Posted by Frank James at 5:41 pm CST
It seems like each day brings an interesting new turn-of-the-screw in the Dubai Ports World story.
Today's had to be the revelation reported in the Jerusalem Post that the Dubai-based parent company seeking to purchase terminal operations in a number of U.S. ports has a unit whose sole job is to enforce an anti-Israel boycott. The boycott prevents products made in Israel, or that merely just contain Israeli-made components, from being imported into Dubai.
The revelation was a major problem for the White House. The president has made a central argument for letting the deal go through that it would be discriminatory to stop one foreign company from purchasing U.S. operations from another foreign company just because the purchasing company was controlled by Arabs and the selling company was British owned.
That argument may have lost a lot of its force Tuesday, with senators, mainly Democrats, raising the anti-Israel boycott time and again.
The president escaped from a brief question-and-answer session with reporters during an Oval office photo op with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi today without being asked about the Israeli boycott. And now he’s on his way to India aboard Air Force One where reporters usually do not have access to him.
But American reporters are likely to ask him the first time they get a real opportunity, say during a joint press conference with the Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh, about the contradiction of his administration using a moral argument to defend an Arab-owned company that discriminates against Israeli-owned ones.
Here's an excerpt of the Jerusalem Post story:
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Exclusive: Dubai ports firm enforces Israel boycott
MICHAEL FREUND, THE JERUSALEM POST
Feb. 28, 2006
The parent company of a Dubai-based firm at the center of a political storm in the US over the purchase of American ports participates in the Arab boycott against Israel, The Jerusalem Post has learned.
The firm, Dubai Ports World, is seeking control over six major US ports, including those in New York, Miami, Philadelphia and Baltimore. It is entirely owned by the Government of Dubai via a holding company called the Ports, Customs and Free Zone Corporation (PCZC), which consists of the Dubai Port Authority, the Dubai Customs Department and the Jebel Ali Free Zone Area.
"Yes, of course the boycott is still in place and is still enforced," Muhammad Rashid a-Din, a staff member of the Dubai Customs Department's Office for the Boycott of Israel, told the Post in a telephone interview.
"If a product contained even some components that were made in Israel, and you wanted to import it to Dubai, it would be a problem," he said.
A-Din noted that while the head office for the anti-Israel boycott sits in Damascus, he and his fellow staff members are paid employees of the Dubai Customs Department, which is a division of the PCZC, the same Dubai government-owned entity that runs Dubai Ports World.
Moreover, the Post found that the website for Dubai's Jebel Ali Free Zone Area, which is also part of the PCZC, advises importers that they will need to comply with the terms of the boycott.
In a section entitled "Frequently Asked Questions", the site lists six documents that are required in order to clear an item through the Dubai Customs Department. One of them, called a "Certificate of Origin," "is used by customs to confirm the country of origin and needs to be seen by the office which ensures any trade boycotts are enforced," according to the website.
A-Din of the Israel boycott office confirmed that his office examines certificates of origin as a means of verifying whether a product originated in the Jewish state.
On at least three separate occasions last year, the Post has learned, companies were fined by the US government's Office of Anti-boycott Compliance, an arm of the Commerce Department, on charges connected to boycott-related requests they had received from the Government of Dubai.
US law bars firms from complying with such requests or cooperating with attempts by Arab governments to boycott Israel.
In one instance, according to a Commerce Department press release, a New York-based exporter agreed to pay a fine for having "failed to report in a timely manner its receipts of requests from Dubai" to provide certification that its products had not been made in Israel.
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Comments
Let me get this straight...the President and his administration are willing to look the other way and permit this company to do business on our shores when they have an arm whose sole purpose is to enforce a law that is against US Federal law?
Don't they see enough of a problem here to void the acceptance without it being pegged as discrimination against Arabs?
What is there in place here to prevent that company from trying to enforce that boycott here? Especially when we are not mandating that they keep their official documentation on US soil?
Posted by: ECG | February 28, 2006 9:26 PM
Why hasn't there been more about the Dubai company's participation in the Arab world's anti-Israel boycott in the mainstream US media today?
It was posted on the JPost.com website last night (evening of 2/27 Chicago-time), over 24 hours ago. I would have thought that during the day today there would have been much more written or posted on the major news sites than I have found. Is this lack of press due to the submission to propoganda from the White House? Or, should I rephrase, censorship threats from the White House against going contrary to Bush's desires?
In any case, is this how a friend treats a friend...by pitting one against the other, knowing full well ahead of time that one's other friends don't get along with each other?
Posted by: ECG | February 28, 2006 11:33 PM
Dubai and other Arab countries have an anti-Israel boycott? That sad news is hardly a new revelation. Been going on for many years. I'd wager that the same Democrats who profess horror about this, and the reporters who parrot this line, drive automobiles powered in part by gasoline from these same Arab countries. Perhaps reporters should be asked about the "moral contradiction" when they use goods provided by these countries.
Posted by: Bruce | February 28, 2006 11:38 PM
Bruce,
What's your last name? Bush?
Is there anything this administration could possibly do that would earn your criticism?
Posted by: Dienne | March 1, 2006 10:29 AM
So now the people who have urged us to be sensitive to the plight of the oppressed Muslim masses, and who have wondered if America is, in fact, at fault for 9/11, and who castigate the Israelis regularly for their treatment of the Palestinians -- these same people are going to try to tell us that the president is somehow hypocritical and immoral for daring to allow the country to do business with a company and nation that discriminates against Israelis? I'm sure that this rhetoric will go a long way toward convincing the Muslims of the world that our foreign policy in the Middle East is not dictated by our alliance with Israel.
Posted by: JB | March 1, 2006 10:41 AM
Not unexpectedly, the above article doesn't mention that DPW actively does business with Zim, the Israeli shipping firm, news that contradicts what the Jerusalem Post asserts and Frank James repeats. Wolf Blitzer of CNN had this story some time ago:
http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/DocView.asp?did=1000065318&fid=1725
Doubtless this omission is just a coincidence, and has nothing to do with the political views of the "Swamp" reporters.
Posted by: Bruce | March 1, 2006 11:26 AM
Bruce, "Democrats who profess horror"? The opposition to this issue has been largely bipartisan, which you'd realize if you'd read the news as often as you read your Rove-generated GOP talking points. In any event, ask yourself this: why is Bush so concerned with protecting this deal? He obviously has a deep personal interest. What or who's interests/pocketbooks is he protecting? Would you allow an Iraqi firm to run the ports? Dubai has more connections to terrorism than Iraq ever has. You can't be for this deal and for the Iraq invasion at the same time without selling out your integrity.
The U.S. has NOTHING to gain from this deal aside from the increased probability of the ports being used for illegal trafficking for al-Qaeda interests. Even if this risk is small...why risk it? The presence of that risk is undeniable, whatever its magnitude. Until Bush answers this question, he's pushing himself even deeper into political debt.
Posted by: Frosty | March 1, 2006 4:17 PM
JB, excuse me...but where on earth did you read or assume those hateful falsehoods that you disseminated above from my comments? Trust me, I am not hypocritical as alleged.
The radical Muslims involved with 9/11 are 100% to blame for the tragic events in this country. There is no way to blame Americans for it. What is even more sick is that much of the Muslim and Arab world are blaming Israel for the events of 9/11...claiming it was an Israeli and Jewish plot.
Besides, Israelis have just as much of a right to live in security without having to fear whether their family and friends will all return home each night from school, work or simply being out on the town. The militant Palestinians (i.e. TERRORISTS) simply refuse to acknowledge that there is a difference between military and civilians, so they feel it is appropriate and acceptable to blow themselves up and take as many Israelis and Jewish people with them as possible. And they seem to feel that their youth are meant to be thrown away, otherwise, why would they constantly send them out to be blown up? If in the US we had a segment of our society acting in a similar nature, we would be insisting and demanding that that segment of society be separated from the rest of us. Why shouldn't Israelis have the same right to a sense of security? Israel is not advocating the destruction of a people in a nature like WWII Germany, or in Serbia.
Bruce, the Arab Israeli boycott is by no means a new development in the world. However, it is and has been illegal in our country for several years to participate in that boycott. The mere principle that the company has an entire department dedicated to servicing the boycott should automatically preclude our government from doing business with Dubai World Ports. Tell me where I can purchase gasoline from non-Israeli boycott countries and I will be glad to do so...but until then, I do need fuel for my car and don't have much choice as to its country of origin.
Posted by: ECG | March 1, 2006 10:25 PM