Representative Eliot Engel, the senior Democratic member on the US House Foreign Affairs Committee, will be appointed the new chairman of the International Council of Jewish Parliamentarians (ICJP), an initiative of the World Jewish Congress (WJC), at the meeting of the ICJP Steering Committee in New York City and Washington, DC on 2/3 December 2013.
“We are delighted that a distinguished lawmaker like Eliot Engel is assuming this important post at this critical time for world Jewry,” said World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder.
The ICJP, an informal association of Jewish elected lawmakers and officials from around the world, meets periodically to conduct dialogue and find solutions among parliamentarians on key issues of concern to world Jewry including terrorism, security for Jewish communities, racism and anti-Semitism, and an enduring peace in the Middle East.
Engel will succeed former Italian Member of Parliament Fiamma Nirenstein as chairman of the body.
The parliamentarians will have lunch with WJC President Lauder in New York and then move to Washington to hear closed-door briefings on the Middle East by Representatives Engel, Ed Royce, Ted Deutch and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen; and on Egypt by Washington Institute for Near East Policy Fellow Eric Trager.
A luncheon meeting in Washington with Ira Forman, US State Department Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, will be open to the press. That meeting will take place on Tuesday, 3 December 2013, at 12:00 p.m., in Washington, DC, in Room HVC-200 at the US Capitol Building, and coverage is invited.
Eliot L. Engel, 66, who represents parts of The Bronx and Westchester, is the ranking member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and also serves on the Energy and Commerce Committee. He is the founder and co-chair of the House Oil and National Security Caucus, which is seeking clean, energy efficient alternatives to America's over-reliance on oil, and a member of the Democratic Task Force on Health and the Commission on Human Rights.
Engel has championed energy independence, affordable housing, healthcare reform and education. He authored the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2003, which sparked international pressure on Syria to withdraw from Lebanon, and sponsored a key resolution recognizing Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel. He is the House leader on U.S. policy toward Latin American and the Caribbean.In addition, he has written important laws relating to Albania and Kosovo, Cyprus, Irish affairs, and is co-author of the Harkin-Engel Protocol, which addresses the child slave labor in the cocoa fields of Africa.
The ICJP, an initiative of the World Jewish Congress, was founded as an informal association of Jewish parliamentarians and elected officials from around the world who meet periodically to promote democracy and human rights and combat racism, anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry. It serves as a platform to support Israel, support an enduring Middle East and security of Jewish communities around the world and explore best practices.