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Clandestine Israeli PR in the United States: Newly Declassified!

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08/30/2010 Antiwar
Could Ground-Zero Mosque's Backers be Worse than AIPAC's?

...A recently declassified 1970 file [.pdf] held by the Department of Justice’s National Security Division and reluctantly released under Freedom of Information Act appeals about the foreign agent activities Isaiah L. Kenen reveals he may have been an “insider source” for information about the Jewish Defense League. This intel was stove-piped directly to National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Secret Service, and the attorney general. The redacted documents are unclear about whether the JDL’s activities targeting the Soviet Union were considered at the time to be those of an ally, target, or dangerous nuisance. The value of AIPAC’s role as an FBI source on the JDL seems to have been short-lived, even during the Cold War. By the mid-1980s, as the Jonathan Pollard spy affair was breaking, AIPAC itself was moved back from the “asset” to “liability” column as a domestic espionage target, while a Department of Energy study concluded, “For more than a decade, the Jewish Defense League (JDL) has been one of the most active terrorist groups in the United States. … Since 1968, JDL operations have killed 7 persons and wounded at least 22.”  More Archive

08/26/2010 OpEdNews
The Israel Lobby: Declassified Documents Expose Its Influence

"In the old days, journalists were bought off to ignore them [opposition views on ME policy]. They now do it willingly and reflexively, knowing the consequences otherwise, the Israeli Lobby's power to remove unfriendly voices - from Congress, academia and the media...As a result, it's more virulent and pervasive than ever, what no congressional committee will touch, what no major media report will reveal....It's why Project Censored warns about a "truth emergency," the urgency for media reform, and need for a cadre to do what all responsible journalists should - their job, what's sorely absent in America, especially in reports about Israel.  More

08/23/2010 Antiwar Radio
The Mosque, Iran War Drive and Declassified Documents

IRmep's Grant F. Smith and Scott Horton of ANTIWAR Radio discuss documents released from the Senate investigation of Israel's covert lobbying and PR campaigns, threats to the continued freedom to practice (out of favor) religions in America, how neoconservatives use their unchallenged talking points in mainstream media to push for war with Iran, the Atlantic magazine's history of promoting Israeli policy objectives and how AIPAC wields power by withholding campaign contributions to wayward politicians. (MP3 Audio)

8/23/2010 - Free DvD
"Israel's Nuclear Arsenal: Espionage, Opacity and Future"
08/18/2010 Antiwar
The Israel Lobby Swims the Atlantic

Jeffrey Goldberg’s current cover story in The Atlantic, “The Point of No Return,” achieved massive distribution across a broad spectrum of old and new media in the United States. Some observers – including Glenn Greenwald in “How Propagandists Function” – noted how well the methodology and message of Goldberg’s piece serves the Israeli government’s efforts to push U.S. military action against Iran. Gareth Porter views it as part of an overarching strategy to keep the U.S. from restoring productive relations with Iran. A huge trove of newly declassified documents subpoenaed during a Senate investigation reveals how Israel’s lobby pitched, promoted, and paid to have content placed in America’s top news magazines with overseas funding. The Atlantic (and others) received hefty rewards for trumpeting Israel’s most vital – but damaging – PR initiatives across America.  More

08/19/2010 RT Television Interview - Live from Moscow
Declassified: Massive Israeli manipulation of US media exposed

Document Archive

08/18/2010 News Release
Declassified Senate Investigation Files Reveal Clandestine Israeli PR Campaign in America

WASHINGTON, Aug. 18 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Declassified files from a Senate investigation into Israeli-funded covert public relations and lobbying activity in the United States were released by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) on July 23rd, 2010.  The subpoenaed documents reveal Israel's clandestine programs for "cultivation of editors," the "stimulation and placement of suitable articles in the major consumer magazines" as well as U.S. reporting about sensitive subjects such as the Dimona nuclear weapons facility.

Documents are now available for download from http://IRmep.org/ila/azc include:

Dimona (excerpt): "The nuclear reactor story inspired comment from many sources; editorial writers, columnists, science writers and cartoonists.  Most of the press seemed finally to accept the thesis that the reactor was being built for peaceful purposes and not for bombs." http://www.irmep.org/11-121960AZC.pdf

Content placement and promotion (excerpt): "The Atlantic Monthly in its October issue carried the outstanding Martha Gellhorn piece on the Arab refugees, which made quite an impact around the country.  We arranged for the distribution of 10,000 reprints to public opinion molders in all categories… Interested friends are making arrangements with the Atlantic for another reprint of the Gellhorn article to be sent to all 53,000 persons whose names appear in Who's Who in America…Our Committee is now planning articles for the women's magazines for the trade and business publications." http://www.irmep.org/09101961AZC.pdf

Pressure campaigns (excerpt): "It can be said that the press of the nation…has by and large shown sympathy and understanding of Israel's position.  There are, of course, exceptions, notably the Scripps-Howard chain where we still need to achieve a 'break-through,' the Pulliam chain (where some progress has been made) and some locally-owned papers." http://www.irmep.org/11-121960AZC.pdf  

Magazine Committee achievements (excerpt): "We cannot pinpoint all that has already been accomplished by this Committee except to say that it has been responsible for the writing and placement of articles on Israel in some of America's leading magazines...." http://www.IRmep.org/10301962_AZC.pdf  More

08/09/2010 Antiwar
Try Assange Under the Espionage Act:
Gates, Hayden and Harmon should make their case in court

...Since the 1980s, investigative reporters have tried to obtain a trove of still-classified documents about the Iran-Contra affair and DOD/CIA sanctioned drug-running and the sale of taxpayer-funded arms stockpiled in Israel to finance the Nicaraguan Contras in violation of laws passed by Congress. The final report of the independent counsel for Iran-Contra stated that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates “was close to many figures who played significant roles in the Iran/Contra affair and was in a position to have known of their activities,” though he was never indicted.

The DOD and CIA responded contemptuously to a 2009 FOIA request for documents, censoring all of the relevant sections grudgingly released in 2010 [.pdf]. The Assange defense team could ask Robert Gates how much actual Nicaraguan blood was spilled by Gates and the CIA in violation of the Boland Amendments. Gates can then explain how his department can be held accountable if it won’t even release decades-old documents about criminal activity, much less currently relevant information... Link

8/5/2010
Tel Aviv's worst kept secret: Nuclear arsenal makes it hard for Obama to press for non-proliferation in Middle East

.....Whatever these revelations would precipitate remains to be seen. But it is interesting to note that the focus of US (and international) attention dwarfs another "amazing" but little noticed revelation last May when the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) partially declassified another secret document held behind closed doors for 32 years "in spite of the best efforts of researchers to dislodge it".

Notwithstanding the ‘tantalising' title of the revealed document — ‘Nuclear Diversion in the US? 13 Years of Contradiction and Confusion', Grant F. Smith, director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRmep), asserted that the "quest for more information about the US-Israel nuclear relationship is far from over".

IRmep followed up with holding a panel discussion on this sensitive issue publicly and boldly under the heading, ‘Israel's Nuclear Arsenal: Espionage, Opacity and Future', at, of all places, the impressive International Spy Museum in Washington.

Smith detailed "how coerced ‘ambiguity' about Israel's nuclear weapons undermines accountability here in the United States". Disappointingly, IRmep's panel discussion received little press attention in the US or in the Arab world despite the shocking details which merit full exposure....More

India's National Magazine 7/31/2010
American Dilemma
The U.S. supports a document calling for a nuclear-free West Asia at the NPT Review Conference and then says the decision was a mistake.

U.S. President Barack Obama has been preaching non-proliferation at all his international stops. There was the danger of the NPT conference being derailed if U.S. continued with its old practice of vetoing all documents that compromised Israel's “nuclear ambiguity”. However, despite strenuous opposition from Israel, Obama chose to go along with the final document, which explicitly stated, for the first time, that the West Asian region should be declared nuclear-free.

To add to Israel's discomfiture, the NPT Review Conference called for an international conference in 2012 with the aim of establishing a nuclear-free West Asia. The declaration called on the United Nations Secretary-General and also the U.S., Russia and the United Kingdom to name a facilitator to organise the 2012 conference. Under an NPT Action Plan announced during the conference, the five recognised nuclear powers – the U.S., Russia, the U.K., France and China – committed themselves to speeding up the disarmament process and reporting on the progress in 2014. Ever since the NPT came into force in 1970, the major powers have been paying lip service about reducing their arsenals and establishing nuclear-free zones. More

IRmep 07/07/2010 Panel Discussion and Q&A Video
Israel's Nuclear Arsenal--Espionage, Opacity and Future
IRmep 07/07/2010 Panel Discussion Audio
Israel's Nuclear Arsenal--Espionage, Opacity and Future

The following official audio files of "Israel's Nuclear Arsenal" panel presentations are now available for download:

Jeffrey Blankfort reviews US positioning toward the NPT review conference call for a Middle East free of nuclear weapons. He recounts first hand experiences with an ADL/Apartheid South Africa intelligence agent targeting US activists. (MP3 3.6 MB)

Grant F. Smith explores how collaborating in Israeli "strategic ambiguity" undermines rule of law and governance in the United States. He reviews the NUMEC nuclear diversion case and a new Senate attempt to exonerate those involved. (MP3 6.2 MB)

Sasha-Polakow Suransky reviews Apartheid South African sales of yellow-cake uranium to Israel's military establishment and argues that AIPAC positively contributed to US policymaking. (MP3 5.9 MB)

John J. Mearsheimer discusses why Israel acquired a nuclear arsenal and the danger it presents to US interests. (MP3 6.2 MB)

Forbes07/06/2010 via BusinessWire
Senator Pressures NRC to Clear NUMEC President of Illegal Uranium Diversions to Israel
The office of Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania attempted to obtain a statement from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission according to documents newly released under the Freedom of Information Act. On August 27, 2009, Arlen Specter wrote to Rebecca Schmidt asking that the NRC "issue a formal public statement confirming that he [constituent Zalman Shapiro] was not involved in any activities related to the diversion of uranium to Israel."

Zalman Shapiro was formerly president of the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation at Apollo, PA. According to a secret GAO report "Nuclear Diversion in the US?" partially declassified on May 6, 2010 NUMEC received over 22 tons of uranium-235, the key material used to fabricate nuclear weapons.

Israel's top economic espionage case officer Rafael Eitan, who handled spy Jonathan Pollard in the 1980s, infiltrated NUMEC under false pretenses in 1968. According to Anthony Cordesman, "there is no conceivable reason for Eitan to have gone [to the Apollo plant] but for the nuclear material." CIA Tel Aviv station chief John Hadden called NUMEC "an Israeli operation from the beginning." NUMEC's venture capital came from David Lowenthal, who had close ties to Israeli intelligence and David Ben-Gurion,who spearheaded Israel's nuclear weapons program.

A March, 2010 audit by two former NRC officials published in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists confirmed not only that 337 kilograms of NUMEC highly enriched uranium are still unaccounted for but that all circumstantial evidence still points to diversion to Israel.

On November 2, 2009 the NRC denied Specter's request. More

IRmep Panel Discussion 07/07/2010
Israel's Nuclear Arsenal-Espionage, Opacity and Future

What do newly declassified documents about weapons grade uranium and dual-use technology diversions from the US reveal about the role of espionage in building Israel's secret arsenal?  Did Israel's proposed nuclear weapons sales to apartheid South Africa signal they are still for sale if the partner and price are right?  Do FBI and CIA cover-ups of investigations into Israeli nuclear espionage signal official US government approval or political acquiescence?   Did cooperating with Israel's policy of "strategic ambiguity" ever make sense for the United States? Is the era of "nuclear opacity" now coming to an end?  Are Israel's nuclear weapons of strategic benefit to the US?  Join our panelists for an exciting discussion of these timely questions!  

Sasha Polakow-Suransky is editor of Foreign Affairs magazine at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of the 2010 book "The Unspoken Alliance: Israel's Secret Relationship with Apartheid South Africa."

John J. Mearsheimer is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science and the co-director of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago and author of the book "The Tragedy of Great Power Politics" and coauthor of "The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy"

Grant F. Smith is director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRmep) and author of the books "Spy Trade," "America's Defense Line" and "Foreign Agents".

Moderated by Middle East analyst Jeffrey Blankfort, host of the Northern California public radio station KZYX international affairs program, "Takes on the World". Register

Tribune-Review 06/11/2010
Possible Western Pennsylvania link to Israeli nukes boosted

A recently declassified federal report (PDF, obtained by IRmep) bolsters a long-simmering Cold War theory that uranium was illegally shipped from an Armstrong County plant in 1965 to Israel to support its nuclear arms efforts.

The once-secret report by the General Accounting Office reveals the FBI initially refused to investigate the disappearance of 206 pounds of weapons-grade uranium-235 from the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corp. -- known as NUMEC -- in Apollo.

That refusal led to widespread speculation the uranium, enough to build five nuclear weapons, was diverted to Israel with covert U.S. government assistance, the report states.

For decades, the fate of the missing NUMEC uranium has been the stuff of Western Pennsylvania legend....More

05/24/2010
Vets Deplore Ledeen War Propaganda in VFW Magazine on Memorial Day Eve

WASHINGTON, May 24 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --  U.S. veterans were shocked and dismayed that the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) refused to publish retractions, corrections or responses to an article by Michael Ledeen published in the April, 2010 edition of VFW Magazine.  Three veterans hailing from different parts of America provided timely input, corrections, concerns, and supported multiple letters to the editor which Richard K. Kolb refused to print in the May edition.

According to Dr. Sam K. Abul Haj of Ventura, CA, a highly decorated former chief surgeon and pathology consultant of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Michael Ledeen's "Iran's 'Foreign Legion' Takes on America" was "riddled with serious misrepresentations."  Ledeen stated:  "Although relatively small in numbers total manpower is estimated at less than 150,000 the [Iranian National] Guards control a vast arsenal, ranging from surface to surface missiles to the covert nuclear weapons program.  When and if Iran comes to possess nuclear armed missiles, the Guards will be in charge of them, too."

The April 21, 2010 Department of Defense "Unclassified Report on Military Power of Iran" states that Iran has no nuclear weapons program for Revolutionary Guards to control.  This is also the consensus view of the International Atomic Energy Agency.  According to Abul Haj, "Ledeen relies on dubious and discredited sources, such as Manuchar Ghorbanifar, who the CIA placed on its 'burn list' as a serial fabricator long ago.  In the 1980s Ledeen and his Israeli colleagues' drive to get the U.S. to sell arms to Iran led to a now largely forgotten constitutional crisis known as the Iran Contra Affair.  Today's veterans expect to read the work of experts with honest track records of assessing true threats in America's premier veteran's magazine.  Ledeen is clearly not one of those experts.  Unchallenged, Ledeen's disinformation has the potential for again steering U.S. policy into tragedy."  More

05/10/2010 Antiwar Radio
Israel's Lobby and Nuclear Diversions from the US

Scott Horton interviews Grant F. Smith, director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy in Washington, D.C., about the newly declassified 1978 GAO report released by IRmep on 5/10/2010. They cover the diversion of US nuclear material to Israel, marginal investigations and possible cover-ups by the FBI and CIA, prosecutorial immunity for high-profile Americans who commit crimes for Israel's benefit, and billionaire Haim Saban's considerable influence on the Democratic Party.  They review new information about why LBJ's political debt to fundraiser Abraham Feinberg (designated by David Ben Gurion as the US funding coordinator for Israel's nuclear weapons program in 1958) probably explained his disdain for the NUMEC investigation and applying nuclear nonproliferation to Israel.

Audio (MP3)
05/10/2010
Secret GAO Study Finds Investigations of Israeli Weapons Grade Uranium Diversions "Inadequate"

A  declassified Government Accountability Office report entitled "Nuclear Diversion in the U.S.?  13 Years of Contradiction and Confusion" reveals serious flaws hampering investigations into diversions of US weapons grade uranium to Israel.  The report and related correspondence totaling 62 pages released on May 6, 2010 are now publicly available for downloadMore News Release

05/10/2010 Antiwar.com
How US Weapons Grade Uranium was Diverted to Israel

...According to Avner Cohen, in 1958 Israeli Prime Minister David Ben Gurion had arranged with Abraham Feinberg, a "major Democratic fund-raiser," to secretly finance a nuclear weapons program among "benedictors" in America. Abraham Feinberg, who backed Harry S. Truman's successful whistle-stop election campaign, was personally succinct about his role in the U.S. political system: "My path to power was cooperation in terms of what they needed - campaign money." Feinberg opened doors in Congress for up and coming leaders of the Israel lobby, including AIPAC founder Isaiah L. Kenen. According to Seymour Hersh, "there is no question that Feinberg enjoyed the greatest presidential access and influence in his 20 years as a Jewish fund-raiser and lobbyist with Lyndon Johnson. Documents at the Johnson Library show that even the most senior members of the National Security Council understood that any issue raised by Feinberg had to be answered." His power and role in financing Lyndon B. Johnson's election prospects temporarily quashed scrutiny of Israel's nuclear weapons program - in the U.S. and abroad - at a critical moment....More

04/14/2010 Antiwar.com
America's Loose Nukes in Israel

...These unspoken, forced policies directly pit Israeli prerogatives against American national security, governance, and rule of law - they are often only won only through illegal means. As Israel ratchets up its own "project divert" effort to compel others to confront NPT signatory Iran (while derailing meaningful Israeli-Palestinian negotiations), the rest of the world showed true commitment to non-proliferation by sending top diplomats to America's summit. Israel simply sent in another spy.

This is why the U.S. must demand more than Israel's entry into the NPT. Only by recovering all purloined nuclear materials can Obama win confidence in America's own commitment to controlling loose nukes. More Radio Interview MP3

04/02/2010 Antiwar.com
Obama Can Stop Funding Illegal Settlements

President Obama should revoke the Jewish Agency's 1948 US tax exemption.  This would immediately shut down all US charities acting as feeder funds and throw into question the deductibility of individual US donor contributions.  This strong message would be timely, but generate some political backlash.  Israel lobbyists inside and outside the federal government exploit elected American politicians' own insatiable thirst for campaign contributions from the tributaries of this massive slush fund   politicians know they are only welcome to partake if they unconditionally support Israel and its lobby   no matter the cost to their American constituents. More

P U L SE 3/31/2010

US Owes no Gratitude for Israeli Commercial Espionage

Israel appeared on the US Trade Representative's punitive watch list for almost half a decade for massive copycat and counterfeit drugs production  severe violations of US patents.  On March 13, 2010 the US Justice Department  moved to introduce hard drives brimming with classified national defense information squirreled away by alleged spy Stewart Nozette.  The 2009 Nozette arrest for economic espionage is only the latest in a string of serious US national defense and intellectual property thefts perpetrated to boost the Israeli economy.  The global economic crisis has made such ongoing espionage and economic warfare against America a top Pentagon priority.  More

washingtonpost.com03/25/2010
Israeli Intelligence, our constant Companion
by Jeff Stein

".....But another of Mossad's reason for being, as with all the world's spy services, is to make sure friends are really friends.

And judging by once sensitive FBI documents making the rounds in recent days, the Israelis have been at this task in Washington for a very long time.

The 21 documents, obtained by Grant F. Smith, a Washington, D.C. author who has made a career out of writing critical books on Israeli spying and lobbying, detail the FBI's investigation into the theft of a confidential U.S. document on the Reagan administration's position going into the 1984 U.S.-Israel Free Trade Area Negotiations.

Acting on a complaint that the document was circulating on Capitol Hill, the FBI discovered that an Israeli diplomat had acquired the paper and given it to officials at AIPAC, the lobbying group whose annual convention drew both Netanyahu and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton this week....." More

PR Newswire: news distribution, targeting and monitoring03/17/2010 PRNewswire
US Department of Justice Asked to Regulate AIPAC as a Foreign Agent of the Israeli Government

WASHINGTON, March 17 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The US Department of Justice has been formally asked to begin regulating the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) as the foreign agent of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.  A 392 page legal filing presented by a four person IRmep delegation in a two hour meeting with top officials of the Internal Security Section substantiated the following case for AIPAC's immediate registration: More

03/12/2010 Antiwar.com
Israel's Lobby Imposes Crippling Sactions on America Again

Americans should be outraged that a foreign lobby like AIPAC is actually trying to write the rules   when warranted application of the law would have abolished it years ago. AIPAC and other nodes of Israel's lobby successfully broke important US laws to seize power in America. They now expect US private enterprise and workers   the world's best   to open their own little "offices of special plans" to carefully track company products, profits, and investments in the name of Israel. But this new tax ignores some mighty important facts.  More

Forbes03/10/2010 via BusinessWire
New FBI Files Alleging AIPAC Theft of Government Property and Israeli Espionage Released

WASHINGTON, March 10 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Declassified files detailing an FBI investigation targeting the American Israel Public Affairs Committee are now available on the Internet. AIPAC was investigated after it acquired and circulated classified government information provided in strict confidence by US industry and worker groups opposed to AIPAC sponsored economic legislation.

According to research director Grant F. Smith, the newly released files present startling new insights into AIPAC's activities in the United States. "These files, available on the Internet for the first time, reveal activities that undermined rule of law and governance. They have wrought massive economic harm to American businesses and workers. We urge all concerned Americans to carefully review and ponder the implications of these FBI files and other documents now available from the Israel Lobby Archive." More

02/11/2010 Antiwar.com
Israel violates economic sanctions against Iran

History suggests that Israelis and their US lobby's financial backers will be first in line to violate so-called "crippling sanctions" against Iran, a country over which the US has relatively little direct economic leverage.  This adds insult to injury, since a real US economic sanctions regime   likely to have been highly successful in averting conditions underlying any potential Middle East nuclear arms race   has been suppressed since it was signed into law over three decades ago. More

02/08/2010 PressTV
How Israel's Lobby Challenges Rule of Law in America

Susan ModaressThis week the Iranian satellite television channel PressTV is broadcasting a 25 minute interview with IRmep director Grant F. Smith about the Israel lobby's history of challenges to rule of law and governance in the United States. "Autograph" with Susan Modaress reviews key findings from the book "Spy Trade" and may be streamed online via YouTube:

Segment #1 How did arms smuggling, subverting Justice Department foreign agent registration orders and a string of presidential pardons generate an assumption of criminal immunity within the Israel lobby? How is this evident today?

Segment #2 What new tactics are US law enforcement agencies implementing to stem Israeli commercial espionage operations in the United States? Why, after  decades of challenges to rule of law, are they acting now?

Segment #3 What is the outlook for Freedom of Information Act requests under the Obama administration's new transparency mandate? Why can't President Obama stop illegal settlements as a minor first step toward Middle East peace?

Video Download (WMV) Audio (MP3)
CNBC/BusinessWire 02/04/2010
AIPAC officials duplicated classified policy documents before returning to US government

Washington - Top officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee duplicated a stolen classified US government policy document before returning it under order of the US Trade Representative. The newly released FBI form FD-302 is available for download at http://IRmep.org/ila/economy/FD302.pdf .

Testimony about AIPAC's executive director and top lobbyist reveals AIPAC duplicated the classified report "Probable Economic Effect of Providing Duty Free Treatment for U.S. Imports from Israel" after covertly receiving it from Israeli Minister of Economics Dan Halpern:

"REDACTED immediately called REDACTED at the USTR to make arrangements to return the document. The report was subsequently returned to the USTR by a member of the AIPAC office staff. Prior to returning this document, REDACTED asked to have a duplicate copy made so that the staff of the AIPAC could further examine the report....He stated that REDACTED retained the duplicate copy of the report and that the original report was returned to the USTR."

The classified 300 page report contained business confidential information and trade secrets provided by 76 American industry and worker groups lobbying against a bilateral intergovernmental managed trade pact with Israel. The fight pitted Monsanto, the U.S. Bromine Alliance, Sunkist Growers Inc., the American Farm Bureau and the AFL-CIO against the Israeli government, AIPAC, and the American Israel Chamber of Commerce and Industry. After the trade deal passed, the US cumulative trade deficit with Israel grew to $71 billion; equivalent to 100,000 lost US jobs each year over the past decade. The report is still considered so sensitive neither the USTR nor the International Trade Commission will release it under the Freedom of Information Act.
More

The Diane Rehm Show 1/11/2010
The IRS and Illegal Settlements

IRmep research director Grant F. Smith briefed IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman on National Public Radio about the US Treasury Department's failure to regulate American charities laundering funds into illegal West Bank settlements.

Susan Paige, USA Today: Welcome back, I'm Susan Paige of USA Today sitting in for Diane Rehm. We're talking with Doug Shulman. He's the Commissioner of the IRS--the 47th Commissioner of the IRS--the IRS collects $2.4 trillion dollars in tax revenue every year. It has 100,000 employees.

Grant F. Smith, IRmep: I'd really like to take issue with this idea that IRS goes after powerful violators. In 2005 USA Today quoted vice premier Shimon Peres estimating $50 billion had been raised since 1977--in the US--and used to build illegal settlements in Israeli occupied West Bank territories. And many US charities like the One Israel Fund, American Friends of [the College of] Judea and Samaria, Christian Friends of Israel and even Jack Abramoff openly and illegally raise tax deductible funds in the US for illegal settlements. But while fellow Treasury officials like Stewart Levey and other political appointees supported by AIPAC [the American Israel Public Affairs Committee] aggressively go after many Muslim charities suspected of any criminal ties, none of these charities have ever lost a tax exemption and the IRS just doesn't go after any of these violators in spite of Obama administration policy against settlements.

Susan Paige: Alright Grant, thank you for your call. What about Grant's question in terms of 'does the IRS go after charities that get tax deductible contributions if their actions violate US policy?

Doug Shulman, IRS: One of the interesting things about the agency, Susan, is that we actually reach into every nook and cranny of the country, so we focus on individuals, serving them and have an enforcement program, and have an enforcement program servicing business. We also have a tax exempt and government entities section of the IRS that focuses on charities and other nonprofits. They get the benefit of tax exemption, making sure that they're complying with the tax rules. We've, over the last ten years, beefed up that area, focused on everything from small nonprofits, international charities, hospitals, as well as education institutions, and we run a pretty robust program to make sure people are complying with the tax laws.

Susan Paige, USA Today: Grant said that Muslim charities have been subjected to special scrutiny, is that the case?

Doug Shulman, IRS: Oh, I don't believe so. We are very focused on running a nonpartisan, nonpolitical agency. There are only two people who are political appointments in the IRS, myself and our chief counsel. The rest of the 100,000 you mentioned are career civil servants, all of us are tasked with administering the laws that are on the books in an even handed manner, and I think our track record shows that's what we do.

LATER IN THE INTERVIEW

Susan Paige, USA Today: Now we've also had a caller, Basim from Cincinnati saying that I failed to get an answer to Grant's question about if a charity that accepts tax deductible contributions--is doing something that's illegal--do you go after them? The point that Grant was making was charities that may fund West Bank settlements. What is the case with that? Is that illegal, and would you go after a charity that was helping to fund that activity?

Doug Shulman: I don't know the specifics of the case that they brought up. But if I wasn't clear, if a charity is breaking the tax law, is engaged in activities that they are not supposed to be engaged in, we certainly will go after them. Every year we pull 501(c)(3) charity status from a number of charities. We've got thousands of audits going on regarding charities, and so we don't hesitate to administer the tax laws and make sure that people are following the rules." Interview (MP3) News Release

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