House members push Obama to prevent Ahmadinejad UN speech on Yom Kippur

A bipartisan group of House members put forward a resolution that calls on the Obama administration to pressure the United Nations to prevent Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from addressing the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday, which is Yom Kippur.

“[A]n outspoken, anti-Semitic Iranian leader should not be given the opportunity to criticize a Jewish person’s right to freely practice religion or denounce Israel’s right to exist on the largest international stage,” reads the resolution, which was introduced by Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) and is co-sponsored by a bipartisan group of 14 House members.

{mosads}Yom Kippur is the holiest of Jewish holidays, and this year it runs from Tuesday evening until Wednesday evening. Ahmadinejad is scheduled to speak Wednesday at the U.N. General Assembly in New York, and several religious groups are expected to protest his remarks.

While the resolution calls on the U.S. to try to prevent the speech, its main intent is to condemn Ahmadinejad and Iran’s other leaders for addressing the U.N. on Yom Kippur. It says Iran’s president has threatened both the U.S. and Israel, called for Israel to be “wiped off the map” and denied the Holocaust.

It also says that under the U.N. charter, members must “refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, but Ahmadinejad has specifically failed to do so.”

“[I]t would not only be offensive, but insensitive for the United Nations to allow Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to address the General Assembly at all, let alone on the holiest of all Jewish holidays, Yom Kippur, after making such vicious statements towards world Jewry and the State of Israel,” it reads.

It seems unlikely that the resolution can pass, given that both the House and Senate are not expected to take up any votes between now and the November election.

Other co-sponsors of the resolution are Reps. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.), Ted Deutch (D-Fla.), Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.), Leonard Lance (R-N.J.), Jeff Landry (R-La.), James Lankford (R-Okla.), Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.), Pat Meehan (R-Pa.), Gary Peters (D-Mich.), Bill Posey (R-Fla.), Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.), Brad Sherman (D-Calif.), Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) and Lynn Westmoreland (R-Ga.).