According to the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the world is ailing and the illness is called Israel. Yesterday he accused the Jewish State of being a «black and dirty microbe», one which, we can assume, he believes should be fought and eradicated.

 

This is not the first time he has threatened Israel. A little more than a year ago he stated that «the elimination of Israel is the solution to the Middle East’s problems»; when the Lebanese War broke out he stated that peace would only arise out of «the elimination of the Zionist régime»; and a year earlier he had warned that his goal was to «wipe Israel off the map».

 

Ahmadinejad’s words are extremely serious. However, in view of the weak international response to his declarations, the Iranian leader has simply stepped up his deadly rhetoric against Israel. What he has said so far is already quite disturbing, but it is even more worrisome to consider what he may say in the future. Especially with the knowledge that whatever he declares will most likely be met with little more than a few stuttering diplomatic protests.

 

And, yet, Ahmadinejad’s verbal threats deserve something more than a mere moral condemnation. What the Iranian President is doing is perfectly punishable in accordance with international law. Something actually exists known as the Convention on the Prohibition and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, a document signed in 1951 and ratified by 158 countries, including Spain, which defines the act of inciting genocide as a crime. This is precisely what Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is doing with his hateful incitements against Israel.

 

In the 1930’s little attention was paid to what Hitler was saying; in the 1990’s nobody paid any attention to Bin Laden and what he was promising. Nothing can lead us to believe that Ahmadinejad, an authentic fanatic of the apocalypse, does not believe in what he is saying or intend to carry out his threats. He is a man of his word.

 

For this reason, it is essential to react to what he is saying. Israel is attacked because it forms part of the West, and if Israel should fall, we would be the next to fall. We do not need to bomb Iran in order to make its leaders cower. Let us apply the Convention and bring them to justice. Moratinos should demand that the international law he claims to respect so much is actually applied.