Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Samantha Power Stresses No Deal Yet on Iran Nukes at ADL Centenary Event

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, reiterated America’s commitment to thwarting Iranian nuclear weapons ambitions.

“Let me be absolutely clear: President Obama is determined to ensure that the Islamic Republic does not acquire a nuclear weapon,” Power said at the Anti-Defamation League’s centennial conference held Thursday in a Manhattan hotel. “Let me repeat: The United States cannot and will not allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon.”

Addressing the subject of nuclear negotiations with Iran, she said the Obama administration considers a bad deal worse than no deal and that the administration will not accept a bad deal.

“We understand why some of you are skeptical about engaging Iran. But please remember that we are not engaging Iran for the sake of engaging Iran,” she said. “We are striving to secure an unambiguous and verifiable guarantee that Iran’s nuclear program is a peaceful one and that its government will not build or acquire a nuclear weapon.”

Power only touched briefly on the subject of Israel’s negotiations with the Palestinians, which were brokered by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

“The administration is grateful for the strong public support that exists, including from the Jewish community, for the current peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians,” she said.

Power said one of the priorities of her job is to “push ceaselessly” to end discrimination against Israel within U.N. bodies.

“That discrimination is not right, and it must end,” Power said.

In her appearance, Power also announced that the United Nations has agreed to transfer a full copy of its its wartime commission archives to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.

At the conclusion of her talk, ADL National Director Abraham Foxman presented Power with a gift: a heavy book with the word “Jew” written in it 6 million times – 4,400 times per page, Foxman said – to remind Power of the Holocaust.

“I love you,” Foxman told Power as he embraced her.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.