Hillel presents Iran
sanctions petition
Hillel presented Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.) with 12,000 signatures
on a petition urging Europe and the United Nations to
support sanctions against Iran.
Students from George Washington University Hillel made the
presentation to this week Lantos, the chairman of the U.S. House of
Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee. The campus Jewish umbrella said it
would also send the petition to the White House and the United Nations.
Lantos has led efforts in Congress to toughen sanctions on Iran
as long as it does not achieve nuclear transparency. He also has personal ties
to Hillel, as the organization sponsored him to immigrate to the U.S.
from Hungary in
1947.
“It says wonderful things about Hillel, which took a
penniless survivor of the Holocaust and gave him an opportunity,” he said.
“What you are doing is unbelievably important.”
Hillel launched the petition in February, and it gained traction when U.S.
officials said they would allow Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, a
Holocaust denier who has repeatedly wished that Israel
would not exist, to come to New York
to speak to the United Nations.
