NORPAC is a bipartisan, multi-candidate political action committee (PAC) working to strengthen United States-Israel relations. [1] NORPAC has spent the past 30 years building deep ties with candidates for the US House and Senate who advance the vital alliance between the United States and Israel. Together with a donor network from across the country, NORPAC provides financial, organizational, and educational support for candidates. NORPAC is volunteer-founded and led, with funds going directly to pro-Israel candidates.
Each year, before its annual Mission to Washington, NORPAC selects 5 issues or bills it will discuss that year, including: [2]
Each year, NORPAC sends a group of active members to meet with Senators and Members of Congress to discuss the U.S.-Israel relationship. The mission includes up to 1,000 attendees and meets with the majority of congress.
NORPAC hosts fundraisers for various political candidates who are supportive of the U.S.-Israel relationship.
National officers
Founding Chairman | Rabbi M. Genack |
Chairman Emeritus | David Schlussel |
President | Dr. Ben Chouake |
Vice-President | Dr. Mort Fridman |
Vice-President | Jerry Gontownik |
Vice-President | Robert Gottesman |
Vice-President | Drew Parker |
Treasurer | Kevin Lemmer |
Director of Membership, Mission to Washington Coordinator | Joel Davidson |
Regional officers
President, Riverdale chapter | Josh Landes |
Vice-President, Riverdale chapter | Jeff Daube |
President, Edison chapter | Jeff Weinstein |
Vice-President, Edison chapter | Harry Bernstein |
President, NY chapter | Jason Muss |
The phrase "axis of evil" was first used by U.S. President George W. Bush and originally referred to Iran, Iraq, and North Korea. It was used in Bush's State of the Union address on January 29, 2002, less than five months after the 9/11 attacks and almost a year before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and often repeated throughout his presidency. He used it to describe foreign governments that, during his administration, allegedly sponsored terrorism and sought weapons of mass destruction.
Edward Randall Royce is an American politician who served as a member of the United States House of Representatives from California from 1993 to 2019. A member of the Republican Party, Royce served as Chairman of the United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs from 2013 to 2019. He previously served as a member of the California Senate from 1982 to 1993.
Dore Gold is an American-Israeli political scientist and diplomat who served as Permanent Representative of Israel to the United Nations from 1997 to 1999. He is currently the President of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. He was also an advisor to the former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his first term in office. In May 2015, Netanyahu named him Director-General of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a position he held until October 2016.
Beginning in the mid 2000s, the military and diplomatic corps of the Russian Federation has had various contacts and relations with entities on both sides of the Iran–Israel proxy conflict. This is a component of Russia's broader foreign policy across the entire Middle East region.
The dynamic between the League of Arab States and the Islamic Republic of Iran has been ambivalent, owing to the latter's varying bilateral conduct with each country of the former. Iran is located on the easternmost frontier of the Arab League, which consists of 22 Arab countries and spans the bulk of the Middle East and North Africa, of which Iran is also a part. The Arab League's population is dominated by ethnic Arabs, whereas Iran's population is dominated by ethnic Persians; and while both sides have Islam as a common religion, their sects differ, with Sunnis constituting the majority in the Arab League and Shias constituting the majority in Iran. Since Iran's Islamic Revolution in 1979, the country's Shia theocracy has attempted to assert itself as the legitimate religious and political leadership of all Muslims, contesting a status that has generally been understood as belonging to Sunni-majority Saudi Arabia, where the cities of Mecca and Medina are located. This animosity, manifested in the Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict, has greatly exacerbated the Shia–Sunni divide throughout the Muslim world.
The Arab lobby in the United States is a collection of formal and informal groups and professional lobbyists in the United States paid directly by Gulf Arab states and private donors on behalf of the Arab states.
Military action against Iran is a controversial topic in Israel and the United States. Proponents of a strike against Iran point to the threat presented by Iran's nuclear program as a casus belli. Many Israelis, and particularly hardline politicians such as Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu, American neoconservatives, Iranian dissidents support military action to stop the program or go further to overthrow the regime. Opposition to military action is often based in pacifism, but some who are opposed to military action against Iran are opposed for other reasons.
Since the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the Islamic Republic of Iran has been embroiled in tense relations with the U.S. and its allies. Following the hostage crisis, both countries severed relations. Since then, both countries have been involved in numerous direct confrontations, diplomatic incidents, and proxy wars throughout the Middle East, which has caused the tense nature of the relationship between the two to be called an 'international crisis'. Both countries have often accused each other of breaking international law on several occasions. The U.S. has often accused Iran of sponsoring terrorism and of illegally maintaining a nuclear program, as well as using strong rhetoric against Israel, of which Iran has questioned its legitimacy and its right to exist while supporting Hamas, an antizionist terrorist group in the Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, Iran has often accused the U.S. of human rights violations and of meddling in their affairs, especially within the Iranian Democracy Movement.
The Iran and Libya Sanctions Act of 1996 (ILSA) was a 1996 act of the United States Congress that imposed economic sanctions on firms doing business with Iran and Libya. On September 20, 2004, the President signed an Executive Order to terminate the national emergency with respect to Libya and to end IEEPA-based economic sanctions on Libya. On September 30, 2006, the Act was renamed the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA). The Act was originally limited to five years, and has been extended several times. On December 1, 2016, ISA was extended for a further ten years.
Condoleezza Rice served 2005–2009 as United States Secretary of State under George W. Bush. She was preceded by Colin Powell and followed by Hillary Clinton. As secretary of state she traveled widely and initiated many diplomatic efforts on behalf of the Bush administration.
The Barack Obama administration's involvement in the Middle East was greatly varied between the region's various countries. Some nations, such as Libya and Syria, were the subject of offensive action at the hands of the Obama administration, while nations such as Bahrain and Saudi Arabia received arms deliveries. Notable achievements of the administration include inhibiting the Iranian nuclear program, while his handling of certain situations, such as the Syrian civil war, were highly criticized.
Iran and Lebanon have diplomatic relations, with embassies in each other countries. Since the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the two countries have deepened relations amidst controversy in Lebanon and abroad.
On 11 October 2011, United States officials alleged there was a plot tied to the Iranian government to assassinate Saudi ambassador Adel al-Jubeir in the United States. The plot was referred to as the "Iran assassination plot" or the "Iran terror plot" in the media, while the Federal Bureau of Investigation named the case "Operation Red Coalition". Iranian nationals Manssor Arbabsiar and Gholam Shakuri were charged on 11 October 2011 in federal court in New York with plotting to assassinate Al-Jubeir. According to U.S. officials, the two planned to kill Al-Jubeir at a restaurant with a bomb and subsequently bomb the Saudi embassy and the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C. Bombings in Buenos Aires were also discussed. Arbabsiar was arrested on 29 September 2011 at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York while Shakuri remained at large. On 24 October 2011, Arbabsiar pleaded not guilty. In May 2013, after pleading guilty, Arbabsiar was sentenced to 25-years imprisonment.
The State of Israel and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia have never had formal diplomatic relations. In 1947, Saudi Arabia voted against the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, and currently does not recognize Israeli sovereignty. However, as of 2023, bilateral negotiations towards Israeli–Saudi normalization are ongoing, with the United States serving as the two sides' mediator.
The Iran–Israel proxy conflict, also known as the Iran–Israel proxy war or Iran–Israel Cold War, is an ongoing proxy conflict between Iran and Israel. In the Israeli–Lebanese conflict, Iran has supported Lebanese Shia militias, most notably Hezbollah. In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Iran has backed Palestinian groups such as Hamas. Israel has supported Iranian rebels, such as the People's Mujahedin of Iran, conducted airstrikes against Iranian allies in Syria and assassinated Iranian nuclear scientists. In 2018 Israeli forces directly attacked Iranian forces in Syria.
The State of Israel has been accused of engaging in state-sponsored terrorism, as well as committing acts of state terrorism on a daily basis in the Palestinian Occupied Territories. Countries that have condemned Israel's role as a perpetrator of state-sponsored terrorism or state terrorism include Bolivia, Iran, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, and Yemen.
Qatar has been accused of allowing terror financiers to operate within its borders, which has been one of the justifications for the Qatar diplomatic crisis that started in 2017 and ended in 2021. In 2014, David S. Cohen, then United States Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, accused Qatari authorities of allowing financiers who were on international blacklists to live freely in the country: "There are U.S.- and UN-designated terrorist financiers in Qatar that have not been acted against under Qatari law." Accusations come from a wide variety of sources including intelligence reports, government officials, and journalists.
Iran and Saudi Arabia are engaged in an ongoing struggle for influence in the Middle East and other regions of the Muslim world. The two countries have provided varying degrees of support to opposing sides in nearby conflicts, including the civil wars in Syria and Yemen; and disputes in Bahrain, Lebanon, Qatar, and Iraq. The struggle also extends to disputes or broader competition in other countries globally including in West, North and East Africa, South, Central, Southeast Asia, the Balkans, and the Caucasus.
During Tulsi Gabbard's tenure as a congresswoman and presidential candidate, she placed much emphasis on her foreign policy views and regarded them as inseparable from her domestic policy views. She criticizes what she terms the "neoliberal/neoconservative war machine", which pushes for US involvement in "wasteful foreign wars". She has said that the money spent on war should be redirected to serve health care, infrastructure, and other domestic priorities. Nevertheless, she describes herself as both a hawk and a dove: "When it comes to the war against terrorists, I'm a hawk", but "when it comes to counterproductive wars of regime change, I'm a dove".