World Jewish Congress

Iran and Global Terror

Iran has long been and remains the world’s foremost state sponsor of international terrorism and of terrorist activities and perpetrates regular and systematic human rights and civil rights abuses against its own people. Iran’s proxies, such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and the PFLP, continue to promote Iran’s malign agenda and provocative threats to Israel, the Middle East and beyond through terrorist means. Iran’s continuing efforts to develop long-range, cruise, precision guided missiles, and drones, threatens to destabilize the Middle East.


Far from complying with the commitments Iran made to the JCPOA since 2015, it has repeatedly violated those commitments by its resumption of enriching uranium beyond the limits of the agreement and by its limiting access of the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors to its nuclear facilities.

The Nuclear Threat

By secretly violating the JCPOA since its beginning, Iran has defied its pledge to limit the number of advanced centrifuges and its enrichment of uranium, and has made efforts to acquire prohibited material, all of which, as time goes on, the increases Iran’s possibility to build nuclear weapons. By limiting the ability of the IAEA for inspection, in contravention to the JCPOA, Iran’s stalling has caused delays of up to six months of access to its nuclear facilities, which has allowed it to cleanse these areas in the attempt to destroy evidence of the violations.

Ballistic Missiles and Violations of UN Resolutions

Iran continues to advance its ballistic missile program in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 2231, conducting numerous missile launches and many launches of large rockets. It has also continued to manufacture shorter-range missiles which have been transferred to its terrorist proxies in Yemen and other areas. Iran also has continued to illegally export arms, sending massive amounts of arms supplies to Yemen, Lebanon, and Syria, which continues to fly in the face of other Security Council resolutions.

International Terrorism

Through its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and various other proxies, Iran continues to plan and execute terrorist attacks throughout the region. It has aided the Houthi terrorist group in Yemen, launched multiple attacks on Saudi Arabia, provided great amounts of assistance to the Syrian regime which enable its ongoing violence, backed hostile militias in Iraq, and established terrorist bases in the Golan from which it can attack Israel.  In recent years, Iran has targeted U.S. citizens on navy ships, attempted an attack on a rally in France, and more as part of their long history of carrying out terrorist attacks on dissidents, Jews, Israelis, Americans, and others in many countries in both hemispheres, including the attacks in Argentina on the AMIA in 1994 and on the Embassy of Israel in 1992.

What we're doing

The WJC has long supported legislation that imposes sanctions on Iran in order to help curtail its terrorist activities and the funding of its proxies Hamas, Hezbollah, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. These terrorist groups have attacked Jewish communities and others in Europe, Israel, and other countries.  These sanctions protocols have included the three rounds of sanctions passed by the United Nations, and various sanctions regimes imposed by the United States and other countries on Iran’s oil industry which supports its terrorist infrastructure, its unrelenting quest to acquire nuclear capability, and the development of the above-mentioned advanced missiles that can already reach Europe and beyond.   As Iran regularly perpetrates egregious human rights and civil rights abuses against its own people, the WJC has formally reported on these violations to the United Nation Human Rights Council.   

The WJC sees as its primary obligation to advocate for the safety and security of Jewish communities around the world and for the Jewish state and so we continuously raise these malign Iranian policies in our meetings with government officials at the highest level. We will continue to educate the public about the terrorist threat and do our all to protect our communities from attack. To that end, the WJC will continue our campaign to urge the inclusion of the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and all wings of Hezbollah on the international list of terrorist organizations and will work to garner international support in this endeavor.

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