Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) National President Morton A. Klein released the following statement:
The ZOA praises President Joe Biden for reportedly rejecting the Islamic Republic of Iran’s egregious demands to remove Iran’s terror arm, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) from the U.S. State Department’s list of designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO).
The IRGC’s whole raison d’être is terrorism and world domination. The Islamic Iranian regime’s constitution established the IRGC to use “utmost strength” to “strike terror” into the “enemies of Allah and your enemies” in order to expand Iranian sovereignty and its version of Islamic law throughout the world.
The IRGC and its terror proxies perpetrated numerous horrendous terror attacks, destroying countless innocent lives. The IRGC planned (together with Al-Qaeda and Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence & Security), trained pilots in Teheran for and facilitated 9-11; murdered hundreds of Americans in Lebanon and Iraq; is responsible for bombing the Argentinian Jewish center, murdering 85 innocent people and wounding hundreds more; is responsible for terror operations on U.S. soil; and is responsible for ongoing decades-long proxy wars against the U.S., Israel, and our allies.
Delisting the IRGC is strongly opposed by U.S. Congress members; security experts including the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley; U.S. pro-Israel and anti-terror organizations including ZOA and many others; and the governments of Israel and the UAE and our other allies in the Middle East. We are pleased that President Biden is acting in accordance with these groups’ and experts’ enormous concerns.
Eighty-seven Congresspersons recently sent a letter to President Biden strongly opposing delisting the IRGC. The letter warned that in addition to actively participating in acts of terror against Israel and our other allies in the Middle East, and in addition to bearing responsibility for the murder of 600 U.S. troops, the IRGC “is also a chief supporter and enabler of other FTOs and insurgent groups in the region. These organizations include, but are not limited to: Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Houthi insurgency. . . [D]elisting them as a FTO . . . would reward them with greater freedom to increase their malign activities.”
The Congressional letter’s author, Rep. Scott Franklin (R-FL) also explained: “The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is one of the most dangerous terrorist groups in the world today. Through its sponsorship of terrorism, the IRGC is responsible for the deaths of countless innocent people and at least 600 U.S. troops. It has consistently sought the destruction of our partners and allies in the region, most notably Israel, and has been an obstacle to peace in the Middle East for decades. The Biden administration simply cannot reward this terrorist regime with any sort of legitimacy from the U.S. government.” (See “ZOA Praises Rep. Franklin (R-FL) for Cong. Letter to Keep Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on Foreign Terrorist List,” Mar. 25, 2022.)