul, a libertarian conservative, don't agree on much, but they do agree that US policy is tilted too much in support of Israel.

Ron Paul, who previously ran for President as a Libertarian, consistently opposes all foreign aid, and so has voted against aid to Israel. His district doesn't seem to mind, and he polled a respectable 9% in the Iowa straw vote on August 11. Despite his war chest of over $2 million, pundits give him no chance of winning the Republican nomination.

Dennis Kucinich, a former mayor Cleveland (who led his city into bankruptcy), is described by the Cleveland Plain Dealer (July 12, 2007) as more popular with the Arabs in his district than with the Jews. He is contesting last place among Democrats with ex-Senator Mike Gravel of Alaska. Although his visceral opposition to the War in Iraq has become a mainstream view among his fellow Democrats, his vindictive and self-righteous attitude dooms his presidential prospects in this lifetime.

Kucinich and Paul lost the House vote big-time, and are sure to lose their presidential campaigns as well. But they will probably prevail in their efforts to derail a genocide trial for Ahmadinejad, because his words simply don't fit the definition of genocide. And if the words don't fit, you must acquit.