9/25 Stop Ahmadinejad Rally - Pictures, Videos and Text

VIDEOS



A former Sudanese slave speaks out against Islamism and tyranny.



Beth Gillinsky of the Jewish Action Alliance calls to "Bring back the light"



Sarah Palin's representative, a former candidate for Governor Edward Cox showed up to deliver her speech.



Guardian Angels head Curtis Sliwa takes on Ahmadinejad



A Speaker for the Christian Alliance described the Churches meeting with Ahmadinejad as representing shrinking congregations.



A Speaker for Middle Eastern Christians denounces petrodollar politics that put Jews and Christians for sale.



MK Benny Elon Spoke



An Iranian dissident whose father has been imprisoned by the regime speaks out.

On 9/25 wide variety of organizations and speakers gathered together at Perishing Square outside the Grand Hyatt Hotel and Grand Central Station to protest the meeting between Iranian dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and a variety of liberal Churches including the World Council of Churches and Mennonite and Quaker groups notorious for their pro-terrorist slant.

With the speakers came a wide variety of protesters from teenage boys and girls to senior citizens such as Charlotte from AFSI who are regulars at pro-Israel protest rallies along with Sudanese, Hindu, Anti-Jihadist, Christian and a variety of people united by outrage at the festive reception for a bloody tyrant and the world's main sponsor of terrorism.

The signs were numerous from "No Nukes for Kooks" to Ahmadinejad as the Quaker Oats quaker to a teenager dressed as the grim reaper. Up front a man stood wrapped up in the original Persian flag, while Israeli and American flags fluttered over the rally.

Rally speakers called attention to everything from the persecution of the Sudanese to the persecution of Iranian women and dissident clerics to of course Ahmadinejad's plans against Israel and denunciations. Large cheers came for Edward Cox there as a representative of Sarah Palin to read her speech, Curtis Sliwa and MK Benny Elon as well as Beth Gillinsky herself who had put the rally together on short notice. Boos were directed at Penny Pritzker, owner of the Hyatt Hotel and chairman of Obama's finance committee along with calls for her to donate her ill gotten proceeds from the meeting to the American Armed Forces.

Pritzker was denounced between speeches with speakers vowing to boycott the Hyatt hotels. As the day turned to evening and then to night, the promised rain did not fall, but a series of speakers including Ruben Diaz, a politician and minister from the Bronx, Donahue of the Catholic League, a Jewish school teacher, Gillinsky herself, MK Benny Elon, Edward Cox representing Sarah Palin, which produced loud cheers for Sarah, and speakers from Sudan, Iran and the Middle East who had been and were oppressed by Islamism and Iran.

As Gillinsky herself noted many of the groups had little in common agendawise, but they had come together in a show of solidarity to stand up to Iran's dictator, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the rally was a striking contrast to the compromise rally thrown by the enstablished Jewish organizations, who were blackmailed by Democratic party apparatchiks and J Street, along with John Ruskay, a former Anti-Israel radical who has participated in a pro-terrorist group before finding a warm and very financially rewarding home at the head of the United Jewish Federation.

And indeed part of the message of this rally was not only the calculated defiance of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad but those left wing Jewish groups and Jewish figures who had done their best to undermine opposition to Ahmadinejad and restrict speakers while promoting "Strong Diplomacy", Obama's euphemism for Cowardly Appeasement over real resistance. As such the 925 rally was a bracing triumph of free speech and a message sent to organized Jewish groups that despite their six figure salaries and perks and public role, they do not speak for us.

We speak for ourselves.

The 9/25 Stop Ahmadinejad rally represented a true mix of voices. Some like an Israeli MK or a former Sudanese slave or an Iranian dissident a Bronx politician spoke English poorly, yet their sentiments rang all the more true for that, through their stifled grammar and accents.

The common message though was the one held up on one man's sign. "I will not submit."

From Curtis Sliwa of the Guardian Angels to a man who had been enslaved by Arab Muslims in the Sudan to an Iranian dissident whose father faces possible execution to MK Benny Elon whose niece was imprisoned following the left's crackdown after Rabin's assassination and who remains a target of the left wing government for his Zionist views-- these were all men and women of courage who had endured a great deal, faced great odds and were bonded by a refusal to submit and surrender.

While a few voices sounding into the night may not seem to matter or even the crowd that had gathered here in the face of the forces arrayed against them, from Iran's nuclear program to Obama's candidacy, even a few people standing up can and do make a difference, time and time again throughout history. And there were more than a few people here tonight. Far more.

The victory of evil is assured by silence. A silence that aids it in conquest and propaganda and tyranny. Those who spoke out tonight and those who cheered them on participated in the true democracy of free speech and of dissenting from the establishment in the pursuit of freedom and the right to life, liberty and the happiness.