10/07/2010 IBH FOCA Report - analysis by Tanya Cariina Hsu

New Side-by-Side Gaza Flotilla Timeline Report Discredits Israeli Version of Events

A comprehensive report examining the minute-by-minute versions of the same events during the Gaza-bound Freedom Flotilla attack by Israel was released by two charity groups today. Contrasting passenger testimonies against official Israeli accounts side-by-side to each other, a complete picture can be seen as to exactly what transpired in the days and hours leading up to the incident as well as its aftermath.

The attack took place in international waters in the early hours of May 31, 2010 as humanitarian aid workers carrying goods and supplies, including medical equipment, attempted to break the Israeli-imposed blockade on Gaza. The attack on the six ships in the flotilla led to the deaths of nine passengers on the Turkish-supported Mavi Marmara ship. The result has been an intense worldwide condemnation of Israeli policies towards the increase in aid missions.

The Timeline and Inconsistencies Report, co-sponsored by the International Bureau of Humanitarian NGOs (IBH) in Geneva and Paris, and the Friends of Charities Association (FOCA) in Washington D.C., takes each individual action as it happened, and aligns the passenger version against the Israeli account. The "conclusions are in sharp contrast to the Israeli official version of events," the report found.

Conclusions show that Israel clearly manipulated evidence to bolster its argument that the attack on the Mavi Marmara was in self-defense against armed violent activists. Using second-by-second analysis, the reports shows how six of the nine passengers killed were victims of execution-style murders by the Israeli soldiers. Report website

WSN 10/05/2010 Washington Square News  - Ishan Talukdar

Israel's right hand on Capitol Hill

AIPAC is a lobbying group dedicated to promoting Israeli interests to the American public as well as within the government. It does this by placing people in government and on congressional staffs. It also galvanizes the Jewish community, by both monetary and political means, into supporting those it deems "pro-Israel" while shunning those it deems "anti-Israel."

The committee definitely has the means to pressure politicians into capitulating to Israeli demands. In fact, AIPAC received funds from the Israeli government itself well into the 1960s. In addition, there have been several incidences and many allegations of espionage perpetrated by AIPAC, or with AIPAC as an intermediary, where information was passed to Israeli officials.

The problem we are faced with is a lobbying group with a substantial amount of power over our politicians. More

09/27/2010 Antiwar

Free Pollard Now; Pay Later

...Ever since it sprang from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs' "Information office" in the early 1950s, AIPAC has engaged in many covert activities designed to serve its foreign principals—all at tremendous moral and financial cost to America. The Pollard-pardon-for-illegal-settlements-freeze proposal should be considered seriously by all Americans and the U.S. government—not as part of any credible peace process, but rather as a signal that it's time to re-register AIPAC as an Israeli foreign agent and implement a new no-tolerance policy toward Israeli espionage within our hobbled Department of Justice...  More

...Israel Lobby Archive The Israel Lobby Archive obtained 405 pages from the FBI under the Freedom of Information Act. The released documents are news clippings maintained by the FBI during its espionage investigation of Department of Defense Colonel Lawrence Franklin and AIPAC staffers Keith Weissman and Steven J. Rosen. More

09/10/2010 KZYX Radio

Declassified: Israel Lobby's 50 Year Campaign to Undermine Free Speech in America

Host Jeffrey Blankfort interviews Grant F. Smith on the public radio program "Takes on the World" about newly unsealed Senate Foreign Relations Committee files investigating the Israel lobby.  The documents reveal quarterly $5,000 payments from the Jewish Agency to AIPAC for the lobbying newsletter "Near East Report" and stealth public relations programs designed to undermine American free speech.  The implications of that fifty year effort are discussed in the radio interview. (MP3 Audio)

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 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)

07/06/2010 via BusinessWire

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

Invitation to 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