[In 1964, The Arab League spawned the PLO to incite Palestinian Arabs to war against the nascent state of Israel
In 1993, the Israeli government signed the Oslo Accord with the PLO, with one prerequiste: that the PLO sign on to the DOP, the Declaration of Principles, whereby the PLO would agree to end incitement against the state of Israel.
Yet successive Israeli governments ignored the fact that the PLO never ratified the DOP.
Instread the PLO spawned the nascent Palestinian Authority, infusing the rhetoric of its schools, its media and its public rallies with incitement to war against the state of Israel.
With the genesis of a new government of Israel that comprises the full spectrum of Israeli political ideologies, the time has come for the new government to demand an end to incitement, as an integral aspect of Israeli government policy – DB]

A Passover statement from Professors Elihu D Richter and Israel Charny based on a parallel letter to the new Prime Minister of Israel, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu and its President, Mr Shimon Peres

April 4 2009

Subject: What is the problem and what has to be done?

I. Israel and those concerned with the genocidal threats it now faces must lead the world in defining the problem:

1. Israel’s conflict is not only with the Palestinian Authority (the PA), but with an Islamic world engulfed by endemic toxic hate for Israel and Jews. “Conflict resolution between two relatively small groups” downsizes the asymmetric nature of the existential threats to Israel posed by this region wide endemic hate and its genocidal motifs.

2. Endemic hate language and incitement throughout much of the Muslim world are toxic because they transmit their messages through the generations. The threats generated by such incitement go hand in hand with an equally toxic culture of death which is programming the behavior of so many of the young. The toll has been huge: 12 million reportedly dead from wars and violence throughout the Muslim world since World War II.

3. Iran’s regime is the epicenter of an international axis of support for genocide and incitement of genocide and genocidal terror. Iran and its proxies have used genocidal hate language to transform the “two state solution” into the “two -stage solution”-i.e., the ultimate dismemberment of Israel. Along with Iran, the leading members of the new axis of genocide are its terror proxies, Hezbollah, Hamas, and Sudan, with back up support from North Korea and Venezuela. The PA, which helped bring Khomeini to power, goes along with this axis, and indeed, appears to be egging it on,.

4. Over and over again, territorial concessions (“land for peace”) have led to more, not less terror and death (“territory for terror”). It is state sanctioned incitement which drives this inverse relationship.

5. There can be no expectation for the sustainability of any future political agreement, if it is undermined by region-wide hate language and incitement in schools, texts, mosques and electronic media. If enriched uranium and missiles are the hardware, it is such hate language and incitement which is the software. Since Oslo, niether Israel nor outside intermdiaries have not demanded an end to continued PA and PLO and region wide incitement against reconciliation based on mutual respect for life and live-and-let-live. Both the PA and the PLO still signal continued support for terror (e.g. the honor Abbas bestowed Samir Kuntir).

Therefore, Israel and all the outside players involved in negotiations and aid must now immediately do something they have never done before: (a) define, track, and monitor region-wide hate language and incitement to genocide and genocidal terror,and (b) specify and require tangible progress —i.e. defninable endpoints, milestones,– towards eradication of state sponsored hate language and incitement. We believe that past failures to specify and require region -wide implementation of these demands as preconditions for a Palestinian state have sabotaged foreseeable prospects for reconciliation and live-and-let-live. Future failures to do so will jeopardize Israel.

II. Israel itself and those who are concerned for its wellbeing must restate the Narrative. There is a need to project a coherent posture based on the following principles, policies, messages and requirements:

1. The world now, more than ever before, has a responsibility to protect Israel from region-wide threats of genocide and genocidal terror. Israel, a small first nation which has returned to its ancestral home, has always accepted responsibility for its own protection. It was the first to come into being as a result of a UN resolution, but now is the first to be threatened with nuclear genocide.

2. The first essential pre-requisite for progress towards any political settlement based on Respect for Life and Live-and-Let-Live is the removal of the Iranian nuclear threat and the threats from its arming, support for and training of terror proxies and its state-sponsored hate language and incitement. These threats currently overshadow everything else in the region.

3. Terminating Iran’s region-wide state-sanctioned hate language and incitement of genocide must be central to a strategy with the immediate aim of removing, preventing or preempting the threats from Iranian nuclear genocide and genocidal terror. Prevention of genocide requires that the UN, US and EU immediately use existing tools of international law to prosecute those Iranian leaders and their proxies personally accountable for state-sanctioned incitement of genocide and hate language (“Israel is a cancer, microbe, filthy corpse, etc), as well as for their involvement and support for genocidal terror.

4. Protection and respect for individual life and human dignity requires that the PA abandon terror and incitement to terror, and more fundamentally, its aim of dismembering Israel. It also means that the PA respect the lives and dignity of its own citizens.

5. All the points in the preceding four paragraphs are pre-conditions and prerequisites for Palestinian sovereignty. Not satisfying them is a deal-breaker. Satisfying them is a deal-maker.

These principles, policies and messages, along with what Israel does to protect the rights of its minorities, are central to a world wide campaign for Respect for Life, Human Rights and Dignity and Live-and-Let-Live by an Alliance of Democracies against an Axis of Genocide. This new Alliance must be based on new coalitions for genocide prevention and protection of human rights for all. “Peace” has no meaning without Respect for Life, Live-and-Let-Live and Human Dignity of All.

Professor Elihu D Richter MD MPH*
Head, Unit of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Injury Prevention Center
Founder of Genocide Prevention Program
Hebrew University-Hadassah School of Public Health and Community Medicine
Associate Director, Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide, Jerusalem
Head of World Genocide Situation Room in GENOCIDE PREVENTION NOW (GPN) worldwide Web site

Professor Israel W. Charny, Ph.D
Executive Director, Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide, Jerusalem
Immediate Past President, International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) Editor-in-Chief, Encyclopedia of Genocide [ABC-Clio. Publishers, US and UK]
Director, GENOCIDE PREVENTION NOW (GPN) worldwide Web site

*For inquiries, contact elihur@ekmd.huji.ac.il.