24 May, 2006
A group of former Israeli diplomats and Holocaust survivors want to bring Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad before the International Court of Justice in The Hague on charges of inciting genocide. Ahmadinejad has publicly called for Israel's destruction. In an interview on Iranian television, he declared Israel's existence was "the main obstacle faced by the Islamic nation," and in April, he called Israel "a rotten and dried-up tree that will be destroyed by one storm." The leader of Iran, which is a United Nations member, has repeatedly said that Israel (also a UN member state), should be annihilated, Dr. Meir Rosenne, who was the Israeli ambassador to the United States in the 1980s, told "CNS News". Rosenne is among the diplomats who will attempt to have Ahmadinejad tried in the international court. "The statements by Ahmadinejad are clearly a crime," Rosenne said. The 1948 UN Convention on the prevention and punishment of genocide forbade to incite people to eliminate another people. Iran signed the convention in 1949 and ratified it in 1956.
Read about the WJC's compaign for international condemnation of President Ahmadinejad
