Iraqi Kurds Build Washington Lobbying Machine to Fund War Against ISIS - The New York Times
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/07/us/politics/iraqi-kurds-build-washington-lobbying-machine-against-isis.html?ref=todaysp
Amitiés kurdo-israéliennes... Il s’agit des Kurdes d’Irak. Leurs liens avec Israël sont malheureusement connus depuis longtemps. (Via Angry Arab.)
To bolster the effort, the Kurdistan government has sent a stream of top officials to Washington, including Mr. Talabani, as well as Sherzad O. Mamsani, who was recently named as Kurdistan’s first director of Jewish affairs in an open appeal to build support in Israel for the Kurdish effort.
Already, the Kurds have started to receive some behind-the-scenes support from political consultants who work on Israel’s behalf in Washington and who see the Kurds — a minority group that like the Jews have at times been targeted for persecution by Arabs in the Middle East — as an unusual but potentially important ally.
It is a delicate relationship, Ms. Abdul Rahman agreed, because the Kurds cannot appear to be too closely aligned with Israel without causing tensions with neighbors like Iran.
“Here in Washington, if the pro-Jewish and pro-Israel interests see the Kurds are a friend of the Jewish community, it could lead to Congress being even more forceful in its support of the Kurdish Regional Government,” said Zach D. Huff, a political consultant who traveled to Washington from Israel in April to help the Kurdish lobbying effort, a visit that included a meeting with the powerful, American Israel Public Affairs Committee, to ask for its assistance.
Just last month, two House lawmakers — Representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Republican of Florida, and Brad Sherman, Democrat of California — both known as strong supporters of Israel, introduced their own resolution, asking the State Department to send military assistance to the Kurds.
