'Never Again!' Again?

By Hal Lindsey

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.