IRS Asked to Probe Links Between AIPAC, Weizmann and Secret Israeli Nuclear Weapons Program

WASHINGTON, March 7, 2012 -Internal Revenue Commissioner Douglas Shulman is being asked today to examine the tax-exempt status of the American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science.  According to a U.S. Department of Defense study performed by the Institute for Defense Analyses, the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel has actively engaged in nuclear weapons research. 

The 1987 IDA study documents Weizmann scientists developed a cutting- edge high energy physics and hydrodynamics program "needed for nuclear bomb design." Weizmann also worked on advanced methods for enriching uranium to weapons-grade through the use of lasers. The U.S. worried that Weizmann's supercomputers, if networked with other American-purchased supercomputers, would be used to reduce the size of warheads enough to fit on Israel's long range missiles. 

In 1989, the U.S. denied a super computer export license to Technion in Israel after the university's scientists were discovered working at the Dimona nuclear facility. However by 1994, Weizmann had the second highest supercomputing capacity in Israel, trailing only Tel Aviv University.

According to the book "Israel and the Bomb" by Avner Cohen, Democratic Party fundraiser Abraham Feinberg was designated by David Ben-Gurion to raise funding for Israel's covert nuclear weapons program in 1958.  In 1971, Feinberg became the president of the American and Israeli branches of the Weizmann institute.  Feinberg donated funds to capitalize the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in the 1960s. AIPAC's director published articles in the Near East Report denying Israel had a nuclear weapons program.  Weizmann Institute President Daniel Zajfman was lauded in a program about Israeli innovations at AIPAC's 2010 Policy Conference.

The IRmep complaint asks Commissioner Shulman to investigate how Weizmann's tax-exempt U.S. fundraising branch finances Israeli nuclear weapons development.  On January 11, 2010, IRmep Research Director Grant F. Smith and several callers confronted Shulman on NPR over lax IRS enforcement over U.S. tax-exempt organizations funding illegal West Bank settlements.  Shulman publicly promised that "If a charity is breaking the tax law, is engaged in activities that they are not supposed to be engaged in, we certainly will go after them."

According to outside reports, the IRS began screening new applications for tax-exempt status of organizations potentially involved in settlement funding.  According to IRmep Director Smith, "Charitable funding laundered into clandestine nuclear weapons that destabilize and endanger the entire region simply has no place in America."