Incitement to Genocide Is a Crime Against Humanity As Defined in the UN Convention on The

Will Relaxation of Sanctions on Iran Intensify its Incitement to Genocide? An Evidence - Based Analysis

Authors: Elihu D. Richter MD/MPH, Tamar Pileggi, Talya Markus

The Jerusalem Center for Genocide Prevention, Jerusalem, Israel

September 18, 2015

Incitement to genocide is defined as a crime against humanityas defined in the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Furthermore, tThe UN Charter prohibits a nation threatening the existence of another.

Dehumanization, Demonization, Delegitimization, Disinformationand Denial of Genocide (the 5 D's) areall examples of incitement to genocide, as are threats andglorification of perpetratorsof genocide and genocidal terror.

Perpetrators use the motifs of of the five D's to instruct,recruit, order and direct followers. The motifs also desensitizeand intimidate bystanders. The TV screen in the living room, the teacher in the schools, and the preacher in the places of worships deliver the motifs to millions in real time — and reach lone wolves. The internet and 3 G cellphonesreach so-called “lone-wolves,” which is an oxymoro misleading term in itself. Cradle to grave repetition results inhabituation, patterning and addiction to the motifs of hate and intergenerational transmission. In Rwanda, the term “heating the heads” is used to describe the effects of incitement targeted at the entire population.

TheJerusalem Center for Genocide Prevention has prepared timelines on Supreme Leader Khamenei's statements during the years 2000-2010 and 2012-2015, in which we havegraphed the frequency of his genocide-inciting statements in relation to the frequency of outside political interventions against Iran. In fact, Iranian incitement against Jews goes back to the 1980's.

Iranian state incitement against Israel has been explicit in its calls for destruction of the Jewish state. Pre-war Nazi propaganda used euphemisms and never explicitly called for the destruction of the Jews. Official Iranian threats and incitement have lasted for more than 30 years, as compared withNazi governmental incitement, which lasted 12 years.

When we look at the timelines we seetwo striking trends:

The frequency of state incitementstatements decreases whenever pressure on Iran increases, and that the incitement increases whenever pressure on Iran is relaxed.

In 2003-4, after the US invaded Iraq, Iranian incitement from the entire leadership decreased, but increased after Ahmadinejad’s election in 2005.

In 2007, after the US Defense Intelligence Agency put out a National Intelligence Estimate,saying that Iran had stopped enriching uranium, reported Iranian incitement from the entire leadership increased. (See Richter and Barnea Tehran’ ‘s Genocidal Incitement- this statement was discovered to be erroneous and misleading.

In 2010, as international sanctions increased, reported Iranian incitement decreased.

Since the start of open negotiations and even more so with the P5+1 agreement, Khamenei’s statements have become ever more frequent and shrill with the signing of the agreement.

Other data indicates thatthe above ups and downs fluctuations in time trends inincitement (????) incitement roughly parallel trendsfluctuations in executions and political repression as well as . inexport of terror and nuclear enrichment. Similarassociations were already apparent during the presidencyof Ahmadinejad.(SeeMore Mein Kampfby Yael Stein, Tamar Pileggi and Alex Barnea Burnley- ).

In short, if the experience tells us anything, it is that relaxationof sanctions will bringmore incitement, more export of terror, and more repression and executions, as the Iranian regime discovers feelsthat it can act with ever greater impunity.

It follows that the burden of proof is on those who believe that sanction relief will moderate the Ayatollahs. On the contrary, all the evidence suggest that relief of sanctions will enable, empower, and embolden an evil regime and its proxies.those in Iran who incite genocide,and thatRelief reliefof sanctions will mean more enrichment, more export of terror, more repression,and more advances inwork on developing missile delivery systems.

Inshort, appeasement is appeasement is appeasement, as are its consequences – today as in Chamberlain's time.

Our mission as genocide scholars is to bring the datato the attention of policymakers so as to persuade them to apply the lessons learned from these timelines.