World IRAN INTRIGUE Loud Response Publicly and privately, Jewish groups plan to press Iran issue at U.N. Uriel Heilman Jewish Telegraphic Agency New York W ith hundreds of world leaders, including Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, coming to New York this week for the annual opening of the U.N. General Assembly, Jewish groups are campaigning against the Iranian regime. The centerpiece of the public effort was a mass protest rally Monday at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, across from the United Nations. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice- presidential nominee, was slated to be among the featured speakers, according to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, which organized the demonstration. But the invitation was withdrawn last week as being too political. U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D- N.Y., had committed several weeks ago to speaking, but canceled her planned appearance upon learning that Palin would be attending. Meanwhile, behind closed doors, lead- ers 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. "It's an annual diplomatic marathon with leaders who descend on New York each year for the opening of the G.A.," said David Harris, the executive director of the American Jewish Committee. "We have 60 to 70 private individual meetings sched- uled. 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. sanc- tions and take further steps against Iran wherever possible. 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 A32 September 25 • 2008 MI weapons. The effort already is under way in Washington, where Jewish groups are lobbying Congress to close legal loop- holes that allow U.S. businesses to con- duct some trade with Iran. Concomitant with the behind-the- scenes diplomacy, which is also con- ducted throughout the year, in part with visits by Jewish organizational leaders to capitals around the world, Jewish groups are going public, too. They are trying to publicly shame oil companies that do business with Iran in a bid to cripple the oil trade that helps sustain the Tehran regime, highlight what Jewish groups say is Ahmadinejad's genocidal threats, and educate the general public about Iranian-sponsored terrorism and the threat of a nuclear Iran. The Anti-Defamation League has been waging a public campaign against oil companies with business in Iran by issuing a steady stream of news releases highlighting their activities. Among the companies are Shell and the Austrian energy giant OMV, which are planning to be part of a conference in Tehran in October to promote gas export opportu- nities with Iran. The Swiss government also is actively increasing its oil trade with Iran. On the genocide issue, the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs hosted a half-day conference in Washington on Tuesday highlighting Tehran's abysmal human rights record and the forecasts of Israel's destruction by Ahmadinejad, who addressed the Gneral Assembly that day. Though attendance at the Washington event, "Conference on State-Sanctioned Incitement to Genocide: What Can Be Done?" was limited to approximately 120 participants, organizers were hop- ing the invitation-only crowd of mem- bers of the U.S. Congress and their staff- ers, the media and Washington's foreign diplomatic corps will help sway those in positions of power to join the coalition of nations actively opposing the Iranian leader's genocidal incitement. "The idea is that Ahmadinejad is in violation of the most important human rights convention, the genocide conven- tion, and as a result should be treated accordingly:' said Dore Gold, the presi- Jewish groups again are mobilizing to protest Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to the United Nations. dent of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. "There has been a growing number of voices who accept this deter- mination." That same argument was made much more publicly Monday when thousands of people converged on midtown Manhattan for a rally to protest Iran's policies. The Jewish Community Relations Council of New York organized the event in conjunction with the Presidents Conference, the United Jewish Communities federation umbrella orga- nization, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs and UJA-Federation of New York. Jewish groups held a similar demon- stration 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 was to send a message to world leaders and to Ahmadinejad himself. "He knows all about it; last year in every television interview he made reference to it," Hoenlein said of last year's protest. "It was covered pretty widely in Iran, which is very important for us. 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." For all their efforts, Jewish groups' ability to get governments around the world to tighten the screws on Iran has its limits. "What leverages are there to apply against these governments except moral suasion?" said the secretary-general of the World Jewish Congress, Michael Schneider. "We don't have a big stick that we can use." Harris said the argument to make is not that stopping Iran is a moral imperative for Israel or the Jewish people, but that a nuclear-armed Iran threatens the world. "A key to diplomacy is to try to per- suade someone else not that it's in your interest, but why it's in their interest to act:' Harris said. "On Iran, we think there's an abun- dance of evidence of why this is a regional and global problem: A nuclear Iran would create an entirely different and more dangerous geo-strategic envi- ronment generally, and a nuclear Iran would surely trigger a collapse of the nonproliferation treaty and a number of other countries would go down the nuclear road in response to Iran," he said. "Those arguments are compelling arguments whether you're Israel's clos- est friend or not." 111