Presidential hopeful, Danon, to head NY pro-Israel rally
Rally organizer Frager, who escorted Huckabee to Israel in January, seeks new "political dynamic" in upcoming US presidential election.
By MORDECHAI I. TWERSKYzionists(photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
Manhattan on Sunday will be blue and white, with more than 100,000 marchers expected to take part in the annual Salute to Israel parade along Fifth Avenue.Also Sunday, tens of thousands of Israel supporters will flock to Manhattan's Central Park for the 18th annual Israel Day Concert and Rally. Headlining the event will be Herman Cain, a potential Republican candidate for the US presidential elections in 2012, and Member of Knesset Danny Danon of the Likud Party.The man behind the rally is prominent New York City communal leader and gastroenterologist Dr. Joseph Frager. This chairman of the board of the American Friends of Ateret Cohanim—the organization dedicated to strengthening Israel's claim to Jerusalem-- is an unabashed activist, with a decidedly right-of-center orientation. He invokes the first rally in 1994 as a resounding statement against the Oslo Accords and says its 17 successive rallies are an expression of solidarity and constancy with Israel.Frager says this year's rally message is clear.“Our message is, of course, Jerusalem can never be divided, no more concessions,” said Dr. Frager, in a telephone interview with Inside Israel's Mordechai Twersky. “We are opposing the United Nations' idea of creating a unilateral state, of an Arab country, in the land of Israel. We are opposed to any further idea of the Oslo Accords, which was to keep giving and giving while receiving nothing in return. It's been that way all along.”
