If anyone had any doubts about how important the Iran issue is to the leadership of the mainstream American Jewish community, the powerful lineup at Thursday’s panel discussion during National Jewish Leadership Advocacy Day on Iran should have erased them.
There was AIPAC executive director Howard Kohr, Anti-Defamation League national director Abraham Foxman, American Jewish Committee executive director David Harris and B’nai B’rith International executive director Dan Mariaschin all seated at the same table on the stage, with panel moderator Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, seated right next to them.
In addition to talking about the threat Iran poses with nuclear weapons, the group also emphasized how important it was to make sure the entire Jewish community and the rest of the country were aware of how “urgent” they believe the threat is.
“There is no national sense of urgency” on Iran, said Foxman, who then outlined a “Catch-22” that the Jewish community was facing in the coming months.
“We do not have the luxury to not lead” on Iran, he said, but “there is a danger that it will be dismissed” as just a Jewish issue instead of a wider human right issue.
Still, he said, “the job will have to be done beyond the Jewish community” and “we have to lead even though it will be perceived as a Jewish issue.”
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) did offer a talking point on Iran that had no relation to Israel or the Jewish community in his remarks. He said that "250,000 Americans are within range of Iranian weaponry."
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