Iran Has Taken 6 of 8 Steps on Path to Genocide -Mitch Ginsburg
- Genocide is predictable and preventable, as long as you recognize the universal signs. And Iran, in its language and action, has taken six of the eight steps on the path to genocide, according to Dr. Gregory Stanton, founder and director of Genocide Watch.
- Talk of genocide, Stanton said - of removing a cancer or crushing a cockroach - is never just talk. "One of the best predictors of genocide is incitement to genocide," he said, "and I believe that is exactly what Iran is doing today."
- Encouraging genocide is a crime. The UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, signed in 1948, states that incitement "with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group" is illegal. Canada severed its ties with Iran on precisely those grounds.
- Recognizing the early signs, spotlighting them and prosecuting those encouraging the killings are some of the ways to prevent a genocide. Ignoring them, dismissing them as diabolical rhetoric or as a tactic meant to advance a different goal, is to enable the perpetrators, Stanton said.
- Over the years Stanton realized that all genocides follow eight stages. They are, in this order: classification, symbolization, dehumanization, organization, polarization, preparation, extermination and denial. Iran, he said, had:
- Classified and symbolized Israel through exclusionary ideology and hate speech;
- Dehumanized it - "overcoming the normal human revulsion against murder" - by portraying the potential victims as a "cancer" in need of eradication;
- Organized fanatical militias (the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps);
- Polarized the society by repressing dissent and arresting moderates;
- Prepared for the killing by denying a past genocide and by constructing weapons of mass destruction;
- And, through global terrorism, have even begun extermination.
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