Statement Condemning Israel's Attacks on Iran

The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention and Human Security condemns Israel’s unlawful attacks on Iran targeting nuclear sites and leaders across the country, including in residential buildings in Tehran, which have killed at least 78 people and injured 300 more. Israel clearly aims to derail US President Trump’s ongoing negotiations with Iran towards a nuclear deal. As many analysts have pointed out, Israel’s actions risk a regional war and could advance all humanity further towards a global war.

Israel is a genocidal state that, like other genocidal states in history, is pursuing aggression towards its neighbors with the aim of advancing its regional and global power. Only more darkness will come from Israel’s continued impunity, granted to it by the United States and its allies in the West and elsewhere.

While we recognize the threat posed by the Islamic Republic towards the current state of Israel, we remind the world that aggressive (“preemptive”) war is illegal under UN Charter Articles 1(1) and 2(4). States that are aggressed upon have a right to fight back to defend their borders and destroy the military capability of the aggressor. Israel’s actions therefore put the Israeli people – as well as everyone else in the world – in jeopardy by risking a major war with Iran.

We continue to call for the immediate end to Israel’s genocide in Palestine and the restoration of humanitarian aid dispensed according to international standards. Israel’s military activities have conveniently diverted global attention from the genocide in Gaza. Unsurprisingly, Israel put Gaza in a complete internet blackout prior to the attacks on Iran, preventing the world from monitoring the escalating genocidal violence against Gazans. Israel also used the attacks as a pretense to lockdown the West Bank, where Palestinians have already been injured due to a lack of access to the same security infrastructure Israelis enjoy.

Israel’s attacks on Iran come at the same time as global attention to Israel’s crimes in Palestine has increased, generated in part by the Madleen flotilla, the Global March for Gaza, and the anticipated UN Conference on Palestine (which has now been postponed indefinitely). Genocidal states often use war with their neighbors to distract from domestic and international criticism and pressure.I

We call on the United States to pull Israel back from the brink — something the US failed to do on October 7, 2023, with horrific consequences for Palestinians and also for democratic institutions worldwide, not to mention the cause of genocide prevention, which became an absolute farce under the Biden Administration. Any further US support for Israel will have deleterious consequences for all Americans of all faiths and political persuasions.

We call on US President Trump to continue negotiations with Iran in good faith this weekend, offering Iran robust assurances that – contrary to the President’s recent tweets – the United States will not enter a war that Israel has started.

We call on the US and its allies to cease all military aid to Israel.

We further call on the United Nations to censure Israel to the fullest extent of its capacity, despite the United States’ unearned influence over that body.

We call on all nations of the world to withdraw diplomatic support from Israel, isolating Israel in a way that creates some chance of bringing it back into the fold of civilized humanity.

Had world leaders understood and respected the Genocide Convention over the past twenty months we would not be in the desperate situation for global peace and security that we are now facing.