“Hitler” Speaks Persian

“But the words are the same word, and the aspirations are the same aspirations, and the determination to find the weapons to achieve those aspirations is the same menacing determination. Unfortunately, just as at that shameful Olympic event, the world has again given him a platform.  “Yesterday, in Geneva, we saw how representatives of the worlds leading democracies stood up and stormed out of the UN Durban II Conference hall in response to the incendiary words of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. No doubt they recalled the devastation caused to their countries when the world disregarded the first Hitler. But we also saw how hundreds of representatives of other countries nodded in agreement and even cheered the words of the Iranian President… span> “However, dear colleagues, we cannot allow ourselves the luxury of diplomacy. Today we cannot allow ourselves the luxury of neutrality. Today we cannot allow ourselves the luxury of diplomatic protocol. Today, every civilized human being must decide whether he belongs to the Sons of Light or to the Sons of Darkness, the camp of the civilized world or the camp of the enemies of humanity. “If there is one lesson to be learned from the destruction and devastation the first Hitler brought to the world, it is to be found in the realization that anyone who remains silent, anyone who ignores evil, anyone who deals with the devil—he, too, in the final analyses, pays the price.  “I therefore call upon you, my colleagues around the world, not to remain silent, not to turn away and above all not to think for one moment that Ahmadinejad is not a threat to you too. I call on you to initiate action in your parliament that will convey a clear message to the whole world that we have learned the lessons of the past, and that 2009 will not be a repetition of 1939.”  

—Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin, excerpts from a letter to worldwide parliamentarians a day after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s vicious anti-Israel speech at the UN Durban II conference in Geneva