By Garth Kant
WASHINGTON – Stark sentiments and dire warnings on an occasion that was to be a night of celebration:
Those were just some of the poignant, sobering and insightful observations made by a roster of eminent speakers in a series of powerful speeches at an awards dinner on Thursday evening.
The event was the 9th annual “Rays of Light in the Darkness” awards ceremony and dinner held by the Endowment for Middle East Truth, or EMET.
The organization is a Washington, D.C., based think tank and policy center which informs and advises lawmakers and their staff, develops close working relationships with them, and challenges what it characterizes as “the falsehoods and misrepresentations that abound in U.S. Middle East policy.”
EMET describes its mission as working with lawmakers who “understand the importance of a strong and secure America, and a strong American-Israeli alliance against the forces of radical Islam and terror.”
Honorees were:
Other speakers included master of ceremonies, and former assistant secretary of defense, Frank Gaffney and EMET founder Sarah Stern. Talk radio host Mark Levin opened the event by leading the gathering in the pledge of allegiance to America.
Sen. Cotton was the only member of the Senate to vote against a bill that turned the chamber’s treaty powers upside down, when it comes to striking a deal with Iran. The tally was 98 to 1, with one senator not voting.
By law, the Senate must approve any treaty with a foreign power by a two-thirds vote. The legislation, approved by the Senate in May, would require a deal with Iran on its nuclear program to be submitted to Congress. But, if Congress rejects the deal, President Obama could veto the rejection. The Senate and the House would then have to come up with a two-thirds majorities to override the veto. So, instead of a two-thirds Senate majority needed to approve the treaty, a two-thirds congressional majority would be needed to disapprove of it.
Cotton is also the senator who wrote an open letter informing Iran’s leaders that Congress has a constitutional role, by law, in ratifying international agreements. 46 Republican senators signed the letter.
The Senator was not able to address the EMET dinner in person because he was called to emergency meetings in Ukraine. The freshman is the youngest member of the Senate and a graduate of Harvard Law School. Emerging from the army with the rank of captain, Cotton served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and was awarded the Bronze Star.
In recorded remarks played at the EMET dinner, Cotton stressed that the bottom line in any deal struck with Iran must be: Does it dismantle their nuclear program or not? If not, it should be rejected, he emphasized.
Cotton also noted that used to be the position of the Obama administration, but that has changed.
The senator emphasized a recurring theme of the evening: The importance of speaking the truth about the threats facing America’s allies and the rest of the world.
Rep. Gohmert was the driving force behind the speech given to Congress in March by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who received a remarkable 26 standing ovations while delivering a passionate warning against the Iranian nuclear peril.
Gohmert originally had the idea when Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was still House Speaker. He drafted a letter, signed by colleagues, proposing Netanyahu address Congress. That went nowhere, but Gohmert had better luck when Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, became House Speaker.
It was the Texan who told the EMET dinner crowd that Iran’s nuclear weapons would be the new gas chambers for Israel.
“By the grace of God, we can’t allow them to kill millions more Jews or anyone else.”
Gohmert said the Obama administration knows that as long as the U.S. talks with Iran, no matter how “worthless” the talks may be, Israel cannot militarily destroy the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program.
That’s because, he said, Israel knows the Obama administration would side with Iran in the United Nations, and, “This is an affront to Israel.”
“We’re on the brink of disaster,” warned the congressman. He told the largely Jewish crowd he was a Christian who reads the Bible every day.
And, he said, acquaintances of his had claimed to identify the United States in biblical prophecies. He didn’t know about that, but, he remarked, the only chance America had of being around in end times “is to be the best friend of Israel we can.”
Talk show host and author Erick Stakelbeck rhetorically asked why should Americans care about the threat posed by ISIS from the other side of the world?
Because, he said, the FBI director recently announced the bureau is investigating ISIS activity in all 50 states.
“The barbarians are not just at the gate, they are inside the gate,” Stakelbeck announced.
But, he said, in such trying times, there is still great reason for hope.
He noted how Israel’s enemies such as Haman, Nebuchadnezzar and Hitler all wound up on the ash heap of history.
“Take heart”, he comforted, “You are on the winning team.”
Kasim Hafeez, a man of Pakistani descent who lived in England, described his conversion from an anti-Zionist Jew hater to a Muslim Zionist who married a Jew.
He said the turning point came when he read Alan Dershowitz’s book “The Case for Israel,” then went to Israel and fell in love with it.
And, as a Muslim he now works for Christians United for Israel.
Hafeez said, if not for Israel, “I’d be in a jihadist training camp.”
He believes Israeli soldiers aren’t just defending Israel, but the entire free world. Hafeez said Israel’s enemies are America’s enemies. “They target Israel today, America tomorrow.”
“Speaking out for the truth is not Islamophobic,” he declared.
And, Hafeez concluded, “To be free of hatred is incredible.”
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach expressed amazement at “a dinner where people are given awards for simply telling the truth.”
“I’m not pro-Israel because I’m Jewish. I love Israel because I am Jewish. I am pro-Israel because I am an American,” the rabbi declared.
Boteach called Israel is “the greatest blessing to Muslims in the Middle East” because it is the only place they can be free, and it is the only country in the region where women, gays and other minorities are not persecuted.
“If you don’t love Israel, you have no heart,” he summed up.
“Anti-semitism did not die at Auschwitz,” grimly observed honoree Irwin Cotler.
The Canadian member of Parliament told a hushed crowd how Iran executes one person every two hours.
“Unprecedented persecution,” he called it.
Yet, “The world never hears about it.”
Cotler noted it is said there would not be an Israel but for the holocaust, but, he insisted, “It is the other way around: There would not have been a holocaust if they’re had been an Israel.”
Frank Gaffney, assistant secretary of defense during the Reagan administration and current president of the Center for Security Policy, warned about the impending threat to America’s existence posed by Iran.
He saluted the efforts of former CIA Director Adm. James Woolsey, who was in attendance, to alert lawmakers and citizens to the ease with which Iran could knock out America’s electric grid with an electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, attack, by merely exploding a single nuclear bomb over the Midwest.
Gaffeny said it would be a “genocide of unprecedented proportions” eventually resulting in the death of 90 percent of the U.S. population.
“And it could happen at any moment,” especially considering Iran’s partnering with North Korea, which has the technical capability to launch such an attack without detection.
Gaffney noted it would take only $2 billion dollars to secure America’s electric grid and neutralize the threat of such an attack, but neither Congress nor the president seemed in any hurry.
He also reminded the audience of the sentiment expressed by former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that destroying America was “not only desirable but possible.”
Sarah Stern, a tireless advocate for Israel, is the founder and president of EMET.
As for the Obama administration’s pursuit of a nuclear deal with Iran, she declared, “We are not negotiating, we are groveling.”
Stern said the president had turned Machiavelli’s advice to “keep your enemies close and your friends at a distance” into, “Hold you enemies close and throw your friends under the bus.”
“Unfortunately, our president does not think like many Americans. He seems to base his foreign policy on how the world ought to be, not how the world actually is.”
She noted how Obama said in an interview he could envision Iran becoming “a very successful regional power.”
This is the same Iran, she noted, that is the world’s leading state sponsor of Islamic terrorism and a state that celebrates “Death to America Day” every year on Nov. 4.
Stern also observed it is also a regime that prosecutes women for being raped and men for being gay.
“The moral universe has been turned upon its head,” she concluded.
“This is 1939 all over again.”
Originally published at: https://mobile.wnd.com/2015/06/iran-nukes-will-be-israels-gas-chambers/
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