Israeli president Shimon Peres sounded the general line of the AIPAC policy conference this morning and described Iran as a terror state that threatens the world. The fanatical imams of Iran are "out of history, they are against history."
Israel has only respect for the Iranian people, Peres said. "Historically Iran sought to enrich mankind. Today, alas, they want to enrich uranium."
He added, "Iran is not threatened by anybody."
AIPAC president David Victor punctuated Peres's speech with a charge to the AIPAC members about what they should be lobbying the Congress about starting tomorrow: the threat from Iran.
"This is a moment of danger… Too few people see the urgency. We must highlight to our leaders the true stark dimensions of the threat," Victor said. "We are the only constituency in America making this case."
That sense of loneliness and focus pervades this room. The rest of America is talking about the economy and Pakistan and the two-state solution. During Peres's speech, two members of Code Pink, the antiwar group, were dragged
from the convention center, crying out, "Stop the killing" and "The children of Gaza are people too."
As for Iran, the message is that sanctions are good, but Obama has to back up sanctions with severe penalties, and as Jane Harman emphasized yesterday, leave the military option on the table. Petroleum imports are the "Achilles heel" of the Iranian economy, Victor said, and he said that actions against the central banking system of Iran would work, having a "crippling effect on Iran's economy."
(I guess Iran is threatened by somebody…)
Victor invoked the Holocaust analogy at the end of his speech. He described the fate of the USS St. Louis, the boat carrying 900 Holocaust refugees that was denied entry into the U.S. in June 1939, dooming many of those aboard. The White House and Congress were then indifferent, he said.
"The good people in this room will not be bystanders to this pivot moment in history," he concluded.
