With hundreds of world leaders, including Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, slated to come to New York next week for the annual opening of the United Nations General Assembly, Jewish groups will be campaigning both privately and publicly against the Iranian regime.
The centerpiece of the public effort will be a mass rally Monday, Sept. 22, at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, across from the United Nations.
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice presidential nominee, will be among the featured speakers, according to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, which is organizing the demonstration.
Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) had been slated to speak. But according to the Associated Press, when her aides were informed that Palin also would be speaking, they said Clinton would not participate.
Meanwhile, behind closed doors, leaders of a handful of Jewish groups will take advantage of the opportunity to meet with presidents, prime ministers and top diplomats to press issues of concern to Jews.
“We have 60 to 70 private individual meetings scheduled,” said David Harris, the executive director of the American Jewish Committee. “At each meeting, the Iran question is at the top of the agenda.”
The efforts come as chances dim for a fourth round of U.N. sanctions against Iran, given that Russia and China, both veto-wielding members of the Security Council, oppose new sanctions.
Jewish groups will be lobbying world leaders to enforce existing U.N. sanctions and take further steps against Iran. They will urge countries to cut trade with the Islamic Republic, pass new laws against doing business with Iran and strengthen the coalition of nations actively trying to keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
The effort already is under way in Washington, where Jewish groups are
lobbying Congress to close legal loopholes that allow U.S. businesses to conduct some trade with Iran.
On the genocide issue, the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs will host a half-day conference in Washington on Tuesday, Sept. 23, highlighting Tehran’s abysmal human rights record and the forecasts of Israel’s destruction by Ahmadinejad, who is scheduled to address the General Assembly that day.
Though attendance at the Washington event will be limited to approximately 120 participants, organizers are hoping the invitation-only crowd of members of Congress and their staffers, the media and Washington’s foreign diplomatic corps will help sway those in power to join the coalition of nations opposing the Iranian leader’s genocidal incitement.
“The idea is that Ahmadinejad is in violation of the most important human rights convention, the genocide convention, and as a result should be treated accordingly,” said Dore Gold, the president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
That same argument will be made much more publicly a day earlier when thousands of people are expected to converge on midtown Manhattan for a rally to protest Iran’s policies. In addition to Palin, featured speakers are expected to include Iranian dissidents, black ministers and Jewish leaders.
Organizers will be busing in demonstrators from other cities, and synagogues, schools and community groups all have been broadcasting the message to constituents to come out for the rally. The Jewish Community Relations Council of New York is organizing the event in conjunction with the Presidents Conference.
Jewish groups held a similar demonstration last year during Ahmadinejad’s visit to New York for the 2007 General Assembly. During the visit he also spoke at a forum at Columbia University.
Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice chairman of the Presidents Conference, said the point of the rally is to send a message to world leaders and to Ahmadinejad himself.
“We’re not going to be silent when someone threatens to destroy the United States and Israel, when his country engages in the persecution of women, minorities, human rights and children,” Hoenlein said.
When Ahmadinejad delivers his speech at the General Assembly the following day, Israel’s representatives likely will exit the plenum but leave a note taker behind, as they did last year.
Israeli President Shimon Peres will address the General Assembly on Wednesday, Sept. 24. Israeli officials declined to discuss the details of his speech.