[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 4 (Tuesday, January 9, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E50-E51]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     INTRODUCTION OF RESOLUTION CHARGING IRANIAN PRESIDENT MAHMOUD 
AHMADINEJAD WITH VIOLATION OF THE 1948 CONVENTION ON THE PREVENTION AND 
                  PUNISHMENT OF THE CRIME OF GENOCIDE

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. MARK STEVEN KIRK

                              of illinois

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, January 9, 2007

  Mr. KIRK. Madam Speaker, today, along with my colleague Steven 
Rothman (D-NJ), I introduce a resolution charging Iranian President 
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with violating the 1948 Convention on the 
Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. This resolution 
urges the United Nations Security Council to use its power under 
international law to hold the Iranian leader accountable for his 
genocidal statements targeting the Israeli people.
  The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of 
Genocide was designed by the international community to outlaw 
genocide; to never again allow a massive crime similar to the Holocaust 
by Nazi Germany during World War II.
  But now we are faced with an Iranian leader whose public statements 
call for a second Jewish Holocaust.
  The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of 
Genocide prohibits not only acts of genocide, but also prohibits 
``direct and public incitement to commit genocide.''
  This resolution urges the United Nations Security Council to examine 
the evidence of Ahmadinejad's incitement. In order to present the 
evidence in a clear and concise manner, I recently asked the 
Congressional Research Service to compile a list entitled ``Ahmadinejad 
in His Own Words,'' and I present it to the House today.
  On October 26, 2005, in advance of Iran's Jerusalem Day, established 
by Ayatollah Khomeini, Ahmadinejad spoke at a conference of the Society 
for the Defense of the Palestinian Nation, and members of the Islamic 
Students Union, and an audience of hundreds of students.
  In his speech, he described his vision of an age-old confrontation 
between the world of Islam and the ``World of Arrogance,'' that is the 
West; portraying Israel and Zionism as the spearhead of the West 
against the Islamic nation. He emphasized in that speech the need to 
eliminate Israel which, he said, was an attainable goal.
  He delivered this speech before several representatives of Hizbullah 
and its leader Hassan Nasrallah and Hamas leader Khaled Mash'al.
  Speaking to a student conference then, entitled ``World without 
Zionism,'' Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stated:
  ``Very soon this stain of disgrace (i.e. Israel) will vanish from the 
center of the Islamic world--and this is attainable. . .
  The people who sit in closed rooms cannot decide on this matter. The 
Islamic people cannot allow this historic enemy to exist in the heart 
of the Islamic world. . .
  I hope that the Palestinians will maintain their wariness and 
intelligence, much as they have pursued their battles in the past ten 
years. This will be a short period, and if we pass though it 
successfully, the process of the elimination of the Zionist regime will 
be smooth and simple. . .
  Our dear Imam [Khomeini] ordered that the occupying regime in 
Jerusalem be wiped off the face of the earth. This was a very wise 
statement.''
  On April 15, 2006, at the opening of a conference on supporting the 
Palestinians, he said:
  ``Like it or not, the Zionist regime is heading toward 
annihilation.''
  On April 27, 2006, he stated in a speech in the western Iranian town 
of Zanjan, carried on live national television.
  ``This regime (Israel) will one day vanish.''
  On May 11, 2006, Ahmadinejad made a reference to Israel in a speech 
to students and instructors at University of Jakarta, he said:
  ``I advise them to pack up and move out of the region before being 
caught in the fire they have started in Lebanon.''
  On July 8, 2006, speaking to regional officials at the opening of a 
two-day conference in Tehran on security in Iraq, he said: ``The basic 
problem in the Islamic world is the existence of the Zionist regime, 
and the Islamic world and the region must mobilize to remove this 
problem.''
  On July 29, 2006, during an emergency meeting with Muslim leaders, he 
said:
  ``The real cure for the (Lebanon) conflict is elimination of the 
Zionist regime, but there should be first an immediate ceasefire.''
  On August 3, 2006, in a speech before the Organization of the Islamic 
Conference, to presidents, prime ministers and policy-makers of 17 
Muslim-majority nations in Malaysia, a major international conference, 
he said.
  ``The Zionist regime is fraudulent and illegitimate and cannot 
survive.''
  On October 19, 2006, speaking to crowds of people in Islamshahr, 
southwest of Tehran, he said:
  ``This regime will be gone, definitely. You should know that any 
government that stands by the Zionist regime from now on will not see 
any result but the hatred of the people.''
  On December 12, 2005, in a speech to thousands in the southeastern 
city of Zahedan in the southeastern Sistan va Baluchistan Province and 
this was carried on Iranian television, Ahmadinejad said:
  ``Today, they (Europeans) have created a myth in the name of 
Holocaust and consider

[[Page E51]]

it to be above God, religion and the prophets . . . If you committed 
this big crime, then why should the oppressed Palestinian nation pay 
the price? . . . This is our proposal: If you committed the crime, then 
give a part of your own land in Europe, the United States, Canada or 
Alaska to them so that the Jews can establish their country.''
  On April 24, 2006 at a press conference in Tehran, he said:
  ``Every German-born is indebted to the arrogant and greedy Zionists. 
. . . Sixty years after the war, why do the Palestinian people have to 
burn in the crimes of Zionists under the pretext of the Second World 
War?''
  And on December 8, 2005, speaking at a press conference on the 
sidelines of an Organization of the Islamic Conference anti-terrorism 
summit in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, he said:
  ``Today, they have created a myth in the name of Holocaust and 
consider it to be above God, religion and the prophets . . . If you 
(Europeans) committed this big crime, then why should the oppressed 
Palestinian nation pay the price? You have to pay the compensation 
yourself. This is our proposal: give a part of your own land in Europe, 
the United States, Canada or Alaska to them so that the Jews can 
establish their country.''
  This is President Ahmadinejad in his own words that I place before 
the House--all accurately translated and provided in one place to 
present clearly a rising danger to our allies in Israel and to the West 
in general.
  I was looking briefly at a recently translated quote by another 
leader. He said:
  ``Why does the world shed crocodile's tears over the richly merited 
fate of a small Jewish minority? But what happened to the conscience of 
the world when millions in Germany were suffering from hunger and 
misery? I ask Roosevelt, I ask the American people: Are you prepared to 
receive in your midst these well-poisoners of the German people and the 
universal spirit of Christianity?''
  It may sound like a recent speech from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It was 
actually the works of Adolf Hitler from the magazine Staatszeitung. 
Looking at these words we have an eerie echo of the past, and 
potentially a warning of the future. I lay them before the House today 
so that we see them all clearly, for who this leader is, what he has 
stated publicly, and where he would like to take his nation.
  Madam Speaker, we founded the United Nations out of the ashes of the 
Holocaust. How can we sit idly by today as a UN Member State openly 
speaks of bringing another one?
  The United Nations Security Council should charge President 
Ahmadinejad with violating the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and 
Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and increase international 
condemnation of this dangerous leader. I want to thank Congressman 
Rothman for leading with me on this issue and I urge my colleagues to 
support this legislation.

                          ____________________