SWC: President Obama Should Denounce Al Quds Day Marches in Iran Where Millions Chanted ‘Death to America’ and ‘Death to Israel’

July 10, 2015

The SWC is urging President Obama to denounce today's al-Quds Day demonstrations in Iran where chants of "Death To America" and "Death to Israel" could be heard. Al-Quds Day is observed annually on the last Friday of Ramadan and was proclaimed in 1979 by Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as a religious duty for all Muslims to rally in solidarity against Israel and for the “liberation” of Jerusalem.

"In a tightly controlled theocracy, no demonstrations can be held without government approval. The burning in effigies of President Obama and Israeli PM Netanyahu along with the burning of U.S. and Israeli flags sends a crystal clear signal to the world, that whatever the outcome of nuclear talks, the U.S. and Israel remain the Ayatollah's top enemies", charged Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate Dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a leading Jewish human rights group. "Does anyone expect that this regime will live up to any treaty it signs or will stop its worldwide support for terrorism?" Cooper added.

Photo: PM Netanyahu speaking at the Center's Museum of Tolerance in March 2014

Yesterday Prime Minister Netanyahu met with a Simon Wiesenthal Center delegation and told Center Dean and Founder Rabbi Marvin Hier that the expected deal that would put Iran on the path to nuclearization and lift sanctions would constitute an "existential threat" to the Jewish state.

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The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the OAS, the Council of Europe and the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino).