SWC Officials Attend Israeli PM’s Speech to U.S. Congress; Existential Threat Extends Beyond Israel

Simon Wiesenthal Center senior officials including Rabbi Marvin Hier, SWC Founder and Dean, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Associate Dean and Rabb i Meyer H. May, Executive Director, attended today’s address in Congress by Israeli PrimeMinister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“The Prime Minister of Israel delivered an eloquent message making the case for why the outline of the deal currently being negotiated with Iran remains an existentialthreat to the State of Israel. At the same time Netanyahu reminded the US Congress that he alone bears the responsibility to keep the Jewish State safe,” saidRabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

Photo: Rabbi Hier and Rabbi Cooper

After introducing Nobel peace prize winner and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, the Prime Minister said that for the first time in a hundred generations the Jewish people“can defend ourselves. The days when the Jewish people remain passive in the face of genocidal enemies....those days are over."

“The Prime Minister reminded the world that Iran is a master at 'hide and cheat' and that nuclear inspectors failed to stop North Korea from becoming a nuclear power and thatinspectors alone will not stop Iran from becoming a nuclear power,” said Rabbi Cooper. “Therefore, a bad deal is worse than no deal. Prime Minister Netanyahu expressed thehope that any future deal with Iran would be a deal that Israel and her neighbors can literally live with,” he added.

Photo : Simon Wiesenthal Center Officials and Trustees attending the speech were L-R: Rabbi May,Board Chairman Larry Mizel, Rabbi Cooper and Trustee, Norman Brownstein. Other trustees in attendance but not pictured: Burt Sugarman, Elliott Broidy, Murray Huberfeld, andHoward Zvi Friedman

In a related development, the Wiesenthal Center is releasing an original document from its archives from Israel’s founding Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, inwhich he says, “An American leader in the future could say, after a failure, ‘I made a mistake. I did not understand the real intention of the Arab leaders.’ We cannotafford to make mistakes on this decisive issue nor can we allow any power in the world to compel us to make fateful mistakes.” - see document here