AIPAC on Trial: The lobby argues that good Americans spy for Israel

May 7, 2007 Issue
Copyright © 2007 The American Conservative

by Justin Raimondo

Is there a First Amendment right to engage in espionage? Dorothy Rabinowitz seems to think so. Describing the actions of Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, two former top officials of AIPAC, the premier Israel lobbying group, who passed purloined intelligence to Israeli government officials, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist characterized them as “activities that go on every day in Washington, and that are clearly protected under the First Amendment.” If what Rabinowitz says is true—if passing classified information to foreign officials is routine in the nation’s capital—then we are all in big trouble.

On Aug. 4, 2005, Rosen, Weissman, and Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin were indicted by a federal grand jury and charged with violating provisions of the Espionage Act that forbid divulging national defense information to persons not authorized to receive it. The indictment traces the treasonous trio’s circuitous path as they met in the shadows—in empty restaurants, at Union Station in Washington, on street corners. Rosen and Weissman sought out and cultivated Franklin, milking him for information that they dutifully transmitted to their Israeli handlers. According to Rabinowitz, however, they were merely “doing what they had every reason to view as their jobs”—which is true, assuming they understood their jobs to be spying for Israel.

The trial is scheduled to begin June 7. As the day of reckoning approaches, the Israel lobby is ratcheting up the rhetoric. So, too, is the defense: in a duet of hysterical accusations and frenzied rationalizations, the accused spies’ defenders have described the proceedings as a frame-up, the result of an intra-bureaucratic struggle within the government, and a plot by anti-Semites in Bush’s Justice Department to carry out a Washington pogrom. None of these flights of imagination are any more convincing than the Dream Team’s defense of O.J. Simpson. Yet the noise level continues to rise, as if sheer volume, instead of logical arguments, could overwhelm the copious evidence of the defendants’ guilt.

The indictment lists numerous acts of espionage, dating back to 1999, in which Rosen and/or Weissman acted as conduits for classified information flowing from Washington to Tel Aviv. The feds had been watching for a long time: the indictment makes clear that Rosen and Weissman didn’t make a move without the FBI’s counterintelligence unit knowing about it. This surveillance is how they happened on Larry Franklin, the Pentagon’s top Iran analyst, who walked in on a luncheon meeting in Arlington, Virginia, attended by Rosen, Weissman, and Naor Gilon, chief of the political-affairs section at the Israeli Embassy. The feds were listening in as Franklin—referring to a document dated June 25 and marked “top secret”—announced he had secrets to tell.

Tell not sell: unlike the majority of post-Cold War spies, the AIPAC-Franklin espionage ring wasn’t centered around financial gain but ideology. Franklin is a dedicated neoconservative, a minor yet key player in the neocon network, who served in the military attache’s office in the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv in the late 1990s and was a Defense Intelligence Agency analyst with expertise in Iranian affairs working in Douglas Feith’s policy shop.

The counter-intelligence unit was hot on Franklin’s trail, and they watched his every move—his wholesale transfer of top-secret information on Iran, al-Qaeda, and other intelligence of interest to Israel to Rosen and Weissman, who funneled it to their contacts in the Israeli Embassy. The FBI gave Franklin enough rope to hang himself, and then moved in, showing up at his door and confronting him with his treachery. A search of his home and office turned up a veritable lending library of classified documents dating back years, all of which had doubtless been made available to the Israelis. Faced with the probability of a long prison stretch, Franklin agreed to wear a wire to his subsequent meetings with Rosen and Weissman. In the months that followed, the FBI built its case, recording conversations and following the AIPAC duo.

And they did a good job, apparently, because the government is making an unusual request: that some testimony and evidence be shielded from the public due to its highly sensitive nature. This wasn’t just a case of pilfering a few innocuous memoranda. It looks like team AIPAC made off with the family jewels and maybe even the deed to the house. Why else would the Justice Department risk having a conviction thrown out on appeal on account of such a rarely invoked legal mechanism?

The defense has protested proposed security procedures—magnetometers at the courtroom door, security sweeps of the courtroom itself, an officer of the court monitoring electronic surveillance while the trial is in session—on the grounds they would prejudice the jury against the defendants. They compare this to dragging Rosen and Weissman before the jury in prisoners’ uniforms and shackles. Yet these security measures point to the seriousness of the matter before the court, the depth to which the Rosen-Weissman-Franklin spy ring penetrated the government, and the ongoing breach they have opened in America’s national-security firewall.

While most of the more cautious elements in the Jewish community are staying well away from this case, the radicals, such as Rabbi Avi Weiss and his AMCHA-Coalition for Jewish Concerns, who have previously devoted their efforts to freeing Jonathan Pollard, have now turned their attention to Rosen and Weissman. Steven Lieberman and Anne Sterba, lawyers for the group, wrote in an amicus brief: “Trying these two men for disclosing critical ‘national defense information’ to foreign officials, without letting the public know what the alleged information was, will allow enemies of the Jewish people to exaggerate the significance of that evidence and will leave the press and the public to subsist only on rumors and speculation.”

The Weiss group likens the prosecution of Rosen and Weissman to the Dreyfus case—in effect positing the existence of a vast anti-Semitic conspiracy at the highest levels of the Justice Department. Not exactly a credible contention, offered, as it is, without evidence, but the defenders of Rosen and Weissman are getting more frantic as the trial date approaches. As a writer for the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz put it, “Does this trial really carry any resemblance to the Dreyfus trial? It’s a different era, a different country, a different system, a different accusation. Making this comparison demands some imagination, much ambition, and maybe a speck of chutzpah too.”

A recently unsealed defense memorandum details a Feb. 16, 2005 colloquy between Rosen’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, and Nathan Lewin, AIPAC’s legal counsel, in which the latter reveals that Paul McNulty—then the U.S. attorney for the eastern district of Virginia and chief prosecutor in the case—“would like to end it with minimal damage to AIPAC.” Lewin told Lowell, “He is fighting with the FBI to limit the investigation to Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman and to avoid expanding it.” This is hardly the behavior one would expect of contemporary anti-Dreyfusards in the Justice Department plotting to scapegoat AIPAC and the Jews.

Clearly the Rosen-Weissman defense team is involved in a bit of “greymail,” that is, forcing the government to disclose as much classified information as possible during the discovery phase of this case and hoping to derail the prosecution entirely as it weighs the effects of disclosure against the benefits of a possible conviction. As we go to press, Judge T.S. Ellis has ruled against the prosecution's proposal to shield sensitive testimony and evidence behind a veil of pseudonyms and euphemism, which could delay the begining of the trial.

Efforts to embarrass the administration go beyond accusing DOJ and extend to prominent figures such as Condoleezza Rice, who is accused by Abbe Lowell of leaking national defense information to AIPAC as Franklin did. Gen. Anthony Zinni is being targeted in a similar manner. Both have been subpoenaed, along with David Satterfield, deputy chief of the U.S. mission to Iraq, and William Burns, U.S. ambassador to Russia, to testify. If Rosen and Weissman are going down, the Israel lobby seems to be saying, then so are a lot of prominent people—some of whom, like Zinni, just happen to be their enemies.

This isn’t greymail, it’s blackmail. It was Zinni, after all, who said of the Israel lobby and the neoconservatives: “I think it’s the worst-kept secret in Washington. Everybody—everybody I talk to in Washington—has known and fully knows what their agenda was [during the run up to the Iraq War] and what they were trying to do.”

The intrigue thickened last October as word leaked that a proposed deal was dangled in front of Rep. Jane Harman: AIPAC would back her to become head of the House Intelligence Committee if she would urge the government to treat Rosen, Weissman—and AIPAC itself—with kid gloves. The Forward reported, “Several congressional sources confirmed that major donors to the Democratic Party have been lobbying Pelosi on behalf of Harman’s nomination to head the intelligence committee and that these attempts were not welcomed by the House Democratic leader.” Time named Haim Saban, the billionaire Hollywood producer and major AIPAC moneybags, as one of the supplicants. Pelosi didn’t fall for it, and Harman was rebuffed. Perhaps this was in the background when the speaker was booed as she addressed the subsequent AIPAC national conference, although Pelosi got back in the Israel lobby’s good graces after she stripped a provision from the military appropriations bill that would have required the president to go to Congress for permission to attack Iran.

The defense has fought to get the case against Rosen and Weissman thrown out on any number of grounds: the Espionage Act is unconstitutional, it doesn’t apply to their clients but only to government officials, and, last but not least, it’s a violation of the Israel lobby’s First Amendment “right” to betray classified information to its masters in Tel Aviv. Twisting and turning, threatening and spitting, delaying as best it can, the defense has tried to wriggle out of it every which way, to no avail. The trial is going forward, and the public spectacle of the biggest espionage scandal involving Israel since the prosecution of Pollard could deliver a body blow to the Israel lobby at a time when it has come in for public scrutiny and criticism as never before.

But that hasn’t prevented the lobby from brazenly defending the accused spies, in spite of the preponderance of evidence, and even hailing them as patriots. Writing in The Forward, Michael Berenbaum avers, “Instead of being grounds for prosecution, perhaps the influence Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman were trying to exert—making officials and the public aware of the danger from Iran—should be heralded.” And why should we hail espionage as laudable in this instance? Well, you see, because the AIPAC defendants were ahead of their time in citing the danger from Iran: “In Washington, as Rosen and Weissman are learning the hard way, the ‘crime’ is often not being wrong, but rather being right too early or at the wrong time, or being out of sync with the conventional wisdom, or pushing an inconvenient truth.”

In light of Judge Ellis’s recent ruling that in this trial the Espionage Act is going to be interpreted narrowly and that the burden is on the prosecution to show that the defendants knowingly harmed U.S. national security interests, the defense might be expected to make a pitch similar to Berenbaum’s—that, instead of prosecuting Rosen and Weissman, we ought to be pinning medals on their chests.

The AIPAC defendants weren’t spies, they were merely ahead of the curve, anticipating the day when a distinction is no longer being made between American and Israeli interests. That is the line we are hearing, as the curtain goes up on the trial of Rosen and Weissman. Whether the jury or the public falls for it remains to be seen.
___________________________________________

Justin Raimondo is editorial director of Antiwar.com.

May 7, 2007 Issue

AIPAC Trial Likely to be Postponed

The unprecedented trial of two former officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, who are charged under the Espionage Act with unlawful receipt and disclosure of national defense information, is likely to be postponed from its scheduled start date on June 4.

The need to resolve disagreements between the parties over the handling of classified information involved in the case will "knock the trial date into a cocked hat," said Judge T.S. Ellis, III at an April 19 hearing.

The Judge gave prosecutors until May 2 to decide whether they will propose a new set of "substitutions" for classified evidence, which would then need to be reviewed by the defense and the court under the provisions of the Classified Information Procedures Act.

Alternatively, prosecutors may decide to stand fast with their previous proposal to bar public access to the classified evidence, a position that the judge has already rejected, thereby setting the stage for an appeal.

Judge Ellis issued a detailed memorandum opinion (pdf) on April 19 to explain why he concluded that the prosecution proposal to exclude public access to classified evidence is not authorized by statute or precedent.

The memorandum opinion advised the government that any proposal to exclude public access to classified evidence would have to be thoroughly supported by "a highly detailed explanation of the ensuing harms to national security... [since] much of the classified information at issue [here] is not self-evidently damaging to national security."

Posted by Steven Aftergood on April 24, 2007 12:03 PM | Permalink

Zionist horror, at Palestine human rights protests in Michigan

"Most Saturdays, a half-dozen to a dozen or more members of Jewish Witnesses for Peace and Friends hold signs against Israel ("Israel Commits Atrocities"), against U.S. policy ("Stop U.S. Aid to Israel") and against supporters of Israel ("Israel Lobby Inside"). Sometimes they videotape the worshipers as they arrive."
---

Thursday, April 12, 2007

NEWS: Counter-Protest
Non-Jews lead effort to stop Shabbat demonstrations in Ann Arbor.

Don Cohen
Special to the Jewish News

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Ann Arbor

How can a community like ours, that rightly prides itself on being a liberal and respectful one, be silent in the face of this kind of abuse of our Jewish neighbors?"

That is the question that Larry Crockett and others in the recently formed Worship Without Harassment group ask fellow Ann Arborites regarding the picketing of Beth Israel Congregation each Saturday morning for the past three years.

Most Saturdays, a half-dozen to a dozen or more members of Jewish Witnesses for Peace and Friends hold signs against Israel ("Israel Commits Atrocities"), against U.S. policy ("Stop U.S. Aid to Israel") and against supporters of Israel ("Israel Lobby Inside"). Sometimes they videotape the worshipers as they arrive.

The Ann Arbor City Council, area religious leaders and the Ann Arbor News have condemned the pickets to no avail.

In an opinion piece in the Ann Arbor News in January, Beth Israel's Rabbi Robert Dobrusin said the signs "contain false and hateful statements crafted to be provocative and offensive." As to the protesters' claim that they seek dialogue and their demand for a synagogue-hosted platform to present their views, Rabbi Dobrusin wrote that the Shabbat protests "are disrespectful, intrusive, insensitive and counter-productive to any true dialogue on this subject in this community."

Crockett, a member of First Unitarian Universalist Church of Ann Arbor, has observed the picketing a few times and found it "disgusting," saying there are proper forums and venues to demonstrate about political issues. He also suspects that Jews are being singled out in a way that other religious groups wouldn't be, and that beyond political differences anti-Semitism is likely at play.

"I think if it had happened at a mainline church, it would have been over in a month; someone would have found a way to stop it," he says.

An answer on the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page on the group's Web site also addresses the issue of anti-Semitism: "When Jews - and only Jews - are subjected to this kind of behavior, then what might the appropriate term to describe that be?" it says.

Crockett urges friends of the Jewish community to show support by signing an online petition, sending letters of support to the congregation and speaking out at their own religious institutions in support of Beth Israel and against protests at houses of worship. To contact the group, or sign the online petition, which had 328 signators at last count, visit the Web site

www.worshipwithoutharassment.org.

In July 2005, some Beth Israel congregants formed SPURN (Synagogue Protest Unacceptable! Respond Now) to encourage donations to the American Friends of Magen David Adom, supporters of Israel's emergency medical service, as a positive response to the protests. To date, it has raised just under $85,000. See

www.aaspurn.org for information.

URL

A Bitter Spat Over Ideas, Israel and Tenure: Finkelstein vs Dershowitz

April 12, 2007

By PATRICIA COHEN

If the longstanding fight between two professors, Alan Dershowitz and Norman Finkelstein, was under the jurisdiction of family court, a judge could issue restraining orders and forbid inflammatory statements. But, alas, this nasty and zealously pursued feud is taking place in scholarly precincts, so each protagonist is continuing his campaign, unhampered, to destroy the other’s professional reputation and career.

In the latest round, first reported in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Mr. Dershowitz, a law professor at Harvard and a prominent defender of Israel, is trying to derail Mr. Finkelstein’s bid for tenure at DePaul University in Chicago. He has sent a blast of e-mail messages to faculty and administrators there accusing Mr. Finkelstein of shoddy scholarship, lying and anti-Semitism.

Mr. Finkelstein, who is going before a university-wide review panel on Friday, the third and final step of the tenure process, said that so far two committees — one from the political science department and one from the college as a whole — voted in favor of tenure. But the college dean rejected his advisory committee’s vote and recommended against an appointment.

“I am personally confident that had the process been without outside interferences, I would have gotten tenure,” Mr. Finkelstein said. (Tenure decisions will be announced in June, said Denise Mattson, a spokeswoman for DePaul.)

Regardless of the outcome Mr. Dershowitz has managed to irritate many people besides Mr. Finkelstein. “Everyone has been offended by the degree of outside pressure,” said Michael Budde, the chairman of DePaul’s political science department, “which shows no respect for the integrity of our process and institution.” On Tuesday the Middle East Studies Association, which represents scholars, sent a letter to DePaul’s president expressing concern that this tenure decision had been “unduly politicized.”

--MORE--

Related

Zionism vs. Anti-Zionism: Dershowitz Tries To Get Finklestein Fired

Finding the Courage to Negotiate: Pelosi, AIPAC and Foreign Policy

The Berkeley Daily Planet

Editorial

By Becky O’Malley


So let us begin anew, remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof. Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate.
—President John F. Kennedy


These words are from Kennedy’s first inaugural address. That speech marked a generation, my generation. Nancy Pelosi, a politically aware woman of my own age, like me a college student in 1961, cannot have escaped hearing that speech and being influenced by it all of her adult life, as we all were. The attitude it embodied ultimately resulted in the end of a repressive regime in the former Soviet Union, without the atomic war that many in 1961 thought was inevitable. Kennedy described the belief system he hoped to counter: “[B]oth sides overburdened by the cost of modern weapons, both rightly alarmed by the steady spread of the deadly atom, yet both racing to alter that uncertain balance of terror that stays the hand of mankind’s final war.” Kennedy and his successors made many mistakes along the way, but his assertion that negotiation was the only way to end the balance of terror and avoid the atomic Armageddon which threatened to destroy the planet paid off in the end.

Pelosi, now a grandmother like me, is continuing to follow Kennedy’s advice by visiting leaders of potentially warring nations in the Mideast and urging negotiations. Tom Lantos, the only Holocaust survivor in Congress, is going along. Her credentials as a supporter of Israel, like his, are rock-solid, but no matter, the twerps are nipping at their heels.

Dick Cheney, briefly emerging from his undisclosed hidey-hole, led the attack, which has now trickled down to lesser-con luminaries like columnist Debra Saunders. The most foolish version of all this was Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s suggestion that Pelosi shouldn’t have worn a headscarf when she visited a mosque. “I just don’t know what got into her head, to be completely honest with you,” he said. “Her going to a state which is, without question, a sponsor of terror, and having her picture taken with Assad and being seen in a head scarf and so forth is sending the wrong signal to the people of Syria and to the people of the Middle East.”

Perhaps Romney, who is a Mormon, doesn’t knew that when Nancy and I were growing up Catholic women were always required to cover their heads in church, and that even Protestant princesses (there were no women Speakers in those days) donned veils when calling on the Pope. As a mayor’s daughter she’s undoubtedly grown up seeing politicians of all faiths bobby-pin yarmulkes to their heads when courting Jewish voters. Wearing a scarf is no big deal.

Lantos has even suggested that a trip to Iran should be the next item on the agenda, a proposal which Pelosi’s political staff quickly rejected, but don’t bet against it nevertheless. The time for talking to all parties is now, as sensible Israelis and Americans, even some Republicans, are starting to admit. Pelosi carried what she thought was a peace message to Syria from Israel, only to have clueless Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert deny that he’d intended any such thing, probably under pressure from the Bush White House.

But the time has come to talk. George Soros, international financier, philanthropist and determined advocate of what he believes to be human rights imperatives, came out of the political closet with a piece in the April 12 New York Review of Books.

He said that “The Bush administration is once again in the process of committing a major policy blunder in the Middle East, one that is liable to have disastrous consequences and is not receiving the attention it should. This time it concerns the Israeli–Palestinian relationship. The Bush administration is actively supporting the Israeli government in its refusal to recognize a Palestinian unity government that includes Hamas, which the U.S. State Department considers a terrorist organization. This precludes any progress toward a peace settlement at a time when progress on the Palestinian problem could help avert a conflagration in the greater Middle East.” His statement was dated March 15, before Pelosi’s trip, but its endorsement of the necessity of negotiation certainly applies to talking to Syria as well.

With a great deal of trepidation, remarkable in someone with as much influence and even power as Soros has, he zeroed in on the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) as one of the principal obstacles to peace:

“I am not sufficiently engaged in Jewish affairs to be involved in the reform of AIPAC; but I must speak out in favor of the critical process that is at the heart of our open society. I believe that a much-needed self-examination of American policy in the Middle East has started in this country; but it can’t make much headway as long as AIPAC retains powerful influence in both the Democratic and Republican parties. Some leaders of the Democratic Party have promised to bring about a change of direction but they cannot deliver on that promise until they are able to resist the dictates of AIPAC.” Even though Soros is himself Jewish and a strong supporter of Israel, he knows that he is exposing himself to personal attacks for taking this position.

Pelosi, like many Democratic politicians in the Bay Area including Lantos, Assemblymember Hancock and Mayor Bates among others, has in the past been a vocal and visible supporter of AIPAC. That puts her in a good position to jump boldly into the negotiating process, just as Nixon’s history of anti-Communism put him in a good position to open negotiations with China. Even so, it has taken a considerable amount of courage for her to do so, and for Lantos and Congressman Henry Waxman to get her back as she does. It’s not too much to ask that other Democratic political leaders, especially those in safer-than-safe Northern California seats, should now demonstrate similar courage in resisting AIPAC’s undue influence on American and Israeli policy and speaking out in favor of open negotiations with all parties in the Middle East.

Since The Victims Are Arabs and Muslims

Ayoon wa Azan

Jihad el-Khazen Al-Hayat - 13/04/07//

In New York, Darfur is the most important issue in the world, or at least this is what the resident or visitor sees and hears. From subway tunnels to the streets, there are thousands of posters talking about 'genocide' and 400,000 people killed, with advertisements in the newspapers and on television. The lobby to save Darfur claims that it comprises 180 organizations representing 130 million Americans, and its aim is to pressure the Congress and the administration to stop this 'genocide' and punish the Khartoum government.

Darfur is a terrible humanitarian disaster that should not be played down. I am not doing that myself. However, the UN itself said that 200,000 were killed and that what had been committed there were war crimes, not genocide.

I choose to believe the UN, not the lobby to save Darfur, because this lobby is just the Israel lobby nicknamed. The goal is to divert attention from Israel's crimes, or the catastrophe of the war in Iraq.

The US war on Iraq has killed, according to a medical estimate, 655,000 Iraqis. That is, more than three times the dead in Darfur, and perhaps five times if we believe the higher estimate of nearly a million victims. Yet, we do not see posters in New York for the Iraqi victims, nor read about 'genocide' or a call to punish the war cabal on charges of genocide, or at least for committing war crimes.

Today, I pick up on what I said yesterday. The US media tycoon in Iraq is exposed, and the distinguished and capable US press did not resist the war in Iraq as it did over Vietnam. It did not try to expose those responsible for it, as we saw done in the Watergate scandal. The reason, at least in my personal opinion, is that the victims were Arabs and Muslims.

In Darfur, the victims are Muslims. There are 200,000 Muslims killed by Muslims. This lobby, whether of Israel or Darfur, does not defend them. It just makes use of them as a smokescreen to obscure the other crimes stretching from Palestine to Iraq. The Israeli lobby, after all, has been very active in the pursuit of war and still defends it; i.e. still supports killing the youth of the US in an unjustified war to protect Israel's security.

Thus, the US press is not interested because the victims are Arabs and Muslims, and the lobby prevents any in-depth discussion and diverts the attention from the crimes committed every day in Palestine and Iraq.

If there is anyone who questions the influence of the lobby, the AIPAC annual conference last month has provided a sufficient answer, as it attracted senior administration figures and the Democratic opposition at the same time. Vice President Dick Cheney delivered a speech entitled 'The United States and Israel: Tradition and Transcendence'. He stressed that the US "would remain unflinching and steadfast", while the House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), reiterated that the US stands with Israel, now and forever. In short, the lobby announced that half of the members of the Senate and half the members of the House participated in the annual conference, which heard the words of a hundred US officials and guests, as well as some Israelis, such as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, via satellite, and Foreign Minister Tzibi Livne who was present.

I argue that the official Israeli lobby, i.e. the Jewish lobby AIPAC, does not represent US Jews. It is led by an extremist minority of war advocates, while the majority of US Jews are moderate liberals who always lean toward peace. The US presidential elections are undisputable evidence of this. During President George Bush's two campaigns, in 2000 and 2004, no more than 20% of US Jews supported him. In other words, 80% of them voted against the most pro-Israeli US President yet, and this is the highest proportion for an ethnic or religious group in the US elections.

I believe that the lobby is on the way toward paying the price for its fanaticism and for not being representative of the majority of the US Jews. While campaign financing silences candidates, blogs are free from such influence. And there are now many blogs that challenge the lobby, refute its falsehoods and extremism, and enjoy huge popularity. But such issue needs pages to be dealt with properly. I will suffice by saying that many among the leaders of the campaign against the lobby are liberal US Jewish bloggers, who have started to record some remarkable success. This is especially the case after the lobby went too far and began to accuse Jews of anti-Semitism just because they oppose the violations of Israel.

I would not lay the responsibility for the Iraq war on only the lobby, as the US press, particularly the great liberal part of it, is responsible before anyone else. I refuse to believe that newspapers such as the 'New York Times' have failed to find out about the forged Niger uranium letters, or cover the fabrication story as they had done with Watergate. On the other hand, a young Italian woman journalist discovered the forgery easily by herself. The forgery was confirmed by Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). I also do not believe that the US press did not see clear and flagrant errors in Bush's State of the Union address on January 28, 2003, or in the then Secretary of State Colin Powell's speech in front of the UN Security Council on February 5, 2003, a speech Powell himself said, some time later, was the lowest point in the history of his political career.

Members of Congress stood and clapped a great deal for Bush, and the US press published praises about Powell's speech. If the shortfall had come from the Arab press, which is negligent by nature, I would have accepted their excuse. But the US press is smarter than to be tricked, and has its traditions and its freedoms that would have made it easier to expose the crime of the war, if it had wanted to. I will continue this topic in a few days.

http://www.j-khazen.blogspot.com/

Norman G. Finkelstein Solidarity Campaign

SCHOLARS, TEACHERS, AND PROFESSIONALS FOR INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM IN SUPPORT OF DR. NORMAN FINKELSTEIN

Driving Islamophobia

AN INTERFAITH VIEW

By Lawrence Swaim, Columnist

In the 1950s, ultra-conservatives torpedoed their critics by calling them Communist. Today the same tactic is used against Muslim organizations by calling them apologists for terrorism. And like the 1950s, the intent of the ultra-conservatives today is to distract the public from their own undemocratic maledictions. As the French say, "The more things change, the more they stay the same." It was a déjà vu all over again, too, when Republicans in the House of Representatives asked Nancy Pelosi to deny the Council on Islamic-American Relations (CAIR) a capital conference room for a seminar. If religious McCarthyism is the intent of House Republicans, so is their ultimate political intent. They want to peel off Jewish voters from the Democratic base, moving them to the right by an appeal to Islamophobia. That was precisely the strategy behind Karl Rove’s gambit of putting Daniel Pipes on the Board of Directors at the Institute of Peace. This latest move also aims to expose the Democratic leadership as unprincipled flip-floppers by hassling Nancy Pelosi until she caves in to their demands. The Republicans want more votes and money from the pro-Israel lobby, while driving the Dems crazy by threatening their base. So how does one react to terror-baiting? Go on the offensive. The more you try to explain that you’re not a terrorist, the more the Islamophobes will control the discussion. Single out your most vulnerable attackers by name and sue them for defamation. Then show how they and their friends are undermining religious liberty in America, and how their political posturing is based on religious bigotry. Show how they support authoritarian government, torture and the Iraq war. Root your arguments in religious and political pluralism, the American constitution, and the American way of life. Show how religious McCarthyism helps the terrorists and besmirches America’s good name in the Muslim and Arabic-speaking worlds. Insist that it endangers the lives of our young people in uniform. Fight back with everything in your legal and rhetorical arsenal. Secondly, we need to find better ways of confronting the underlying problem that drives Islamophobia in America. It’s all about Israel, folks, and the way Jews and Muslims get defined by various contending parties to that issue. More than anything we need a frank and open national debate about Israel/Palestine and the future of American foreign policy, but we’ll never get there until we confront the pro-Israel lobby head-on. What we need more than anything is at least one quality website and publication dedicated solely to monitoring the activities of "the lobby." Such a website/publication would recruit the best writers—Jewish, Christian and Muslim—as well as established experts on the Middle East. It would research and report on the activities of the pro-Israel lobby, with profiles of its major actors and public criticism of their position papers. This news outlet would recruit sources within "the lobby" to keep activists informed of internals power struggles. Above all it would track how money is distributed from the pro-Israel lobby and who receives it. The problem, of course, is funding for such a watchdog group. Regular funding sources wouldn’t be caught dead helping such a project. Funding has to come from within the community most affected, which will be American Muslims. But many well-to-do Muslims haven’t yet figured out the importance of interest organizations in American politics. They’re good at making brick-and-mortar donations for houses of worship and community centers, and also fund quality educational programs about Islam, but may not yet see how important it is to carry on an aggressive daily struggle for Muslim civil rights. That struggle will be increasingly defined by how well we can open up the discussion about Israel/Palestine. Without that discussion, the Islamophobes will use money, influence and gutter politics to impose uncritical support of Israel. The first target in their sights is the organized Muslim community. Lawrence Swaim is the Executive Director of the Interfaith Freedom Foundation. He taught for eight years at Pacific Union College, and his academic specialties are American Studies and American literature. His column addresses current affairs from an American Christian and Interfaith perspective.

Israel's apologists distort the truth

Last updated March 27, 2007 5:39 p.m. PT

STEVE NIVA
GUEST COLUMNIST

The fairy-tale view of Israel as eternally besieged and completely faultless in its conflict with the Palestinians, as presented by David Brumer in the March 18 Focus ("Play shines light on conflict"), has certainly taken a hit this past year.

A growing number of Americans who deeply sympathize with Israel, including former President Jimmy Carter, have spoken eloquently of the need to recognize that Israel has committed severe human rights violations against the Palestinian people through its nearly 40-year military occupation and theft of Palestinian land for Israeli settlements. While extremely critical of Palestinian terrorism, they conclude that peace with security is not possible until Israel ends the injustices.

Perhaps that is why Israel's more fervent apologists are resorting to distortion and defamation as their preferred method to discredit anyone who dares acknowledge Palestinian grievances or Israel's grave and well-documented human rights abuses. Carter is facing an onslaught of malicious charges that range from intentionally lying to anti-Semitism. They want to silence an emerging debate over the United States' one-sided embrace of Israel.

This method of attacking the messenger is clearly on display in Brumer's article as well as in the flurry of protest against the play "My Name is Rachel Corrie" at the Seattle Repertory Theatre. The play tells the story of the 23-year-old woman from Olympia crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer demolishing Palestinian homes in the Gaza Strip.

Instead of joining with Carter, Rachel Corrie and countless others, many Israeli and Jewish, who recognize Israel's occupation and settlements are unjustified and prevent peace, Brumer peddles defamation and falsehoods about Corrie masquerading as reasonable criticism.

Claiming that Corrie was even "unwittingly" supporting terrorists is contradicted by the fact that the Israeli army has never claimed or provided any evidence that the homes in the neighborhood of Gaza that Corrie was defending when she was killed were concealing tunnels or were involved in attacks on Israelis.

Claiming Corrie was in any way providing cover for suicide bombers is easily proved false by the fact that no Palestinian suicide bombers had come from Gaza three years before or during the time Corrie was there.

Claiming that Corrie was working with an "extremist" organization is contradicted by the fact that the International Solidarity Movement to End the Occupation is composed of leading Palestinian voices of non-violence and supported by numerous Israeli peace groups.

Legitimate questions can be raised about Corrie's risky decision to enter into a very dangerous conflict zone. But that zone was dangerous precisely because Israel has imposed a merciless military occupation over a largely defenseless population and was wantonly demolishing homes to steal land for Israeli settlements.

One can certainly and rightly blame, as Brumer does, Palestinian extremists for damaging the moral justness of the Palestinian cause through murderous and strategically worthless suicide bombings that have killed hundreds of innocent Israelis.

But none of that justifies Israel continuing to steal Palestinian land and building a wall deep within Palestinian lands to annex those settlements. Nor does it prevent Israel from taking unilateral steps to vacate completely the land that it has illegally occupied since 1967.

Brumer's complete silence regarding Israel's occupation and settlements implies that it does.

Brumer's implicit justification for Israel's occupation and settlements is the continually recycled myth that Israel has always extended its hand of peace while Palestinians have always rejected it. This myth conveniently ignores the fact Israel's "generous offer" at Camp David in 2000 was based on Israel annexing the bulk of its settlements, cutting any Palestinian state into five tiny enclaves surrounded by Israel. Brumer touts Israel's recent withdrawal from Gaza, but ignores Israel's withering siege upon its imprisoned population.

Brumer also justifies the status quo by emphasizing the immutable extremism of Hamas. But the fact is that Hamas has not conducted a single suicide bombing in nearly two years and has endorsed a reciprocal truce with Israel if it were to withdraw completely to its 1967 borders. But Israel completely rejects those terms, missing a historic opportunity to undercut Hamas extremism.

Those who truly support a balanced and just peace in the Middle East should honestly debate Corrie's life and legacy. Her very act of acknowledging legitimate Palestinians grievances and her promotion of alternatives to violence was a message of hope and peace sorely lacking today.

By attacking the messenger, Corrie's detractors are sending a clear message opposed to hope and peace.

Steve Niva teaches international politics and Middle East studies at The Evergreen State College in Olympia.

The War of Terror and the US “National Interest”

by Kim Petersen

March 28, 2007

Why is it that US politicians feel compelled to appear before a small, delimited section of the United States and pronounce unwavering support for Israel -- which is de facto support for ethnic cleansing and slow motion genocide? Why is it the administration of a superpower feels forced to address this small segment of the US population? Is this in the US “national interest”?

US vice president Dick Cheney, a major figure in the drive to invade and occupy Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere, claims that it is in the interest of US security. He shirks responsibility for the massive devastation wreaked by the occupiers in Iraq and denounces critics of the destruction for exercising 20/20 hindsight. But many progressive commentators were opposed prior to the invasion-occupation of Iraq. They had attacked the nugatory evidence for Iraq’s possession of outlawed weapons-of-mass-destruction (WMD) as propagandistic.

While eschewing hindsight, Cheney has the audacity to claim foresight. This past 24 March, Cheney spoke to the Republican Jewish Coalition leadership in Florida. He said, “But the biggest mistake of all can be seen in advance: A sudden withdrawal of our coalition [in Iraq] would dissipate much of the effort that has gone into fighting the global war on terror, and result in chaos and mounting danger.”

Cheney declaimed, “We must consider . . . just what a precipitous withdrawal would mean to our other efforts in the war on terror, to our interests in the broader Middle East, and to Israel.”

Let’s consider this. First, besides exposing the fraudulent casus belli of possessing WMD, the aggression of Iraq adduced that it was no threat by quickly toppling the regime of Saddam Hussein. The aggression has given rise to a vigorous resistance that has dented the notion of an invincible US military. Second, as Cheney noted, it was not US interests in Israel, but US interests to Israel! Why does the US vice president genuflect to Jewish-Israeli interests? Certainly Palestinian-Israeli interests are not considered.

Twice this month in the build-up to an attack on Iran, Cheney has spoken publicly to Jewish groups but not publicly to Arab or Muslim groups. But that is not surprising, as the enemy is identified as being among Arabs and Muslims, and there is no talking to that “enemy.” Cheney stated, “An enemy with fantasies of martyrdom is not going to sit down at a table for negotiations. . . . The only option for our security and survival is to go on the offensive -- facing the threat directly, patiently, and systematically, until the enemy is destroyed.”

The Bush-Cheney regime’s focus is on violence. “The first priority is to remember that we are a nation at war . . .” So in Iraq, there is a push for a troop build-up, and in Afghanistan the US and NATO forces prepare for further violence.

Cheney undermined his raison d’être for the invasion-occupation of Iraq when he stated the mission’s focus is based on the “attacks of September 11th, 2001, and the loss that morning of nearly 3,000 innocent people here in the United States.” Iraq’s involvement in those attacks has never been demonstrated. None of the 9-11 suspects were Iraqi. No connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda has been demonstrated. Yet, Cheney asserted ex cathedra that Iraq’s non-involvement is a myth.

Cheney concluded, “If you support the war on terror, then it only makes sense to support it where the terrorists are fighting us.”

It is easy to demonize the “enemy” with language, but what is clear is that the killing of one million Iraqis is a genocidal campaign. Americans and citizens of the world do have a choice: support US terrorism and the continued destruction of the cradle of civilization or stand for peace.


Kim Petersen, Co-Editor of Dissident Voice, can be reached at: kim@dissidentvoice.org.

CAMERA's condemnation of Peace Now report nothing but spin, distortion

Peace Now makes no bones about being a Zionist organization(they initially supported the war on Lebanon. Some peace group), but has admitted a great deal of settlements are on legally owned Palestinian land. If you think about it, all Jewish Israelis are living on Palestinian owned land.

Related
HOW ISRAEL CONTROLS WHAT YOU READ
The Orwellian named CAMERA: Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America
CAMERA is a particularly vile far right Zionist propaganda organ that distorts the truth into absurdity on a regular basis.
---
Peace Now committed to truth

CAMERA's condemnation of Peace Now report nothing but spin, distortion

Ori Nir Published: 03.29.07, 10:31 / Israel Opinion

CAMERA’s continued criticism of Peace Now’s report on West Bank settlement construction on private Palestinian land (Tamar Sternthal: “Wildly inaccurate report” – 21 March 2007) is odd.

It’s peculiar because the newly submitted official Israeli government data, with which Peace Now updated its November 2006 report on this issue, strongly substantiates the original report. The official data, which Peace Now was able to receive from the West Bank’s Civil Administration after a long legal battle, leave no room for doubt about Peace Now’s findings: Large portions of the West Bank land in control of the settlers – as much as one third – are privately owned by Palestinians.

This finding has serious implications for Israel’s security and for the legality of these settlement sites under Israeli law.

You would think that the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America would be interested in presenting the facts - accurately. But since CAMERA’s Sternthal did such a poor job with them in her commentary, let’s review:

The original Peace Now report was based on Civil Administration data, dated 2004, which was leaked to Peace Now by a credible source. Peace Now held off for a long time before releasing its report, hoping that the government would respond positively to its request to provide the official data. Unfortunately, this didn’t happen, and Peace Now was forced to sue the government under Israel’s freedom of information law.

When the government did eventually respond, it argued that release of the data could damage Israel’s foreign relations. Peace Now understood this as a clear indication both that the government recognized how embarrassing and compromising the facts were, and that the government was ready to go to great lengths to avoid releasing the data.

Peace Now subsequently decided to release its report, based on the leaked data, in part to challenge the government to release what clearly ought to be in the public domain. This tactic appears to have worked, and shortly after the report’s was published, the government agreed to settle out of court and released the official data.

This new dataset is dated 2007. The information is fresh and it is official. And it generally substantiates the findings of November’s report. Yes, there are discrepancies between the two reports but they reflect differences between the two datasets, not errors in Peace Now’s thesis or analysis.

The whole truth

In some cases, the new data paint a picture that is worse than originally reported: In some settlements, the percentage of privately owned Palestinian land is larger than what the 2004 database showed. In other cases, the percentage of privately owned Palestinian land is smaller than what the 2004 database showed.

One such settlement is Ma’ale Adumim, the second-largest settlement in the West Bank. What CAMERA fails to note, or tries to hide, is that this one case accounts for nearly the entire difference between the 2004 and the 2007 data. If you leave Ma’ale Adumim out of the analysis, the remaining discrepancies amount to only 1%.

What is the reason for the differences between these two sets of data? There is no clear answer. Those who may know sit in the Civil Administration, and they are not telling. We can only speculate: Possibly, there were land acquisitions between 2004 and 2007, or, more likely, some of the land could have been declared “State Land.” It is also possible that the differences are a result of the reexamination of West Bank land status by a newly appointed Civil Administration taskforce (known as the “Blue Line Team.”)

Whatever the reason, Peace Now has not tried to hide the discrepancies, regardless of whether they paint a better or worse picture of the situation. Peace Now promptly updated the public with all of the new data right after completing its analysis earlier this month.

CAMERA, however, seems more interested in discrediting Peace Now than in telling the story straight. It is yet another example for how an organization that purports to promote “accuracy” offers nothing more than spin and distortion.

Peace Now has done its utmost - and will continue to do so - to bring the best available information about settlements into the public domain. Unlike CAMERA, it does not fear the truth and does not distort it. It certainly was not Peace Now who created the damaging facts on the ground in the West Bank.

What happens in the West Bank impacts the security and wellbeing of all Israelis. Peace Now and its American sister organization believe that Israelis and their friends in America have the right to know the truth about it. The whole truth.

Ori Nir, former West Bank correspondent for the Israeli daily Haaretz, is the spokesman for Americans for Peace Now, a Zionist organization that promotes Israel's security through peace.

Peace-loving goose chase

Israel is railing that even the mild language of the Arab peace initiative must be replaced by its own demands, writes Ramzy Baroud

---

The rapid -- even hasty -- developments on the Arab-Israeli front that followed almost immediately the Saudi-sponsored Mecca Accord of 2 February should be examined in their proper context, as part and parcel of broad regional shifts, exacerbated by US failure in Iraq and the dramatic adjustment in Iran's position vis-à-vis the region and its sectarian, religious composition.

Two prevailing analyses have been offered. One is sceptical, arguing that the Arab initiative, which will be rearticulated at a coming Arab League summit in Riyadh 28 March, was brought back to the scene at the behest of the US administration: by engaging Hamas, Arabs will deny Iran opportunity to further galvanise its regional alliances -- Syria and Hizbullah -- against the US and Israel and further cementing the "Shia crescent" at the expense of the Sunni majority.

The other analysis is optimistic, from Palestinian and Arab commentators talking of "historic opportunities" to Western commentators wondering if the Arab League will finally fulfill its regional promise. "Worried by what they see as the Bush administration's failings, and the new regional power of Iran, the Arabs are struggling to take their destiny into their own hands," concluded BBC Middle East analyst Roger Hardy.

The Arab peace initiative, offering full normalisation with Israel in simultaneous exchange for Israel's withdrawal to pre-1967 borders, was made public in the 2002 Arab League summit in Beirut. It came at the height of the Palestinian uprising. The initiative was immediately rejected by the Israeli government and accepted by Arafat. Its release was a cause of a slight discomfort for Israel, however, principally because the Bush administration viewed it in positive terms -- at the beginning at least -- before disowning it under incessant Israeli pressure.

In the weeks preceding the official announcement of the Arab peace initiative, Israel had assassinated Raed Al-Karmi, Fatah leader in Tulkarm in the West Bank, prompting fresh Palestinian suicide bombings. "Karmi's assassination led to the scuttling of the truce that had lasted since December 16, 2001," Akiva Aldar in Haaretz quoted Mati Steinberg, advisor on Palestinian affairs to the head of the Shin Bet security service, as saying. "It also led to Operation Defensive Shield, which pushed the Arab initiative to the margins and eliminated the opportunity to put the diplomatic track with the Palestinians on a route of direct connection with the Arab peace initiative for the first time."

The Middle East of those days is in many ways different from today's regional reality. Although Israel's colonial project is being pursued with the same level of determination (the apartheid wall, the settlements, the collective punishments, and so forth), Israel's regional reputation as a formidable military power received a significant blow when its army couldn't advance more than a few miles before confronting stiff Lebanese resistance, led by Hizbullah, in the 33-day war of July-August 2007. Neither Israel nor the US were willing to concede that that ferocious fight put up by the Lebanese had much to do with the people's strong belief in a just case. Their fingers pointed to Iran: the head of the snake as far as America's neoconservatives' clique are concerned.

Iran understood that Hizbullah's victory would discourage, slow down, or completely repeal any American military adventure against its own domain. Naturally, a defeat for Hizbullah, relying mostly on Iranian arms, would eliminate the first line of Iran's defences and inspire Washington's hawks, in constant coordination with Israel, to prepare the American public and government for war against Iran.

Not that a war against Iran is no longer on the agenda; on the contrary, something will be done to confront the Iranian "threat". But one has to understand that Israel cannot possibly allow for a regional bully aside from itself to emerge.

It was this logic, as articulated by Richard Pearle in a set of recommendations made to then Likud leader Benyamin Netanyahu in the infamous "Clean Break" memo that envisaged the Iraq war as a strategic Israeli imperative. Iraq or Iran, Sunni or Shia, are all irrelevant semantics, in Israel's view. The failure, however, to "contain" Iran, coupled with America's disastrous war strategy in Iraq, which has given rise to powerful Shia groups with direct links, and in some cases allegiance, to Tehran is sending Israel's military and policy planners to the table, once more, to study their future options.

Israel and its supporters in America are obsessed with Iran. In the well-attended American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference -- drawing 6000 participants including half of the Senate and a large portion of the House along with numerous ambassadors and officials -- Israel's many friends underlined the synergy between Israeli strategic interests and US regional concerns, placing the latter largely subservient to the former. When House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio addressed the conference, defending the current war strategy, he received a standing ovation. But when Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi -- unequalled fan of the Israeli regime -- dared to spell out a strategy for withdrawal from Iraq, she was booed, according to The San Francisco Chronicle.

The power of the Israeli lobby and the persisting influence of the neocons have reached new heights when Democratic leaders were obliged to strip from a military spending bill a requirement that the president must gain the approval of Congress before moving against Iran. Pelosi and others agreed to such a removal "after conservative Democrats as well as other lawmakers worried about its possible impact on Israel," reported ABC News.

With Iran in focus, coupled with serious worries amongst some Arab countries regarding its possible destabilising role in the region, Israel has agreed to a conditional arrangement: contain Iran to Israel's benefit; stabilise Iraq to the Bush administration's benefit; and introduce a new horizon of peace with the Palestinians to appease the Arabs.

The new horizon of peace -- a new term invoked by Condoleezza Rice in her recent visit to the region -- is basically the old "peace process": significant enough insofar as it yields a sense of hope, but clever enough in guaranteeing nothing, since Israel, assured of unprecedented clout in the corridors of power in Washington, will neither give up its grand plans of territorial expansion and annexation, halt its construction of the gigantic apartheid wall, nor surrender an inch of the illegally-annexed East Jerusalem -- all, predictably, key Arab and Palestinian demands.

Meanwhile, the Arab initiative always seemed vague on the issue of Palestinians made refugees by Israel in 1948 and 1967 and whose plight is as urgent as ever (especially considering their systematic targeting in Iraq, including 500 murdered to date, and Libya's decision to deport its cache of Palestinian refugees to Gaza, as callous as this seems). In order to remove any remaining ambiguity, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni is "demanding that the leaders of the 22 Arab states excise the right of return from [the Palestinians]," reports Haaretz.

By crossing out the "controversial" elements contained in the Arab initiative and then opening it up for negotiations, Palestinians -- now browbeaten with a year of embargo and near starvation -- will be taken on another peace-loving goose chase, during which Israeli army bulldozers will hardly cease their determined colonial project. My fear is that Arabs will play along, willingly or not, and Palestinians will be forced to partake in the charade, for their reliance on international handouts for mere survival will make it impossible to defy US-Israeli regional designs forever.

* The writer is an Arab American journalist

© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved

Al-Ahram Weekly Online

Israel Lobby Targets Tax Honesty Movement; Mid-East Policy v. the U.S. Constitution

Mid-East Policy v. the U.S. Constitution
---
March 22, 2007

Israel Lobby Targets
Tax Honesty Movement

Are Kidd, Becraft, Banister
and Schulz “Extremists”?

As we reported in our previous article, the upcoming Give Me Liberty 2007 conference will examine U.S. Middle East Policy through the prism of the U.S. Constitution. During the conference we will examine the work of professors Mearsheimer (University of Chicago) and Walt (Harvard University) titled, “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy,” and the book by Jimmy Carter titled, Palestine Peace Not Apartheid.

Substantial documentary evidence presented by Mearsheimer, Walt and Carter supports the argument that the United States has abandoned its own national interest and security to advance the interests of Israel, that neither strategic nor moral arguments can justify America’s unconditional support for Israel, that the United States has become the de facto enabler of Israel’s unlawful expansion and military occupation of the Palestinian Territories, and that U.S. policy in the Middle East (including giving Israel well over $140 billion in U.S. income tax revenues) has been driven by the activities of the “Israel Lobby.”

Their work documents how the Israeli Lobby unashamedly boasts of its control over U.S. domestic and foreign policy and public opinion, and attacks any person or organization that criticizes or is perceived to be a threat to Israel’s interests.

According to Mearsheimer and Walt, “We use ‘the Lobby’ as a convenient term for the loose coalition of individuals and organizations who actively work to shape U.S. policy in a pro-Israel direction…The core of the Lobby is comprised of American Jews who make a significant effort in their daily lives to bend U.S. foreign policy so that it advances Israel’s interests.”

Referring to them as “extremists”, the Lobby has attacked columnist Devvy Kidd, constitutional attorney Larry Becraft, former IRS Special Agent Joe Banister, WTP Chairman Bob Schulz and others affiliated with the Tax Honesty Movement who have developed a substantial body of documentary evidence that conclusively proves the present federal income tax is an unlawful (Constitutionally prohibited) direct, un-apportioned tax on the labor of American citizens. See “Extremism In America: Tax Protest Movement” on one of the Israeli Lobby’s websites. (Don’t forget to click on UPDATE)

Why would the Israeli Lobby’s Anti-Defamation League take such a keen interest in defending the method by which the U.S. Government collects its internal revenues?

Why would the Lobby attempt to publicly demonize American citizens who are properly exercising their Right of Free Speech and the Right to Petition the Government for Redress of Grievances, as expressly guaranteed by the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights?

Why would the Lobby concern itself with “extremists” who are peacefully and lawfully defending America’s Constitution and Founding Principles?

--MORE--

A Song Only Obama Hears, A Vision Only Obama Sees

The Presidential Candidate’s Visit To A Remote Palestinian Village Leads Him To Some Strange And Inaccurate Conclusions

by Ira Glunts

Wednesday March 21st, 2007

In an otherwise unremarkable speech delivered March 2 (for full text) to members of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Senator and Presidential candidate Barack Obama concluded his talk by making a startling reference to his brief January 2006 visit to the village of Fassuta [1] in northern Israel. The Senator spoke of “the signs of life and hope and promise” he witnessed there. Toward the end of his speech Mr. Obama stated,

Peace with security. That is the Israeli people’s overriding wish. It [emphases mine] is what I saw in the town of Fassouta on the border with Lebanon. There are 3,000 residents of different faiths and histories. There is a community center supported by Chicago’s own Roman Catholic Archdiocese and the Jewish Federation of Metro Chicago. It is where the education of the next generation has begun: in a small village, all faiths and nationalities living together with mutual respect. [2]

The reality is that the village of Fassuta [3] is not an integrated community as Senator Obama claims, but one that is comprised almost solely of Melkite Christian, Palestinian Arabs. The Melkites, who are Roman Catholics, are part of a greater Christian Arab community, who are themselves a minority among Palestinians living within the pre-1967 Israeli borders. Of course the vast majority of Arabs in both the Israel delineated by the pre-1967 borders and the Israel delineated by the post-1967 borders, are Muslims.

According to official Israeli government statistics for 2005, there were no Jewish residents in Fassuta. In a January 11, 2006 article entitled, “Obama Visits Remote Israeli Town With Chicago Ties,” Chuck Goudie, a reporter at the local Chicago ABC television station, states that “[a]ll 3,000 residents of Fassouta are Israeli, Palestinian and Catholic.” (Earlier in the article Goudie incorrectly states that a majority of Arabs in Israel are Christian.) This article, amazingly, is posted on Senator Obama’s official Senate web site [4].

The support that the Catholic Archdiocese and Jewish Federation have given the villagers of Fassuta is commendable. It is only appropriate that Mr. Obama would want to acknowledge the good works of his constituents. But implying that what he saw there fourteen months ago is an example of present progress toward peace in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict when the region has witnessed so much strife and hardship subsequent to his visit, is disingenuous.

Fassuta, like other Palestinian villages, suffers from a lack of services and infrastructure as a direct result of Israeli government policy. According to the Israeli Central Department of Statistics figures, the average income in Fassuta is 3748 NIS (New Israeli shekels) per wage earner as compared with 6835 NIS for the entire country. The village is rated as average in a government devised socio-economic scale (5 of a possible 10). A past resident whose family still lives there told me that he “wouldn’t describe Fassuta as a ‘poor’ village, although the authorities treat it the way they treat all other Arab villages - with total neglect and dismissiveness.”

The government of Israel views its Palestinian population as second class citizens at best, and officially sanctioned discrimination against its minority communities is openly acknowledged. To the vast majority of Palestinians, who are Sunni Muslims, the small gesture of outside support given to a Christian village would not be viewed as evidence of new signs of progress. But it would be a reminder of the Israeli policy of favoring smaller sectarian groups over the larger Muslim population, in a policy known in Israel as “divide and conquer.” This strategy has been most effectively employed with the Druze community.

In American foreign policy discussions, the above internal state of affairs tends to go unrecognized. Sometime this is because we choose to ignore it, sometimes it is because of lack of knowledge. Often it is because we focus on what many think is the greater, more pressing and more soluble problem – the disposition of territory Israel acquired as a result of the 1967 War and the possible creation of a Palestinian state. Obama’s speech conflates both discussions with equal measures of falsehoods and flights of fancy.

I would never expect Senator Obama to champion the cause of the Palestinian citizens of Israel during his campaign for the Democratic Presidential nomination. In the current US political climate, if he were to do so in front of AIPAC, the least of his problems would be alienating his immediate audience. However, I would expect a Presidential candidate to not draw completely irrelevant and erroneous conclusions about what a town like Fassuta signifies in relation to the “[p]eace with security… [t]hat is the Israeli people’s overriding wish.”

I wonder if Obama even knows that some seven months after his visit, during the last Lebanese/Israeli war, Fassuta sustained heavy damage from Hezbollah shelling. I wonder if Obama knows that the Israeli government does not build bomb shelters in Palestinian villages, as they do in Jewish settlements. This was a particularly egregious oversight in Fassuta since during the last war “Israeli artillery units were stationed in fields near …[the village]…, from where they exchanged shell and rocket fire with H[e]zbollah units.” [5] I wonder if Senator Obama knows that the residents of Fassuta had to bring the Israeli government to court in order to receive equal compensation to that received by those living in neighboring Jewish towns for damage caused by the shelling. Although the residents won their case, it is not clear if they will actually receive compensation equal to that of their Jewish neighbors. [6]

Fassuta’s two most famous natives are Sabri Jiryis and Anton Shammas . Jiryis is a founding member of Al-Ard, a writer, lawyer and political activist. He is a prominent, long-time member of Fatah, who returned to Israel in 1994 after 24 years in exile. His classic 1966 book, The Arabs In Israel, was updated and translated into English in 1976. [7] Jiryis presently divides his time between Ramallah in the West Bank and Fassuta. Anton Shammas, wrote the highly regarded Hebrew autobiographical novel Arabesques, and has been living in a self-imposed exile in Ann, Arbor, Michigan where he is a university professor. Shammas has written about his own difficulties living as a Palestinian in his native land. [8] I do not imagine that Mr. Obama knows about or has met either of these two men. Maybe if Obama had spoken to them, he would not be so quick to point to Fassuta as “[p]roof, that in the heart of so much peril, there were signs of life and hope and promise-that the universal song for peace plays on.”

American politicians are famous for making outrageous statements which demonstrate that they are totally unaware of the cultural and political realities in the foreign nations they visit. It is disappointing that Mr. Obama could be so deaf to the song that he heard, since according to Chicago writer and activist Ali Abunimah, [9] the Senator had attended numerous Arab-American events when he was an Illinois state politician. To describe an atypical village in northern Israel as a sign of hope and promise, and a kind of paradise of dancing children, is to sing a tune which will grate on the ears of those who are familiar with the region.

Mr. Obama is often depicted as a politician who can communicate a message of hope to his listeners. But a message of false hope is destructive and shows a disregard for the suffering of the victims. I do not know what Mr. Obama wanted to communicate to his listeners at AIPAC. However, what he communicated to those who are knowledgeable about the Palestinian/Israeli conflict is that he is not at this time prepared to seriously discuss Middle Eastern policy.

Ira Glunts

Notes

1. The name of the village is generally transliterated as “Fassuta,” and alternately “Fasuta,” or “Fassouta” The latter spelling is used in the text of Obama’s AIPAC speech and in the cited Goudie article.

2. The full text of the speech is available at Senator Obama’s US Senate web site http://obama.senate.gov/speech/070302- aipac_policy_forum_remarks/index.html

3. Some pictures of Fassuta can be found at: http://www.pbase.com/pb975/fasuta

4. Goudie, Chuck, “Obama Visits Remote Israeli Village With Chicago Ties,” January 11, 2006. http://obama.senate.gov/news/060111-obama_visits_
remote_israeli_town_with_chicago_ties/index.html

5. de Quetteville, Harry, "Israel Is Accused Of Racism Over Its War-Payouts,” Telegraph, September 24, 2006.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main. jhtml?xml=/news/2006/09/24/wmid24.xml

6. See above.

7. Ettinger, Yair, “The PLO Is His Life’s Work,” Ha’aretz, November 17, 2004.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=502532

Also see Wikipedia entry for “Jiryis, Sabri.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabri_Jiryis

8. See Kahlil Sakakini Cultural Centre web site entry for “Shammas, Anton.”
http://www.sakakini.org/literature/anton.htm

9. Abunimah, Ali, “How Barack Obama Learned To Loved Israel,” March 4, 2007.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6619.shtml

---

Ira Glunts first visited the Middle East in 1972, where he taught English and physical education in a small rural community in Israel. He was a volunteer in the Israeli Defense Forces in 1992. Mr. Glunts lives in Madison, New York where he writes and operates a used and rare book business. He can be contacted at gluntsi[at]morrisville[dot]edu.

Just Whom Does Congress Represent?

03/23/2007
Joe Murray

By Joe Murray , The Bulletin
Philadelphia

I do believe that Congress should assert itself, though, and make it very clear that there is no previous authority for the president, any president, to go into Iran," declared a confident Speaker of the House just a month or so ago.

Driven by a clear mandate to end the Iraqi conflict, remove American troops from Mesopotamia, and close the curtain on America's "Romeo and Juliet" affair with imperialism, it appeared that this grandmother from San Francisco was poised to tell the White House that the buck stopped at Baghdad. It was to be the culmination of the Democratic coup d'état.

But, as stated by Oscar Wilde, "There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it." First, a little background.

The election of 2006 was the Waterloo of the Bush Doctrine; it was the manifestation of American discontent. Five years after telling Americans that an invasion of Iraq would be met with rose petals and the makeover in Mesopotamia would produce a democratic oasis in Arabia, history has proven the cakewalk crowd to be fatally wrong.

Just into its fifth year, the war in Iraq has spilt the blood of 3,000-plus Americans, severely damaged America's international reputation, increased the number of tripwires that would plunge America into wars that are not her own, and tossed onto the ash heap of history Teddy Roosevelt's advice to "walk softly and carry a big stick."

Tired of sacrificing their blood and treasure for a people who did not seek, nor do not want, America's interference in their domestic affairs, Americans decided to pull the plug on the neo-conservative foreign policy comedy hour in November 2006.

Three months into the Democratic reign, the American people are now ready to pull the line of credit extended to Democrats in November. While they are important issues, Main Street is not primarily concerned with stem cell research, a higher minimum wage, and pharmaceutical/governmental relations; they want answers on Iraq.

Make no mistake; Americans rolled out the red carpet for Pelosi and friends because this war weary people believed that a new Congress would roll back the president's ability to increase the war, bring the troops home and restore a traditional foreign policy. This is what Americans were promised.

"And nowhere did the American people make it more clear that we need a new direction than in the war in Iraq," said Pelosi. "'Stay the course' has not made our country safer, has not honored our commitment to our troops and has not made the region more stable."

Americans took the Democrats at their word, but three months into a Pelosi Congress, Americans are still left with unanswered questions.

Where are the congressional hearings scrutinizing the legitimacy, and source, of the evidence used to propel America into the war? Where is the use of subpoena power that was dangled, like the carrot, before Americans?

Where is the tough-talking Congress that wooed Americans in their time of distress? And more importantly, where is the answer to the tough question of who brought this war upon us?
A few weeks ago, it had appeared that the cowardly Congress had found its courage when it decided to attach a provision to a major military spending bill that required the president to obtain congressional approval if he was to attack Iran. In other words, Congress was putting a stop payment on the blank check used to thrust America into the Iraqi war and telling the White House it had to follow the Constitution before launching another pre-emptive war.

The Legislature was back in business.

With well over 60 percent of Americans backing such provisions, it appeared that the Democrats were well on their way to fulfilling their electoral promise. This, however, did not happen.
Democrats were soon burnt by the flames of fury fanned by a militant minority pushing for a widened conflict in the Middle East. Enter the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

The Washington Times explains: "Last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi received a smattering of boos when she bad-mouthed the war effort during a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and the Democratic leadership, responding to concerns from pro-Israel lawmakers, was forced to strip from a military appropriations measure a provision meant to weaken President Bush's ability to respond to threats from Iran."

What did Pelosi say that so enraged the AIPAC audience? Here is Pelosi in here own words: "Any U.S. military engagement must be judged on three counts - whether it makes our country safer, our military stronger, or the region more stable. The war in Iraq fails on all three scores."
All Pelosi did was tell the AIPAC audience that if America is to spill the blood of its children and expend its resources in fighting a war, it will be for the protection of vital U.S. interests. Pelosi was merely acknowledging the wisdom of the four men whose faces are carved into Mt. Rushmore.

AIPAC, needless to say, went apoplectic and the Iranian provision, the Arc de Triomphe of the Democratic Congress, was leveled. The Democratic Congress elected to write the final chapter on a failed imperialistic foreign policy had turned its back on those who put them in power. It is betrayal that would make Benedict Arnold blush.

Why did this happen? Carah Ong, Iran Policy Analyst at the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation, has her suspicions.

The move to strip the military appropriations bill of this provision, explains Ong, "coincides with AIPAC's annual conference, which Pelosi addressed on Tuesday. It also follows Vice President Dick Cheney's address to the AIPAC annual conference on Monday, during which he pleaded with AIPAC to 'rein in anti-war Democrats' ... ."

Along the same line, David Espo and Matthew Lee, writing for the AP, noted that the removal is reflective of "widespread fear in Israel about Iran, which is believed to be seeking nuclear weapons and has expressed unremitting hostility about the Jewish state."

Translation - Pelosi placed foreign interests before that of the Americans she was elected to represent.

Even more disturbing, AIPAC, despite its clamoring, is not the voice of Jewish America. Ari Berman of The Nation explains: "AIPAC's continued support for the war in Iraq proves how disconnected the organization is from mainstream Jewish Americans. According to a recent Gallup poll, Jewish Americans oppose the war in Iraq more vigorously than any other religious group in the US. Seventy-seven percent of US Jews (and 89 percent of Jewish Democrats!) believe the war in Iraq was a mistake."

In the end, the crux of this matter centers on the power of the Israeli war lobby to affect the legislative process in America. AIPAC is an organization that is unapologetically pro-Israel and makes the fatal mistake of assuming that Tel Aviv's interests are identical to Washington's interests.

It was this type of foreign influence George Washington had in mind when he warned Americans, "a passionate attachment of one Nation for another produces a variety of evils." Washington explained, "Sympathy for the favorite Nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest, in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter, without adequate inducement or justification."

Washington, more than two centuries ago, just explained how America got roped into the mess in Mesopotamia.

Five years after Iraq, the war drums are beating again and Congress must resist the siren song. Just as Washington warned, we cannot let foreign influence dictate U.S. policy and lead us into another war that is not our own.

When Pelosi, in describing Iraqi policy, pledged, "We cannot continue down this catastrophic path," Americans believed her. She was then elected to represent American interests and not the interests of a radical group blinded by its own passions.

Just whom do you represent, Pelosi?


Joe Murray can be reached at jmurray@thebulletin.us.

AIPAC Senators ask Rice to hold the line on aid to the Palestinian government

Senators ask Rice to hold the line on aid to the P.A.

03.22.07

With Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice heading back to the Middle East and rifts developing between Washington and its European allies over diplomacy with the new Palestinian unity government, Congress appears determined to hold the line on limiting aid to a Palestinian Authority still dominated by terrorists.

But many lawmakers also appear nervous about attempts to shut down all contacts with the new government.

That was the subject of a political tempest surrounding a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice by two pro-Israel senators.

Senators John Ensign (R-Nev.) and Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) circulated a letter last week urging Rice to maintain and expand sanctions against the Palesztinian Authority, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee — the pro-Israel lobby — pulled out all the stops in urging other lawmakers to sign on.

The letter noted new American attempts to “reinvigorate the peace process,” and warned that such efforts must not deviate from the three demands imposed on the Palestinian Authority by the international Quartet as a precondition of resumed aid: recognizing Israel’s right to exist, renouncing terrorism, and accepting previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements.

But Ensign and Nelson went further, urging Rice to insist on “no direct aid and no contacts with any members” of a Palestinian Authority that does not meet international conditions.

That, according to groups like Americans for Peace Now, would have barred official contacts even with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, a major change in U.S. policy in the region.

APN, backed by Brit Tzedek v’Shalom, activated its political network and urged senators not to sign the Ensign-Nelson letter; delegates to last week’s AIPAC policy conference supported the letter during their March 13 congressional visits.

But when APN brought the controversial language to the attention of key Senate staffers, “there was a lot of concern that this letter went further than current U.S. policy,” said a top congressional source. “The letter attempted to get members on record before the situation was clarified, before briefings by the State Department, before hearings.”

This aide described the controversial phrase as a “preemptive strike” that made many lawmakers “nervous.”

This week the letter’s authors agreed to change that language; the new letter urges Rice only to “maintain current U.S. policy with respect to the Palestinian government until it recognizes Israel’s right to exist, renounce terror, and accept previous agreements.”

Nelson staffers, in a memo to other Senate offices, indicated that the changes were meant to “clear up any misperception concerning a change in U.S. policy. The letter reaffirms and urges maintaining current U.S. policy with respect to the Palestinian government.”

AIPAC officials denied that the original letter called for ending contacts with Abbas.

House letter warns EU

Also circulating in the House: a letter urging the Europeans to stick to the demand that the Palestinian Authority meet certain conditions before economic aid is resumed.

The letter, which had gathered almost 100 signatures by the weekend, was authored by Reps. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.), Gary Ackerman (D-NY), and Mike Pence (R-Ind.), among others.

That comes as some European leaders say they may resume contacts with the new Palestinian “unity” government while still withholding aid.

“We have deep reservations and ongoing concerns about the intentions of a government led by a hostile Hamas which rejects the basic premise under which diplomatic relations could be concluded and remains committed to the destruction of Israel,” the lawmakers wrote.

Concerns arise on Iran

Last week a group of Jewish legislators successfully blocked language in an Iraq war-appropriations bill that would have required the administration to get congressional authorization before using military force against Iran.

But the issue is far from dead, as antiwar lawmakers worry that President Bush, bogged down in Iraq, may be planning military action against Iran as well.

Last week’s action involved a Democratic amendment to an emergency spending bill for the Iraq war. That amendment would have required a U.S. pullout from Iraq by next year, a compromise measure that enjoys strong support from the House Democratic Caucus.

Partly to attract liberals angry that the Iraq amendment didn’t go further and partly because of concerns that the administration might be ill prepared for another war, some Democrats wanted to add language requiring specific congressional authorization before any military action against Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

Responding to pressure from some pro-Israel Democrats who said the provision would tie the administration’s hands and send the wrong message to Tehran, Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.), chair of the Appropriations Committee, barred the Iran language from the Iraq amendment.

But Pelosi has reportedly promised supporters of the provision that she will allow its introduction as a separate bill.

Some opponents said they would continue to fight what they say would be a dangerous message to leaders in Tehran.

“I do feel any president needs to come to Congress before any sustained military action,” said Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY), who first raised objections to the Iran provision. “But there are instances where a president needs the flexibility to react.”

Engel said the administration is “doing the right thing” by focusing on sanctions and international pressure in its response to Iran, but added that such nonmilitary tactics lose their power if Congress limits the administration’s authority to use force.

“If you take the credible threat of force off the table, it gives Iran less incentive to negotiate,” he said.

Engel said that adding the Iran language was just a sop to liberal lawmakers who were unhappy that the Democratic Iraq package did not go far enough in limiting the administration’s ability to continue the war in Iraq.

Engel conceded that the Bush administration’s performance in Iraq does not bode well for any Iran attack, but said that “what worries me more than that is a nuclear Iran. Having a nuclear Iran is simply unacceptable; I hope the international community will understand that.”

Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY) also opposed the Iran provision, arguing that it could have doomed the Democratic package aimed at ending the Iraq conflict.

“Including that provision brought us none of the liberals who want to get out Iraq immediately, but it risked losing the conservatives,” he said. “So it wasn’t going to work.”

And he said the provision was irrelevant because “our position is that the Constitution already says that the administration would have to come to Congress” before attacking Iran.

But Ackerman, too, said that maintaining the threat of military action is necessary to give the diplomatic and economic strategy a chance of success.

New antiwar group has plan

Most Jewish groups are in hiding as the debate over the Iraq war rages in Congress — a silence that has spurred the creation of a new Jewish antiwar group dedicated to “ending the Iraq war and preventing one with Iran.”

Leaders of Jews Against the War say that they, not major Jewish organizations that have refused to speak out, reflect the views of a community that is overwhelmingly opposed to current U.S. policy.

In a statement announcing the group, Rabbi Joshua Levine Grater, leader of the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center in California and a leader of the left-of-center Tikkun Community, said that many pulpit rabbis refuse to speak up out of fear of being divisive.

“But, like the prophets of Israel, I can no longer take the ‘safe’ road,” he said. “This war is wrong and it needs to end. Our country’s moral voice in the world has vanished under the weight of torture, secret tribunals, and occupation; our beloved Israel is in greater danger now, with Iran emboldened; and our nation’s budget has been sacked.”

Aryeh Cohen, a professor of rabbinic literature at the University of Judaism, said in an interview that the group plans to lobby Congress, organize “vigils and protests” at synagogues, and orchestrate antiwar letters by rabbis and other Jewish leaders.

He said some Jews concerned about the war have been turned off by antiwar groups like International ANSWER with a strongly anti-Israel agenda.

“The ANSWER coalition is problematic — but it doesn’t define the antiwar movement,” he said. “The reason we are starting this organization is to articulate our own message. We do know that there is a very strong antiwar sentiment in the Jewish community that is not being reflected by the community’s leadership.”

He praised the Union for Reform Judaism, the only major Jewish group to publicly challenge administration policy, as “ahead of the game,” but said many Jews “don’t even know the Reform movement made a statement. There is some organizing going on, but not for stakeholders at the center of the community. There needs to be a vehicle for lay leaders whose voices on Iraq are not being heard.”

He blasted Jewish lawmakers who acted last week to keep a provision requiring congressional approval before any attack on Iran out of an amendment laying out a Democratic plan for ending the Iraq war.

“The Jewish congressmen are held hostage to what they think the American Jewish community’s position is on relating to Israel,” he said. “And they are misguided.”