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Comments (0)The American Israel Public Affairs Committee is calling on the U.S. Congress to take several immediate steps in response to a New York Times report revealing that the federal government has awarded more than $107 billion in grants, contracts and other benefits to foreign and multinational U.S. companies conducting business in Iran.
In a rare move, the pro-Israel lobby has sent a sharply worded letter to every member of Congress calling for an investigation into why three successive administrations have failed under existing law to determine what companies have invested in the Iranian energy sector.
The letter demands that the U.S. government “enforce existing sanctions law and impose crippling new sanctions on Iran,” including legislation before Congress that “contains provisions barring federal contracts to companies which are investing in Iran’s energy sector or providing sensitive technology, and their parents or subsidiaries who are engaged in such activity.”
“We are writing to every member of Congress to express outrage at the U.S. government’s continuing relationship with dozens of companies doing business with Iran,” AIPAC’s president, David Victor, and executive director, Howard Kohr, wrote in the March 9 letter. “These ongoing financial dealings undermine longstanding American efforts to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability.”
In a rarity for AIPAC, the letter raises questions about the performance of President Obama, as well as his two predecessors.
“While Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama may have discouraged some investment in Iran through their rhetoric,” the AIPAC leaders wrote, “the United States has sent the American and international business community a contradictory message by failing to enforce the law.”
The letter comes less than two weeks before the start of AIPAC’s annual policy conference in Washington, where thousands of pro-Israel activists fan out on Capitol Hill to lobby lawmakers on the organization’s top agenda items.
Earlier this week, following the report in The New York Times, U.S. lawmakers introduced a bipartisan bill that strengthens U.S. sanctions against Iran.
The Iran Sanctions Enhancement Act, which was unveiled Monday in the House of Representatives, is an amendment to the Iran Sanctions Act adopted in 1996. The enhancement measure would require the Government Accountability Office to publish a list of potential sanctions act violators every month, require the president to complete investigations of violators within 45 days and notify Congress of entities in violation of the sanctions act.
While the U.S. government does prohibit most types of trade between American companies and Iran, multiple administrations have struggled to exert the ban over foreign companies and foreign subsidiaries of American companies.
In theory, foreign companies can be punished for investing more than $20 million per year to develop Iran’s oil and gas fields, but punishments such as withholding government contracts have never been enforced for fear of angering U.S. allies, mostly in the European Union.
Hundreds Protest Israeli Military Chief in N.Y.
Hundreds of protesters marched in front of a New York City hotel where the Israeli military’s chief of staff was speaking at a dinner.
Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi called on the international community to stop Iran’s nuclear program and said all options should remain on the table during his address Tuesday night at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. The dinner was hosted by the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces.
Outside, about 500 protesters carried signs reading “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free,” “Israel is a Terrorist State,” “No More US Tax Dollars for Israel” and “Nuremberg Justice For Israeli War Criminals.”
Some 25 American, Jewish and Israeli organizations, including churches and women’s groups, participated in the demonstration outside of the hotel against the man they called the “butcher of Gaza.”
About 100 pro-Israel counter-demonstrators gathered across the street waving Israeli flags and holding signs.
White House Faith Council Wants Clearer Guidelines
President Obama’s faith-based advisory council urged clearer guidelines on church-state separation in faith-based funding, but members differed on some critical details.
The 25-member commission, which includes three Jewish leaders, presented the White House on Tuesday with an array of recommendations having to do with poverty, the environment and families.
The crux of the report, however, was its final section on reforming the White House faith-based funding office established by President George W. Bush.
The council urged the White House to “clarify prohibited uses of direct Federal financial assistance,” but it could not agree on mechanisms to keep government from funding religious activity. Some council members wanted the government to urge religious grantees to set up separate tax-exempt bodies, while others were concerned that this would be overly burdensome.
In another example, some council members wanted grantees to be careful not to conduct activities in rooms replete with religious symbols, while others felt this went too far.
The disagreements reflected the broad range of organizations Obama invited to participate. Among the council’s three Jews, Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Reform’s Religion Action Center, and Nancy Ratzan, the president of the National Council of Jewish Women, are known for taking a harder line on church-state separation, while Nathan Diament, who directs the Orthodox Union’s Washington office, has counseled allowing grantees a greater deal of discretion in accommodating their beliefs when using government funds.
A number of other top Jewish officials joined council task forces on poverty and development.
Separately, the Coalition Against Religious Discrimination, an alliance that includes six national Jewish groups—including two allied with Saperstein’s RAC—urged Obama to adopt the council’s recommendations, and also to amend Bush’s orders establishing the office to prohibit groups from discriminating in hiring for the programs that use the federal funds.