Send Page to a Friend Washington Watch: JCPA Spurns Israel   By James D. Besser Jewish Times   Delegates to this week's Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA) plenum in Washington defied the Israeli government when they refused to adopt a last-minute resolution calling for tougher action against Iran and for its leaders to be indicted for inciting genocide. At an annual convention once dominated by fierce behind-the-scenes politicking over controversial resolutions, the Iran resolution, proposed by the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston, provided the only real drama. The resolution noted the "failure of international diplomatic efforts" to stop Iran from building atomic weapons and Iran's use of "proxies" like Hezbollah and Hamas. If passed, it would have put JCPA on record supporting efforts to have Iranian leaders indicted for "inciting genocide in violation of international law." It also called for "stop Iran" demonstrations and a "campaign to encourage divestment from companies that do business in Iran by state pension funds and private entities." "We have submitted this resolution because we felt the urgency at hand, and we felt time is running out," said Nancy Kaufman, the Boston CRC director. But representatives of several national agencies said they had not had a chance to study the resolution -- and others suggested that the call for the indictment of Iranian leaders could play into their hands by making Israel and the Jews the focus of the confrontation with Teheran. But Israeli diplomats from the embassy in Washington, in a rare show of active involvement in the internal deliberations of an American Jewish group, actively worked the floor, lobbying delegates in favor of the resolution and, in some cases, calling top organization leaders. The Israelis argued that failing to act, once the proposal was introduced, would send the wrong message about Jewish resolve on the issue. But David Luchins, an official of the Orthodox Union and longtime JCPA leader, argued that the language of the resolution was unclear -- and that it "might actually be weaker than existing JCPA policy." Concerns of delegates were allayed when Martin Raffel, the JCPA associate director, promised to disseminate a strong statement on Iran based on existing JCPA policy. An effort by the American Jewish Committee and the OU to draft an alternative, more streamlined statement failed. In the end, delegates voted to refer the measure to the JCPA executive committee for further consideration.