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#Thread on Trump, Pompeo and Pence's irresponsible banalization of the words "Genocide" and "Holocaust" at the State of the Union address (#SOTU) , the #WarsawSummit and #MSC2019.
1) Raphael Lemkin, known as the father of the Genocide Convention, rejected the terms "Barbarity", "Mass murder", "Denationalization", "Germanization", "Magyarization" and many others to depict Hitler's attempt to annihilate the Jewish population.
2) He wanted a word that would - according to @AmbPower44 in her book "A Problem from Hell" - "connote a practice so horrid and so irreparable that the very utterance of the word would galvanize all who heard it". To Lemkin words mattered. So he came up with the word "Genocide".
3) A linguist by training, he chose this particular word with great attentiveness and diligence, knowing full well that any misuse of the term could only trivialize and dilute the heinous crime he tried to discern and prevent.
4) Yet, this is the very same word @realDonaldTrump, @SecPompeo and @VP Mike Pence are loosely throwing around these days - along with the word "Holocaust" - to stir public emotions against #Iran.
5) All three U.S officials have in the past few days - during the #SOTU, #WarsawConference and #MunichSecurityConference (#MSC2019) - used these precise terms to falsely liken #Iran's stance on #Israel to Nazis' Genocide of the Jewish population.
5) Trump, Pompeo and Pence all probably know that Iran hosts the second Jewish population in the Middle East outside #Israel, that Iranian Jews are represented in Iran's Parliament, that Iran - unlike other U.S allies in the region - is home to countless synagogues, and...
6)..that Iran and Israel's geopolitical rivalry involves absolutely no racial, religious or ethnic element; Yet they are trying hard to portray it that way!
7) It is not just up to @JZarif to deny these irresponsible allegations against Iran. It is also the responsibility of Holocaust survivors, Jewish organizations, Human Rights organizations and intellectuals to prevent the Trump administration from banalizing genocide...
8)...and using these terms to as political jabs or to stir superficial emotions.
@PeterBeinart @mehdirhasan
@PeterBeinart @mehdirhasan
