24 September 2008

by Ronald S. Lauder

For the second year in a row New Yorkers have had to endure the spectacle of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s fanatic president, visiting the United Nations headquarters for the General Assembly opening session. It was good that this year like last, he was again greeted by a protest rally organized by the American Jewish organizations, attended by tens of thousands.

Ahmadinejad’s address at the U.N. on Tuesday was shocking: a half-hour long anti-Semitic tirade, including statements that seemed to come directly from the notorious ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’. Ahmadinejad shouted insults against the U.S., Israel and other democratic countries. Once again he showed the world his true face. He is an anti-Semite who does not care in the least about the well-being of his own people, about peace in the world, or about the rules of civilized society.

This despicable man has now been invited by the Mennonites, the Quakers, the World Council of Churches and two other groups as their guest of honor for a dinner in New York this Thursday. The event is billed as “dialogue between religious and political leaders,” to discuss “building peaceful societies”.

Yet these organizations are promoting an anti-Semite and egregious violator of human rights! They seem to have forgotten that it is Ahmadinejad who held the first-ever state-sponsored international conference of Holocaust deniers. It is Ahmadinejad who repeatedly calls for Israel’s annihilation, who violates the U.N. Charter. How can such a man be a suitable partner for dialogue?

These Christian groups, who claim to hold up values such as peace and mutual understanding, make a mockery of themselves by shamelessly providing a cruel dictator and racist with a platform for his invective. There is no purpose in dignifying him. The World Council of Churches, the Quakers and the other sponsors of the event in New York have a long and distressing record of demonizing Israel.  And now, they have chosen a racist dictator as their partner for dialogue.

The participation at the dinner of the General Assembly’s current president,  Miguel D’Escoto of Nicaragua, is even more worrying.  Instead of showing a united face against Ahmadinejad, D’Escoto honors a man who does great dishonor to the U.N. That puts the credibility of the entire U.N. action in doubt.

I am grateful to Argentina’s President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner that in her speech to the General Assembly on Tuesday she expressly called on Iran to respect  its international obligations, in particular with regard to the 1994 terrorist attack against the AMIA Jewish center in Buenos Aires, in which 85 people were killed. Various Iranian regimes have been involved in state-sponsored terrorism. As long as this situation continues, Ahmadinejad should not be welcomed by anybody, neither in New York nor elsewhere. He should not feel welcome anywhere in the free world. We at the World Jewish Congress will continue our diplomatic work to make sure that the threat posed by Iran and its quest for nuclear weapons is taken seriously everywhere.

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