Philip Giraldi of the Council for the National Interest,
Grant F. Smith of IRmep, and Gregg Roman of the Middle
East Forum on President Trump's decision to recognize
Jerusalem and move the US embassy to Jerusalem.
Crosstalk hosted by Peter Lavelle.
Watch
President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as
Israel’s capital and intent to relocate the US embassy
from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is sure to harm the United
States. A product of decades of pressure by Israel and
its US lobby, the move is an incremental step toward
pressuring the US to confer legitimacy on all of
Israel’s territorial acquisitions accomplished through
war.
US presidents refrained from moving the embassy to
Jerusalem because of commitments to UN Security Council
Resolution 478, passed in 1980, which rejected Israel’s
declaration that Jerusalem was its "complete and united
capital" because East Jerusalem was territory captured
in the 1967 Six-Day War, a war that Israel started.
Parties to Resolution 478 committed to withdrawing
diplomatic missions from the city. This created pressure
on Israel to relinquish ill-gotten territory and
negotiate peace. The US supported that goal since 1967
through the unanimous UN resolution 242, calling for the
withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories
captured in 1967. The original 1947 UN partition plan
called for Jerusalem to be "internationalized."
In the 1980s, Israel affinity organizations such as
AIPAC and the ADL went into overdrive lobbying for a
"move the embassy" law that would force the US to
legitimate Israel’s claims on the city. As the Oslo
peace process loomed in the 1990s aimed at negotiating
"final status" issues such as Jerusalem, expulsed
Palestinians’ right to return to their properties, and
recognizing borders, the Israel lobby sought to preempt
negotiations by passing the Jerusalem Embassy Act of
1995, drafted by the Zionist Organization of America and
AIPAC. The bill, like most Israel lobby legislation and
legislative rules, was coercive. US State Department
overseas construction was to be defunded until the US
moved its embassy to Jerusalem. No legitimate US-driven
interests informed the creation or passage of the bill.
Rather, it was yet another achievement of the $6 billion
Israel lobby’s coordinated political campaign
contribution network. That network now requires any
serious candidate pledge their fealty to the Israel
lobby’s program, even before running for office.
More
The House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on November
7 to discuss the "Anti-Semitism Awareness Act."
Proponents of ASAA claim it is a law that would protect
Jewish students from anti-Semitic harassment, which they
claim is a major problem on campus. Opponents argue the
bill would undermine free speech rights, and is a
thinly-disguised gag order designed to quash criticism
of Israel in academia. The penalties that would be
levied on institutes of higher learning failing to crack
down would include a cutoff of federal funding to those
found in violation of newly expanded Title VI of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964 anti-discrimination mandates.
Lawsuits accusing colleges and universities of
discrimination, such as one recently dismissed against
San Francisco State University, would likely succeed
under such an expanded definition of anti-Semitism.
On December 14, 2016 two California congressmen,
Republican Dana Rohrabacher and Democrat Juan Vargas,
secretly pressed President Obama to pardon convicted spy
Lawrence Franklin. Colonel Franklin, an employee at the
Department of Defense, pled guilty to charges of
espionage for passing classified information to the
American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) as well
as directly to Israeli officials. At the time, Franklin,
two indicted AIPAC officials, the Israeli government and
other Israel lobby figures were waging an intense
battle to sabotage warming US relations with Iran.
More
IRmep seeks federal injunction against U.S. foreign aid transfers to
nuclear Israel - 11/22/2017
On
November 22 IRmep filed a
40-page brief in the DC federal appeals court
seeking an injunction against U.S. foreign aid transfers
to Israel. The Appellant Reply Brief details the
decades-old system of U.S. federal government prior
restraint used to subvert Arms Export Control Act
restrictions on foreign aid to non-NPT nuclear weapons
states, in this case Israel.
Highly readable, the filing is a mini-history on the
suppression of the release of U.S. government
information about Israel's nuclear weapons, and the real
rationale behind "nuclear ambiguity." Major sections of
the filing include:
Why IRmep
has standing to challenge “nuclear ambiguity.”
The
Administrative Procedure Act is an appropriate
avenue for challenging prior restraint.
Proof that
the U.S. government is violating, rather than
possibly “secretly complying” with, the Arms Export
Control Act.
Direct
injuries sustained by the plaintiff and other public
accountability organizations.
Why the
Freedom of Information Act is insufficient to
redress “nuclear ambiguity” injuries.
Why a $238
billion injury inflicted on Americans warrants an
extraordinary court-ordered remedy.
Question: Which expenditure category should Congress cut
to make government more responsive to the American
people and reduce the budget deficit?
On November 3, professor John Mearsheimer made a short
and stunning presentation at "U.S. Foreign Policy in the
Trump Era: Can Realism and Restraint Prevail?"
conference held at George Washington University in
Washington, DC. In the unipolar world after the collapse
of the Soviet Union, he claimed, realists urged
nonintervention and staying out of conflicts and
countries that "really don’t matter much."
Unfortunately, American “crusaders” prevailed and pushed
the US into a series of unnecessary quagmires across the
greater Middle East.
Americans appear to agree. When presented with a list of
expenditure categories, and polled about which should be
the single top priority for budgetary cuts by Congress,
"US military actions in the Middle East" was far and
away their top choice. But most Americans probably have
little idea how enormous those costs truly are.More
of this report
Poll pageAll IRmep
polls
The U.S. Department of Justice
once again insisted that individual citizens do not have
standing to sue the U.S. federal government over foreign
aid to Israel. Several Americans from
Fagan Dickson in 1975 to author
Isaac Asimov in 1991 have tried. But their claims,
based on
Establishment Clause separation of church and state
appeals, failed.
But what
about challenges to U.S. foreign aid to Israel through
the
Administrative Procedure Act? IRmep has filed a
case that breaks into new territory. (PDF) As
summarized in the Justice Department’s November 8, 2017
Appellee brief filed in the US Court of Appeals for the
District of Columbia. More
To pass law undermining free speech, Israel
lobby claims to "represent the American Jewish
community" - 11/12/2017
CIA claims public disclosure of secret
intelligence aid to Israel would harm U.S. "national
security" - 11/8/2017
The CIA wants the US District Court for the District of
Columbia to dismiss an IRmep lawsuit filed in 2015 that
seeks disclosure of top-line budget numbers for secret
U.S. intelligence aid to Israel. In a
29-page filing submitted on November 3, the agency
argued that even acknowledging such aid exists would be
"hindering the national security of the United States."
IRmep estimates that secret U.S. aid funneled through
the CIA could be as high as $1.9 billion to $13.2
billion per year. This estimate is derived from
President Obama's 2015 statement that American military
and intelligence assistance had reached "unprecedented
levels." Since U.S. military and other aid since 1948 is
publicly known, secret intelligence aid would have to be
at least $1.9 billion for it to truly be
"unprecedented."
The CIA argues that Obama's statement does not meet the
threshold of "official acknowledgement that the CIA has
intelligence budget line items supporting Israel." CIA
further claims that it "specializes in human source
intelligence," and if it acknowledged the existence of a
budget, it would tip off enemies about its clandestine
activities. The CIA claims that, because of this, it can
issue a GLOMAR response (not confirming or denying such
information exists) because it could be held by any one
of 17 U.S. intelligence agencies.
IRmep has previously communicated to the court that all
but two U.S. intelligence agencies deny having budget
line-items for support to Israel. IRmep has also
repeatedly made the case that classification or
retention of such information to facilitate violating
the law is explicitly forbidden under Executive Order
13526. In this case U.S. foreign aid to Israel, a state
with a nuclear weapons program that has not signed the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, is subject to
restrictions under the Arms Export Control Act. IRmep's
opposition brief is due on December 1.
Prof John Mearsheimer on Israel's nuclear strategy: New
HD IRmep YouTube video -
11/04/2017
Video, audio & slides of "Lawsuit Challenges US Aid to
Israel & Nuclear Gag Order" conference call -
10/26/2017
Conference Call - Lawsuit Challenges US Aid to Israel &
Nuclear Gag Order - Monday, October 23 at 7 PM EST -
Registration closed
In
2016 IRmep filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging
U.S. foreign aid to Israel and a 2012 federal gag order
on the release of information about Israel's nuclear
weapons program. News of the lawsuit generated
headlines around the world.
Now in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of
Columbia, courtroom action is again heating up as the
Department of Justice prepares to file its long-delayed
appellee brief on November 8. Join IRmep Director of
Research Grant F. Smith for a lively presentation and
Q&A session about this potentially ground-breaking
lawsuit.
Topics will include:
1. What are the overall goals of
the lawsuit challenging the nuclear gag order and
foreign aid?
2. What is WPN-136, "the Israel nuclear gag-order," and
why is it important?
3. What are the Symington and Glenn amendments to the US
Arms Export Control Act? How do they impact aid to
clandestine nuclear weapons countries?
4. Have any parties ever sued to stop U.S. foreign aid
to Israel? If so, what happened to their cases?
5. What happened to IRmep's attempt to enjoin U.S.
foreign aid to Israel in the Lower Court? What is
happening in the Court of Appeals?
6. What gives IRmep standing to sue on such matters?
7. What other related lawsuits has IRmep filed, on
secret CIA aid to Israel, U.S. Treasury Department
activities, and the diversion of US weapons grade
uranium to Israel, and how are they doing?
8. What tactics do defendants commonly deploy in
responding? How much leniency do they commonly obtain
from judges?
All conference call registrants will receive an
access code, email reminders, a numbered soft copy of
materials presented online, and the opportunity to
submit questions. This conference call will be recorded.
Israel and its lobby want President Trump to formally
recognize territories annexed by Israel, but that most
of the world consider unlawfully occupied. Bestowing
U.S. legitimacy on Israel’s annexation of Syria’s Golan
Heights, seized by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War,
would solidify a "buffer zone" to keep Hezbollah and the
Iranian Revolutionary Guard at bay in war-torn Syria,
argued Benjamin Netanyahu in April.
US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman argued last week
that the presence of hundreds of thousands of Israelis
in the West Bank is only an "alleged occupation."
Friedman claimed settlements were "only occupying 2% of
the West Bank," elaborating that "I think the
settlements are part of Israel." 53 members of Congress
on a recent American Israel Education Foundation junkets
to Israel are told in briefings by AIPAC lobbyists
accompanying them that East Jerusalem, also seized by
Israel in 1967, "is not a settlement."
One reason Israel and its lobby may soon get their way
on formal recognition is that Americans are evenly
split. An IRmep poll fielded the issue September
30-October 2 to a representative cross-section of 1,000
adult American Internet users. It reveals a result too
close to call, with 48.3% saying Trump should not
recognize Israeli territorial annexations, but 47.3%
saying that he should. The poll has an RMSE score of 6%,
and may be filtered by demographics online. More at
Antiwar.com
Poll at Google
IRmep poll page
Just before the annual American Israel
Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) policy
conference and mass congressional lobbying day
in Washington, DC, the “Israel Lobby and
American Policy 2018” conference will be held on
Friday, March 2, 2018 at the National Press
Club.
This educational event is open to the public and
will examine the strategies, tactics and
policies of Israel and its U.S. lobby. Key
questions to be addressed by invited experts
are:
What is the current estimated cost and
trajectory of major Israel lobby initiatives
such as the Israel Anti-Boycott Act law that
seek to fine and jail American organizations and
individuals engaged in boycotts of Israel over
systematic human rights abuses?
What impact could other major Israel lobby
initiatives—including precipitating U.S. attacks
on Iran, renewed U.S. attacks on Syria, moving
the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, and formal U.S.
recognition of Israel’s annexation of East
Jerusalem, Golan Heights and West Bank—have on
America’s global standing?
How is American public opinion shifting on key
issues such as unconditional military aid to
Israel, the influence of Israel on U.S.
policymakers, and trust in coverage of Israel by
the mainstream news media?
What is the current level of Israel lobby
“capture” of major U.S. institutions, especially
government agencies, think tanks, academia and
news outlets?
What is Israel’s long-term regional strategy and
how does it attempt to engage the U.S. in
achieving its objectives through the Israel
lobby?
How are peace and human rights activists pushing
back against the lobby in courtrooms and at the
grassroots level?
What new roles are artists taking on to
challenge Israel lobby initiatives? What is the
pushback?
How do Israel lobby “gatekeepers” influence
campus debate, academic appointments and
curriculum?
What are the current challenges to liberal
Zionist beliefs, public perception of Israel as
being interested in peace, and the notion of
universal American Jewish support for Israel?
Which country has a quantitatively larger
influence on U.S. electoral politics, Russia or
Israel?
Will Israel likely break its agreement not to
seek more than $38 billion in U.S. military aid
over the next decade? What amount of secret
intelligence aid is Israel also receiving, and
why are U.S. intelligence agencies fighting to
keep it secret?
The Israel Lobby and American Policy conference
is solely sponsored by the American Educational
Trust, publisher of the Washington Report on
Middle East Affairs, and the Institute for
Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRmep).
Attendees receive a box lunch. Go to the
conference website for more information,
mail-in registration forms, and student tickets
today! Or go directly to
Eventbrite for online ticket purchases and
donation opportunities!
The
Department of Justice has ordered Russia’s U.S.-based RT
news network to begin registering as Russian foreign
agents under the 1938 Foreign Agents Registration Act.
The law requires US-based agents of foreign principals
to disclose financial information and activities in
regular public filings overseen by a designated DOJ
office. Over the years FARA has been amended to exclude
bona fide news organizations. The Department of Justice
order breaks a long period of unfettered access to the
U.S. by foreign press agencies, many directly and
indirectly financed by foreign governments...
Ultimately, RT may find it
does not have the required number of sympathizers inside
and outside the US government, the requisite moral
character, or enough money to pull off such FARA
avoidance shenanigans. However, the RT FARA order may
reignite broader American interest in the selectivity
with which FARA is enforced. The key question has long
been, "if Israel’s foreign agents working tirelessly to
influence the government and public opinion aren’t
registering, why should anyone?"
Report
Israel has begun taking possession of allotments of F-35
stealth jets from the US. Although many reports describe
the transfer as an Israeli "purchase" of the aircraft,
under an unpopular ten-year $38 billion aid deal, Israel
will receive fifty of the jets at no cost.
Results from a public opinion poll of 1,000 American
adults fielded through Google Surveys reveal widespread
popular opposition to the transfer. 62% of Americans are
opposed providing the jet fighters to Israel, while 35%
support the transfer and 3% have other responses.
The survey was fielded between August 29 and September 4
and has an RMSE score of 7.4%. Individual response data
is available from Google.
Many believe the jets will be modified by Israel to
carry nuclear weapons. The US has adopted a policy of
gagging official statements or release of US government
information about Israel’s nuclear weapons program.
However, in 2015 a federal judge forced the DOD to
release a report confirming Israel’s expansive nuclear
weapons production laboratories and work on hydrogen
bomb development.
More
WASHINGTON (CN) — A federal judge rejected the CIA’s
request to reconsider a court order that it respond to a
Freedom of Information Act request on the dollar amount
of U.S. intelligence support for Israel.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan in March ordered the
CIA to process a March 2015 FOIA request from Grant
Smith, director of the Institute for Research: Middle
Eastern Policy.
Smith, who is handling the litigation himself, wants
intelligence budget line items from 1990 to 2015 as part
of his public interest research on how U.S. nuclear
knowhow, material and technology have been diverted to
support Israeli entities engaged in clandestine nuclear
weapons research and development...
...Smith said he will challenge the CIA if it admits it
has the information but refuses to release it under a
FOIA exemption.
“It’s kind of sad, really, that they won’t play ball,”
he said. “We’re all spending time and money on this very
basic question to the top recipient of all foreign aid,
and we’re acting as though these things are sacred. And
they’re not.”
More
“In Fool’s Errand, Scott
Horton masterfully explains the tragedy of America’s
longest war and makes the case for immediate withdrawal.
I highly recommend this excellent book on America’s
futile and self-defeating occupation of Afghanistan.” —
Daniel Ellsberg, Pentagon Papers whistleblower
and author of Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the
Pentagon Papers
“The real story of the disastrous U.S. war in
Afghanistan must be written so that future generations
may understand the folly of Washington’s warmongers.
Scott Horton’s Afghan war history is an important
contribution to this vital effort.” — Ron Paul,
M.D., former U.S. congressman and author of Swords into
Plowshares: A Life in Wartime and a Future of Peace and
Prosperity
“Scott Horton’s, Fool’s Errand: Time to End the War in
Afghanistan, is a definitive, authoritative and
exceptionally well-resourced accounting of America’s
disastrous war in Afghanistan since 2001. Scott’s book
deserves not just to be read, but to be kept on your
shelf, because as with David Halberstam’s The Best and
Brightest or Neil Sheehan’s A Bright Shining Lie, I
expect Horton’s book to not just explain and interpret a
current American war, but to explain and interpret the
all too predictable future American wars, and the
unavoidable waste and suffering that will accompany
them.” — Capt. Matthew Hoh, USMC (ret.), former
senior State Department official, Zabul Province,
Afghanistan, Senior Fellow at the Center for
International Policy
“Scott Horton has tapped an incredible number of sources
and insights from his thousands of expert interviews. He
presents an original, compelling, and ultimately damning
indictment of the U.S. invasion and occupation of
Afghanistan.” — Grant F. Smith, director of the
Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy and author
of Big Israel: How Israel’s Lobby Moves America
Results from a comprehensive public opinion poll of
2,500 American adults fielded through Google Surveys
reveal widespread opposition to the top lobbying
initiative of Israel’s US lobby in America, the American
Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
Congress may pass the Israel Anti-Boycott Act to punish
Americans up to $1 million in fines & 20 years in prison
for economic boycotts of Israel over human rights
violations.
Nearly seven in ten Americans oppose the "Israel
Anti-Boycott Act" (H.R.1697 in the House and S.720 in
the Senate) while 25.7% support the Act, and 5.2%
submitted other responses. The survey had an RMSE score
of 5.9% and was fielded July 24-August 1.
This is a significant change from a March 2017 poll when
62.1% of Americans neither supported nor opposed such
anti-boycott laws.
More
...Beyond subverting the First Amendment, which it is
clearly intended to do, the Israel Anti-Boycott Law
inserts Israel into Chapter 56 – Export Administration
section 4607, making Israel the only specifically
designated foreign country in a trade law designed to
advance US – not foreign – commercial interests. IABA
suddenly makes US policing of foreign countries possibly
interested in BDS, blocs such as the European Union and
the UN, a US national security interest and problem –
which they are clearly not – by placing Israel at the
center of the US Export Administration Act of 1979. IABL
amendments seek to ban organizations like the UN from
compiling and distributing lists of companies doing
business in territories illegally occupied by Israel.
What US national interest is served by banning
transparency over illegal Israeli activity? No interest. Finally, the bill’s
"rule of construction" mandates "nothing in this section
shall be construed to alter the established policy of
the United States or to establish new United States
policy concerning final status issues associated with
the Arab-Israeli conflict, including border delineation,
that can only be resolved through direct negotiations
between the parties." Translated into English, this
means that Israel and its lobby can continue to use the
US as a diplomatic lever, but Palestinians cannot employ
UN, the EU or other allies in the international
community, as a comparable counterweight.
There are many reasons why Israel might want the US to
rewrite laws designed to advance America, to protect
Israel against economic backlash. Few Americans are
served by such meddling. So why do members of congress
such as Ben Cardin quietly foist such laws on their
constituents (and fellow Americans), to the extent of
threatening fines and prison time?
Host Jeffrey Blankfort and guest Grant F. Smith discuss
the Israel lobby, foreign agents hearings, and the new
"Israel Anti-Boycott Law," and much, much more!
A
statistically significant poll of the American adult
Internet population reveals that 52.4% believe the US
government would mislead them "about a foreign
government’s use of chemical weapons in order to justify
US military action." 45.7% responded that they did not
believe the US government would mislead them, while the
remainder (1.9%) provided other responses.
The IRmep poll administered
by Google Surveys has a RMSE score of 5.8 and was
fielded July 5-22, just after Seymour Hersh’s stunning
investigative report discrediting the official narrative
justifying President Trump’s authorization to launch
fifty-nine Tomahawk missiles at the Shayrat Air base in
Syria on April 6.
The mainstream media
narrative claimed the Syrian government under president
Bashar al Assad bombed the rebel-held town of Khan
Seikhoun with the deadly nerve agent sarin on April 4.
Assad “choked out the lives of helpless men, women and
children,” claimed President Trump. The U.S. Tomahawk
strike targeted Shayrat because that is where the
chemical weapons were prepared and loaded onto fighter
bomber aircraft. According to Secretary of State Rex
Tillerson, “We feel that the strike itself was
proportional, because it was targeted at the facility
that delivered this most recent chemical weapons
attack.”
Report
Poll at Google
IRmep Polls
...The effort to register Israel’s foreign agents
clearly failed. Just 42 days after the Justice
Department order, the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee incorporated itself in Washington and took
over the AZC’s functions. Since the year it was ordered
to register—as part of the AZC—AIPAC has extracted an
inflation-adjusted $250 billion from US taxpayers for
its foreign principals. Influencing the conduct of US
policy "by techniques outside normal diplomatic
channels" has never stopped.
If AIPAC had complied with the 1962 FARA order, by now
it would have filed 109 required biennial reports
(1963-2017) of its activities. It would have had to
detail joint efforts with Israeli operatives. These
include a 1975 incident in which AIPAC Director Morris
Amitay circulated classified information about a
proposed US Hawk missile sale to Jordan. AIPAC’s FARA
file would have had to detail AIPAC staffers Steven
Rosen, Douglas Bloomfield and Ester Kurz 1984 receipt of
stolen classified information taken from US industry
groups opposed to allowing duty free imports from Israel
into the United States. Of course, the FARA disclosure
would include details on two AIPAC executives, Steven
Rosen and Keith Weissman, who from 2002-2004 solicited
and received stolen classified national defense
information from Colonel Lawrence Franklin about Iran
and other matters which they passed to the Israeli
embassy. The pair attempted to contextualize and place
the stolen classified national defense information in
the Washington Post to precipitate a US attack on Iran.
More
An
unprecedented poll reveals the gaping void between
American identification with Israel and the official
positions taken by both major political parties.
A majority of American adults – 70.3 percent – do not
consider themselves Zionists when defined as "A Zionist
is a person who believes in the development and
protection of a Jewish nation in what is now Israel."
Only 24.9 percent say, "I consider myself a Zionist"
while 4.8% provided other responses.
The IRmep poll was
fielded by Google Consumer Surveys June 15-18 to a
representative sample of 1,030 American adult Internet
users.
In contrast to their constituents, members of both major
US political parties have long operated under
overwhelmingly Zionist party platforms. The 2016
Democratic party platform references Israel 9 times.
Republican party platform 19. They differ little on the
key issues:
More at Antiwar.com
The
United States has
given Israel more foreign
assistance than any other country. In recent decades, a guaranteed
aid minimum has been formalized through ten-year "memorandum of
understanding" agreements signed by the US Department of State and the government of Israel.
In the world of business, MOUs are not legally binding and
are frequently just stepping stones to binding legal contracts for
initiatives such as joint ventures or partnerships. In US law, MOUs
are the same as non-binding "letters of intent."
MOUs are used in international relations because they take less time to
enact, do not involve ratification by the US Congress and can even be
kept secret from taxpayers.
Summary: Grant Smith of IRmep, a keen observer of AIPAC
and the institutions of the Israel Lobby, notes how the
presence of right-wing pro-Israel, pro-settlers in
Trump's White House and family, makes the historic role
of AIPAC and the Conference of Major American Jewish
Organizations redundant and accounts for the failure of
Trump to observe the tradition of past US presidents in
consulting with them before he has meetings with an
Israeli prime minister or travels to Israel or the
Middle East.
AIPAC's other role, steering funds to campaigns of
pro-Israel politicians, remains as important as ever,
given the inflation of the amounts of money required to
run Congressional campaigns when there are no limits
placed on donors.
Smith notes how in the midst of Russia concerns,
mainstream media has ignored the larger role of other
foreign governments, not only Israel, but Turkey, Saudi
Arabia, etc., in purchasing US lobbyists to make their
cases in Washington, but refers to a series of articles
on Consortium News as a welcome exception as part of
arguing that while the mainstream media remains
unchanged in its coverage of Israel-related issues,
social media is beginning to make its presence felt.
He points out that polls he has fielded show Americans
to be ahead of their politicians, citing as an example,
a poll that showed that the majority of Americans
supported the Obama administration's decision not to
veto the UNSC resolution criticizing Israeli settlements
and that 28% of the public think Israel is liable to get
the US into a major war, only exceeded by South Korea
among US allies.
He also speaks of the progress in his federal cases to
hold back issuing of US aid to Israel because it
violates the Glenn-Symington amendments making aid to
non-signers of the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty that are
engaged in building or buying nuclear weapons against
the law which the US has ignored, and his challenge to a
federal gag order imposed by President Obama making it
illegal for federal employees to speak about Israel's
nuclear weapons program.
As for Trump, Smith points out that the president has
learned nothing from the events of 9-11, by doubling
down on US support and aid for Saudi Arabia and offering
his full support for Netanyahu on his trip to Israel,
noting that these were the two issues which outraged
Osama bin Laden, the presence of US bases in Saudi
Arabia and its support for Israeli occupation of
Palestine. -
Program Notesby Jeffrey Blankfort
- Podcast
Feed
Americans believe South Korea is "most likely" while
28.5% of Americans believe Israel is "most likely." The
US has security treaties with all countries in the
survey except for Israel...
...American fears over Israel may be based on longer
term developments. In April, Israel conducted strikes on
Syrian targets that it claims were aimed at disrupting
weapons transfers from Iran to Hezbollah. Israel’s years
of threats to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities were only
quelled by likely joint US-Israeli cyber-attacks that
destroyed Iranian centrifuges and adoption of the 2015
Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. The JCPOA verifies
the Iranian nuclear program is not used to produce
nuclear weapons.
Americans worrying that creeping US involvement in Syria
is a proxy fight against Iran at Israel’s behest can
point to some evidence. Leaked policy analysis from
former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s email
account asserted:
Israel’s leadership understands well why defeating
Assad is now in its interests…. Defense Minister Ehud
Barak argued that "the toppling down of Assad will be a
major blow to the radical axis, major blow to Iran…."
Bringing down Assad would not only be a massive boon to
Israel’s security, it would also ease Israel’s
understandable fear of losing its nuclear monopoly.
Then, Israel and the United States might be able to
develop a common view of when the Iranian program is so
dangerous that military action could be warranted.
Belief that the US is attacking Syria and Iran to
advance Israel builds on views that emerged since 2003.
Many Americans believe that Israel and its US lobby were
critical factors supporting the US invasion of Iraq to
improve Israel’s strategic situation.
More
Survey
On
May 3, 2017 the Department of Homeland Security released
the most detailed files to date on the 1979-1983 Richard
Kelly Smyth/Arnon Milchan/Benjamin Netanyahu krytron
smuggling ring. The 100-page dossier (PDF) answers
important questions about how highly sensitive US
nuclear weapons technologies were smuggled out of the
country in the early 1980s. The pages leave two key
questions unanswered. The first is why Arnon Milchan was
not indicted alongside his co-conspirator Richard Kelly
Smyth. The second is why in 2016 Secretary of State John
Kerry granted Milchan a long-term visa to reside in the
United States even after career Department of State
officials initially refused.
The files, originally scheduled to be declassified in
the year 2037, reveal that on December 6, 1979 the
Israeli Ministry of Defense suddenly developed a need
"of the utmost importance" for sophisticated devices
invented and manufactured by EG&G called "krytrons."
Krytrons required a munitions license for exportation
since they can be used to initiate the precisely timed
conventional detonations necessary to create the
"symmetric implosion shockwave needed for nuclear
weapons." Israel, which had just successfully conducted
a joint nuclear test with apartheid South Africa, may
have needed the devices for hydrodynamic testing and
building up to 200 nuclear weapons for its own use, as
well as agreed-to sales to South Africa. Detonating
circuits for a single nuclear device can use two, four,
or more, krytrons. By 1987, it became known to the US
Department of Defense that Israel also had a hydrogen
bomb project underway which may have necessitated
reliable triggering mechanisms.
Washington,
DC – On May 8, 2017 IRmep Director Grant F. Smith filed
an emergency motion asking the US Court of Appeals for
an injunction on the immanent transfer of US foreign
military assistance to Israel.
On May 5 President Trump signed into law a temporary
spending measure designed to keep the US government
running until September. The law included $3.7 billion
in foreign aid to Israel.
Appellants argue that Israel’s nuclear weapons program
requires either that the aid be withheld, or that
long-neglected special procedures under the Arms Export
Control Act be followed. The Trump administration has
not issued required special waivers, as has been done
for Pakistan and other nuclear weapons countries, that
would make the aid legal under the Symington & Glenn
Amendments.
Senator Stuart Symington (1901-1988), in legislating
prohibitions on foreign aid to covert nuclear powers
said “if you wish to take the dangerous and costly steps
necessary to achieve a nuclear weapons option, you
cannot expect the United States to help underwrite that
effort indirectly or directly.” View
news release
View emergency motion (PDF)
The
following letter (original PDF) was obtained on May
4, 2017 by IRmep via the
Freedom of Information Act (release letter PDF) from
a classified FBI and Department of Homeland Security
dossier. The letter was presumably sourced from an
INTERPOL intercept.
It is an appeal for assistance written by convicted
felon Richard Kelly Smyth to movie producer and
self-confessed Israeli spy Arnon Milchan. Smyth had fled
the United States in 1985 after being arrested and
charged with smuggling. The letter (and other dossier
documents) add details to the 2014 report published at
Antiwar.com suggesting Smyth and Arnon Milchan along
with Benjamin Netanyahu were knowing participants in the
well-documented conspiracy to
illegally smuggle krytrons, which can be used as
triggers for nuclear weapons, to the Israeli Ministry of
Defense via front companies. The letter also confirms
Benjamin Netanyahu, the current Prime Minister of
Israel, worked as Arnon Milchan’s employee at Heli
Trading, the Israeli node of the smuggling network.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
successfully lobbied Secretary of State John Kerry
to grant in 2016 a 10-year resident visa for Arnon
Milchan to remain in the United States. The US
Department of State currently refuses to release
information about their secret negotiations or the State
Department’s awareness of Milchan’s espionage activities
on behalf of Israel before it granted the visa.
More
On March 30 Federal Judge Tanya Chutkan found it
"neither logical nor plausible" for the CIA to claim it
had no intelligence budget expenditure data of support
to Israel between the years 1990 and 2015. The court
then ordered the Department of Justice legal counsel to
"meet and confer" about responding to the original
Freedom of Information Act request for the data and file
a response by April 24.
The original FOIA request sought public disclosure of
the secret portion of US taxpayer-funded foreign
assistance delivered to Israel. (PDF) Although
"memorandum of understanding" packages, the most recent
guaranteeing $3.8 billion per year over a decade, and
additional Israel-bound appropriations passed by
Congress are publicly known, secret US intelligence aid
is not.
On September 11, 2013 journalist Glenn Greenwald
revealed that the National Security Agency was pumping
electronic intercepts of communications of American
citizens to Israel, with no legally binding limits on
how the data could be used.
On August 5, 2015 President Barack Obama quantified the
possible dollar value boundaries of intelligence aid
during a speech at American University, claiming "…due
to American military and intelligence assistance, which
my administration has provided at unprecedented levels,
Israel can defend itself against any conventional
danger…" Given historic military aid is publicly known,
secret intelligence aid to Israel in 2015 was either an
additional $1.9 billion per year or $13.2 billion if the
president adjusted for inflation. These are the amounts
Obama would have had to provide to meet "unprecedented"
combined levels of military and intelligence assistance.
More
WASHINGTON (CN) – A federal judge called it “neither
logical nor plausible” Thursday that the CIA has no
information about intelligence budget-line items
earmarked for Israel between 1990 and 2015.
The March 30 ruling
came in response to a Freedom of Information Act request
from the director of the Institute for Research: Middle
Eastern Policy who asked for the information back in
March 2015.
Citing the underlying
complaint, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan says Grant
Smith originally sought “the information ‘for use in
vital public interest research into how nuclear weapons
related know-how, material and technology have been
unlawfully diverted into Israeli entities conducting
clandestine nuclear weapons-related research and
development.'”
In response to Smith’s
request, the CIA issued what is known as a Glomar
response, neither confirming or denying the existence of
such information.
More
Solid majorities of Americans do not approve of major
Israel/lobby programs, how they are won, and the vast
amount of unconditional US diplomatic commitments and
funding they consume. However, only by transforming into
active opposition, rather than passive opposition, will
Americans be able to get their government into the
business of representing them, rather than the small—but
unquestionably influential—Israel/lobby. For news media
and analysts to be taken seriously, they must begin to
discuss the Israel/lobby as the primary force behind
outcomes most Americans—quantifiably—oppose.
Title: American attitudes about Israel/lobby
programs
Surveys fielded through Google Analytics Solutions
8:00-9:00 AM Registration and “Two Blue Lines”:A
documentary film screening in the Ballroom. Exhibition
hall opens in adjacent Holeman Lounge.
9:00 AM Conference Organizer Welcoming Remarks
9:10 AMGrant
Smith:The
series of stunning—but underreported—polls revealing
true American attitudes about U.S. aid toIsrael
and
other topAmerican
Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) programs.
9:40 AM Keynote—ProfessorJohn
Mearsheimer:What
has changed in the decade since his bookThe
Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policywas
published.Subsequent
findings, foreign policy choices the U.S. makes that it
otherwise would not—if not for Israel—and what the new
administration could do differently in the future that
would better serve broader American interests.
10:30 AM ProfessorMaria
Lahood:Recent
legislation that threatens the First Amendment rights of
Palestinian solidarity activists in the U.S. and the
legal challenges thereto.
11:00 AM Morning Break
11:15 AM Former CongressmanJim
Moran(D-VA):What
it takes to beat the Israel lobby in Congress.
11:40 AM Former CongressmanNick
Rahall(D-WV):How
to support the members of Congress who are beginning to
listen to their constituentsonMiddle
Eastpolicy
issues.
12:15 PM Lunch Break &
Screening of selections from the four-part Al Jazeera
six-month undercover investigative series “The Lobby.”Jack
Shaheen and John Mearsheimer book signings.
1:00 PM Keynote—Hanan
Ashrawi:The
Israel lobby and the “peace process" from a Palestinian
perspective.
1:40 PMTom
Hayes:Challenges
and changes in 25 years working on Israel-Palestine
issues and advice for independent filmmakers. The
documentary producer screens and comments on selections
from his latest film, “Two Blue Lines.”
2:10 PMJack
Shaheen:Strategies
to successfully push back against harmfulHollywoodstereotypes
about Arabs and Muslims, and the work new generations
must now take on.
2:40 PMWajahat
Ali:The
intersection of pro-Israelorganizations
& donors and Islamophobia uncovered as the lead author
and researcher of the report "Fear, Inc: The Roots of
the Islamophobia Network in America."
3:15 PM Afternoon Break
3:30 PMKhalil
Jahshan:The
Israel lobby and “fake peace processing.”
4:00 PM Conference organizer remarks
4:15 PM Keynote—ProfessorIlan
Pappé:Thevalue
of viewingIsrael-Palestinethrough
the lens of settler-colonialism, how Zionist myths have
been shaped and/or perpetuated by theIsraellobby,
and what framework is necessary to overcome these myths
and ensure that efforts to resolve the "conflict" are
grounded in reality.
5:00 PMClayton
Swisher:The
director of investigative journalism for Al Jazeera
Media Network screens and comments on selections from
“The Lobby," the four-part series about the Israeli
Embassy’s covert influence campaign in Britain. This
undercover investigation reveals how the Israeli Embassy
sought to establish supposedly "independent” pro-Israel
groups in England, AIPAC's efforts to establish itself
in London, unfounded accusations of anti-Semitism lodged
against Labour Party members, and discussions by
disgraced former Israeli diplomat Shai Masot to "take
down" UK lawmakers deemed hostile to Israel.
5:30-7:30 PM Networking Reception & Book
Signings:Wajahat
Ali, Hanan Ashrawi, Ilan Pappéand
Clayton Swisher.
$254 Billion
In Unconditional US Aid To Israel Is Unique
- 2/23/2017
On February 10, 2017
Professor Hillel Frisch of the Begin-Sadat Center for
Strategic Studies staked a claim. Contrary to many media
reports – some aimed at discrediting Israel claims
Frisch – Israel is in fact not the biggest beneficiary
of U.S. military aid. According to Frisch, Israel trails
far behind Japan, Germany, South Korea and Italy. Israel
aid more resembles that given to Kuwait and Bahrain,
according to Frisch...
...The process by which Israel obtains aid – through the
activities of a vast domestic lobby it helped establish
– reveals why the funds it extracts from taxpayers
should not be compared to equally troubling military
alliance expenditures. A $3.7 billion, 14,000 employee,
353,000 volunteer Israel affinity nonprofit ecosystem
has been built in the United States to provide Israel
with the support that following America’s own interests
would not. The approaching annual spectacle of thousands
of AIPAC lobbyists subtly threatening to withhold vast
amounts of campaign contributions from members of
Congress if they don’t provide billions in unconditional
taxpayer-funded aid – portrays an entirely accurate
picture about the means through which it is obtained.
This Israel lobby-driven process and lack of reciprocity
is why US aid to Israel cannot seriously be compared to
mutual expenditures – equally unpopular and in need of
reexamination – with treaty-bound US allies.
More
An IRmep poll fielded by
Google Consumer Surveys January
27-29 reveals 56.2 percent of the US adult Internet user
population prefers the US keep its Israel embassy in Tel
Aviv. Only 38.3 percent prefer moving it to Jerusalem,
while 5.5 percent are either uncertain or have other
responses. The statistically-significant survey has an
RMSE score of 3.3%.
Israel’s policy since its founding in 1948 has been to
locate foreign embassies in Jerusalem rather than Tel
Aviv. However, the original 1947 UN agreement
partitioning Palestine into Arab and Jewish states
required that Jerusalem be “internationalized.” Israel’s
US lobby began laying the groundwork for moving the US
embassy—in hopes that others would follow and stay—in
the late 1970s. In 1979, the Zionist Organization of
America (ZOA) submitted a petition with 100,000
signatures to President Jimmy Carter—who had campaigned
in favor of a move—asking him to formally withdraw the
US from the 1947 UN Agreement and relocate the embassy.
Carter refused. Full Analysis
On
January 18 IRmep urged Federal Judge Tanya Chutkan to
block unlawful US foreign aid disbursements to Israel.
We also further exposed and refuted the Justice
Department's legal campaign to protect an unlawful
legislative rule that attempts to punish all who speak
or write about Israel's clandestine nuclear weapons
program.
The delivery of U.S. foreign aid to Israel depends on
the federal government's ability to silence internal and
external dissenters who raise the issue of Israel's
nuclear weapons program as a disqualifying factor. On
Wednesday, IRmep filed its most important motion to
date—questioning the Justice Department's claims that
the president and his agencies can plead "willful
ignorance" about Israel's nuclear weapons program—by
claiming what is broadly known in the public domain is
"government classified information." Read the entire
41-page brief from the
Center for Policy and Law. (PDF)
Former
Defense Department
analyst Lawrence A. Franklin was convicted of
felonies for passing in 2004 classified military
information to two American Israel Public Affairs
Committee (AIPAC) lobbyists and an Israeli diplomat.
Franklin worked for Under Secretary of Defense Douglas
Feith, a major proponent of the disastrous US Iraq
invasion. The AIPAC officials tried to use Franklin’s
information to get
the US to militarily “pivot” toward Iran by getting
coverage that Iran was attacking the US in the
Washington Post.
The two AIPAC officials—Steve Rosen and Keith
Weissman—were charged but avoided conviction. Shortly
after Obama took office, the Department of Justice
abruptly dropped a very solid criminal case developed by
the FBI.
Israel affinity organizations
and their leaders generally lobby hard to get
non-prosecution (urging “prosecutorial
discretion”) for cases of major U.S. crimes that
benefitted Israel. When that fails, coordinated efforts
are made to overturn felony convictions.On October 18, 1961 JFK pardoned “Hank”
Greenspun’s felony conviction for smuggling arms during
Israel’s War of Independence after intense lobbying. On
January 20, 2001 Bill Clinton pardoned “Al” Schwimmer,
founder of Israel Aircraft Industries, for similar
crimes.On
January 1, 2009 George W. Bush issued a posthumous
pardon for B-17 bomber smuggler Charles T. Winters after
intense lobbying by more than 28 members of congress,
the American Jewish Committee, and Jewish federations.
Many of
them argued that crimes committed for Israel should not
be punished and that many others had done much more and
not been punished.
In December, the US Pardon
Attorney took a hard line and refused to release any
correspondence under the Freedom of Information Act for
a handful of convicts who recently attempted to engage
in similar activities. After an appeal, the Pardon
Attorney did disclose that
only Lawrence
Franklin (PDF) currently has an open petition
seeking a pardon from President Obama before he leaves
office. Others petitioning in support of his pardon have
not gone public—as
was the case of Jonathan Pollard—and will likely
remain unknown absent a speedy FOIA remand from the
Department of Justice Office of Information Policy.
..That MOU, like its predecessor, continues to permit
lavish subsidies for basic supplies – food and fuel –
core to the offensive needs of the IDF, rather than the
purely high-tech "defensive" infrastructure touted by
the White House, is troubling. At its worst, the MOU
could incentivize Israel to engage in offensive war, in
order to be permitted to lobby congress for funding
framed as "key to its survival." In the MOU, Israel
pledges not to seek additional funding "except in
exceptional circumstances…such as in the event of a
major armed conflict involving Israel." The MOU is
silent on whether Israel is allowed to seek addition
funding if it is clearly the aggressor. The only
requirement is that it is "jointly agreed by the US
administration and Israel" that there are indeed
"exceptional circumstances" that demand MOU limits be
broken. In the decades spanning Israel’s existence since
1948, military conflicts have been much more the rule
than exception.
More
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