Adama Dieng, UN Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Prevention of Genocide, on Tuesday emphatically stated that Iran’s genocidal threats to “wipe Israel off the earth” are “totally unacceptable.” Dieng was at the UN’s headquarters in New York to commemorate the Anniversary of the Genocide Convention that was first adopted on December 9, 1948.

Carmen Maria Rodriguez of Radio Marti asked the question that sparked Dieng’s direct censure of Iran’s recent waves of calls for Israel’s annihilation. Dieng went on to elaborate that not only are Iran’s genocidal threats to wipe Israel off the map “totally unacceptable,” but also that “Israel is a state, and has the right to exist as a state, and its security has also to be protected.”

Dieng proceeded to explain that Raphael Lemkin was a Polish Jewish lawyer who first coined the term “genocide” and fought against genocide. Lemkin singlehandedly lobbied the 51 nations that made up the United Nations at the time for a UN Convention against Genocide. It was his work that brought forth the document, which is the basis for the international criminal tribunals that have and are prosecuting the crimes committed in Rwanda and in the former Yugoslavia, as well as for the International Criminal Court in The Hague.