mirmilek
21.12.03, 01:58
On 18 December, the low-key headline on the website of Israel's Ha'aretz
newspaper noted: "Herzliya conference sees verbal attacks on Israeli Arabs."
What this concealed was that Israel's top military, political and business
leaders, gathered for an annual get-together in the town of Herzliya under
the auspices of the Israeli Institute for Policy and Strategy, were hearing
implicit calls for genocide from some colleagues.
According to Ha'aretz, Dr. Yitzhak Ravid, a senior researcher at the Israeli
government's Armaments Development Authority, called for Israel
to "implement a stringent policy of family planning in relation to its
Muslim population." In case his meaning wasn't clear, Ravid added: "the
delivery rooms in Soroka Hospital in Be'ersheba have turned into a factory
for the production of a backward population."
Ravid's comments almost certainly violated the 1951 Convention on the
Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, whose definition of
genocide includes "imposing measures intended to prevent births" within a
specific "national, ethnical, racial or religious group." Not only is
committing such acts considered genocide under international law, so too
is "direct and public incitement to commit genocide."
