new york | Barely a year ago, Jewish groups were urging the White House to tone down rhetoric linking its Iran policy with pledges to protect Israel — they feared Jews would be blamed for any military action the United States might take.
Any such qualms seem to have evaporated, however, as Jewish groups and prominent Jewish figures publicly took center stage this week in urging a tough line on Iran.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was met with two major protests Monday, Sept. 24 in New York, the day before he was to deliver his annual address before the U.N. General Assembly.
Across the street from the United Nations, thousands gathered at a rally organized by leading American Jewish organizations and attended by Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and prominent members of New York’s congressional delegation.
Uptown at Columbia University, another large crowd assembled during Ahmadinejad’s afternoon lecture there.
“Make no mistake: Iran is not only a threat to Israel and not only a threat to its neighbors, but a threat to the entire world,” Livni told the crowd opposite the United Nations. “And today we ask, where is the world?”
Ahmadinejad was compared repeatedly to Hitler, and the world’s reaction to him likened to the silence in the face of the Nazi rush to power before World War II.
As Ahmadinejad landed in New York, members of the U.N. Security Council continued to haggle over a third round of sanctions against the Islamic republic, with China and Russia resisting U.S. calls for more intense economic pressure.
His visit has vastly overshadowed the opening of the General Assembly. As dignitaries roamed the halls of U.N. headquarters Sept. 24, crowds clustered around TV sets to watch Ahmadinejad’s Columbia lecture televised live on CNN.
Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs had invited Ahmadinejad as part of the school’s World Leaders Forum. The school received widespread criticism for proffering the invitation. His appearance drew a crowd of 600 in an auditorium at the New York City school, plus several thousand who watched on a screen in the center of campus.
Ahmadinejad reiterated his claim that the Palestinian people are unfairly paying the price for the Holocaust, and later insinuated that Israel is the reason for all strife in the Middle East. In response to questions about his stance on the Holocaust, he said that studying the issue is like any other scientific pursuit and that it should continue, regardless of how well the Nazi killings have been documented.
Asked if he believes in the destruction of Israel, Ahmadinejad sidestepped the question, saying he wants a free election in Palestine in which Muslims, Jews and Christians can vote on the nature of their state. But, he said, Iran is open to negotiations with all governments of the world, except for “the apartheid regime in South Africa,” which no longer exists, and “the Zionist regime.”
Speakers at the U.N. rally had harsh words for Columbia and the Iranian leader.
“We should not give him a platform in the United States that will strengthen him at home,” said Richard Holbrooke, a former American ambassador to the United Nations.
U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said that like Ahmadinejad, Hitler told the world exactly what he planned to do — and the world stood idly by. “We know what happened,” Nadler said. “The so-called civilized world let it happen. When we say ‘Never Again,’ we should mean it.”
Speakers stressed the need to take strong action to block Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.
“All options are on the table,” said U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.). He said sanctions and divestment were not enough, and he urged congressional action to confront the threat of a nuclear Iran.
Speakers and protesters were unabashed in invoking the need to defend Israel. But concerns over an anti-Jewish blowback lingered, as evidenced by efforts to portray the rally in anything but Jewish terms.
“The message is the revulsion of the American people to everything the Iranian president stands for,” said David Harris, executive director of the American Jewish Committee. Harris, who led a 35-member delegation to the rally, carried a sign reading “No Iranian Nukes.”
Still, the U.N. rally was very much a Jewish affair. It was organized by an ad hoc coalition that included the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, United Jewish Communities, UJA-Federation of New York and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. Prior to the speeches, a band warmed up the crowd with Chassidic melodies.
JTA reporter Jacob Berkman in New York