The Arab League, or League of Arab States, is an umbrella organization comprising 22 Middle Eastern and African countries and entities. Arab League members are Algeria, Bahrain, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, the Palestinian Authority, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. The Arab League was founded in 1944, and in 1945 began a boycott of Zionist goods and services in the British controlled mandate territory of Palestine. In 1948, following the war establishing Israel's independence, the boycott was formalized against the state of Israel and broadened to include non-Israelis who maintain economic relations with Israel or who are perceived to support it. The boycott is administered by the Central Boycott Office, a specialized bureau of the Arab League based in Damascus but believed for many decades to be operating out of Cairo, Egypt. The U.S. government has often been at the forefront of international efforts to end enforcement of the boycott and to seek the Arab League's revocation of it. The U.S. government participates in bilateral and multilateral negotiations with Arab League members regarding the boycott. U.S. legislative action related to the boycott dates from 1959 and includes multiple statutory provisions expressing U.S. opposition to the boycott, usually in foreign assistance legislation. In 1965, Congress adopted mandatory reporting of any requests by Arab League member countries to U.S. companies to participate in the boycott. In 1977, Congress passed laws making it illegal for U.S. companies to cooperate with the boycott and authorizing the imposition of civil and criminal penalties against U.S. violators. According to the Department of Commerce, participation in the boycott includes Agreements to refuse or actual refusal to do business with or in Israel or with blacklisted companies; Agreements to discriminate or actual discrimination against other persons based on race, religion, sex, national origin, or nationality; Agreements to furnish or actual furnishing of information about business relationships with or in Israel or with blacklisted companies; and/or Agreements to furnish or actual furnishing of information about the race, religion, sex, or national origin of another person. Lastly, U.S. taxpayers who cooperate with the boycott are subject to the loss of tax benefits that the U.S. government provides to exporters. These benefits include, among others, the foreign tax credit and the tax deferral available to U.S. shareholders of a controlled foreign corporation (CFC). The boycott has three tiers. The primary boycott prohibits citizens of an Arab League member from buying from, selling to, or entering into a business contract with either the Israeli government or an Israeli citizen. The secondary boycott extends the primary boycott to any entity world-wide that does business with Israel. A blacklist of global firms that engage in business with Israel is maintained by the Central Boycott Office, and disseminated to Arab League members. The tertiary boycott prohibits an Arab League member and its nationals from doing business with a company that in turn deals with companies that have been blacklisted by the Arab League. The boycott also applies to companies that the Arab League identifies as having "Zionist sympathizers" in executive positions or on the board of the company. According to one analyst, the "nature and detail of these rules reflect the boycotting countries' tolerance for only the most minimal contacts with Israel." The Arab League does not enforce the boycott and boycott regulations are not binding on member states. However, the regulations have been the model for various laws implemented by member countries. The League recommends that member countries demand certificates of origin on all goods acquired from suppliers to ensure that such goods meet all aspects of the boycott. Overall enforcement of the boycott by member countries appears sporadic. Some Arab League members have limited trading relations with Israel. The Arab League does not formally or publicly state which countries enforce the boycott and which do not. Some Arab League member governments have maintained that only the Arab League, as the formal body enforcing the boycott, can revoke the boycott. However, adherence to the boycott is an individual matter for each Arab League member and enforcement varies by state. There are indications that some Arab League countries publicly support the boycott while continuing to quietly trade with Israel. According to Doron Peskin, head of research at InfoProd, a consulting firm for foreign and Israeli companies specializing in trade with Arab states, "the Arab boycott is now just lip service." This sentiment has been echoed by Arab officials, albeit anonymously. One official commented to the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram that, "boycotting Israel is something that we talk about and include in our official documents but it is not something that we actually carry out—at least not in most Arab states." Others assert that enforcement of the boycott waxes and wanes with the level of intensity of the Israeli-Palestinian issue. The Arab League has acknowledged that U.S. pressure has affected its ability to maintain the boycott. At the May 2006 Arab League conference on the boycott, one conference participant reportedly said, "The majority of Arab countries are evading the boycott, notably the Gulf states and especially Saudi Arabia." He added that a major reason for these countries bypassing the boycott is "growing U.S. pressures in the direction of normalization with the Jewish state." Some states and entities have formally ended their adherence to the boycott, or at least some aspects of it. Egypt (1979), the Palestinian Authority (1993), and Jordan (1994) signed peace treaties or agreements that ended their respective adherence to the boycott. Mauritania, which never applied the boycott, established diplomatic relations with Israel in 1999. Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia do not enforce the boycott. In 1994, the member countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)—Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates—announced that they would only enforce the primary boycott. In 1996, the GCC states recognized that total elimination of the boycott is a necessary step for peace and economic development in the region. However, U.S. companies continue to receive requests to cooperate with the boycott from GCC member countries. Lebanon enforces the primary, secondary, and tertiary boycotts. According to the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR), some member states of the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), headquartered in Saudi Arabia, also enforce a boycott against Israel. For example, Bangladesh imposes a primary boycott on trade with Israel. By contrast, other OIC members, such as Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan impose no boycott and have encouraged trade with Israel at times. Since the boycott is sporadically applied and ambiguously enforced, its impact, measured by capital or revenue denied to Israel by companies adhering to the boycott, is difficult to measure. The effect of the primary boycott appears limited since intra-regional trade and investment are small. Nonetheless, there is some limited trade between Israel and its Arab neighbors. As Figure 1 illustrates, Israel's regional trade is negligible compared to Israel's trade with the United States, China, and other large trading partners. Enforcement of the secondary and tertiary boycotts has decreased over time, reducing their effect. A 1996 study by researchers at Tel Aviv University looked at the effect of the Arab boycott on the Israeli economy through the automobile market. Following a relaxation of boycott enforcement in the late 1980s through the early 1990s, Asian countries began exporting cars to Israel. The study found that if the boycott had continued to be enforced, and these cars did not enter the Israeli market, the Israeli car market would have been 12% smaller—leading to a $790 price increase per car. Total welfare loss for the study year, 1994, would have been an estimated $89 million. Thus, it appears that since intra-regional trade is small, and that the secondary and tertiary boycotts are not aggressively enforced, the boycott may not currently have an extensive effect on the Israeli economy. Despite the apparent lack of economic impact on either Israeli or Arab economies, the boycott remains of strong symbolic importance to all parties. Many Arab countries want to deny normalization with Israel until there is a final resolution to the conflict in the Palestinian territories. Israel, on the other hand, has asserted that it wants to be accepted in the neighborhood both in political terms and as a source of, and target for, foreign investment. The U.S. government officially opposes the boycott and works to end its enforcement on multiple levels. For many years, language has been included in successive foreign operations appropriations legislation concerning the boycott. Most recently, Section 7035 of the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations A ct, FY 201 7 ( P.L.