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Charles Asher Small, director of Yale's Interdisciplinary Initiative for the Study of Anti-Semitism, tells the story of the reception he received from Rwandan activists at this year's Durban II Conference. As Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rose to the Geneva stage, the Rwandans asked Small why the Jewish community is not doing more to prevent the obvious consummation of Ahmadinejad's fiery rhetoric. The Rwandans had heard similar propaganda before.
They used this language against your people in the 1940's, they said, and they used it against our people in the 1990's. Why do you not see that Iran's treatment of Israel today is no different?
From bitter experience, the Rwandans recognized genocidal intent in the Iranian leader's invective. They could not understand how a people that had its own state, organizations and resources is not able to understand and combat the growing threat that Iran presents.
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