Grant Smith, the author of an important new book on the birth of the Israel lobby called America's Defense Line: the Justice Department's Battle to Register the Israel Lobby as Agents of a Foreign Government, today has targeted Joe Biden's statement that "AIPAC does not speak for the State of Israel."
The
outspoken Senator Biden, often compared to president John F. Kennedy,
is wrong. Newly declassified documents reveal that before his death,
JFK's most pressing concerns were registering the Israel lobby as
foreign government agents and inspections of the Israeli nuclear
weapons program.
Isaiah L. Kenen worked as the registered foreign
agent of the Israeli Ministry of Affairs in New York until he
established what would become AIPAC in 1951. In his words, Kenen left
because "Israelis began looking for a lobbyist to promote the necessary
legislation…would I leave the Israeli delegation for six months to
lobby for aid on Capitol Hill?"
When Kenen told the Justice Department's Foreign Agent Registration Act
(FARA) office he was leaving to perform public relations for the
Israeli Government, he was advised to re-register. Kenen never did,
even as he founded and distributed the Near East Report lobbying
newsletter with $38,000 in Israeli funds.
I wrote the foreword for Smith's book and regard it as an important contribution to our historical understanding. Having been to the AIPAC policy conference this year, I saw for myself that it stays in step with the positions of the Israeli government. This is why J Street has had such difficulty separating itself from AIPAC–because AIPAC is so genuinely devoted to promoting Israel's interests, and Jews here don't feel they can dissent. I'll have more to say about Smith's disclosures in days to come…
'Newly declassified documents reveal that before his death, JFK's most pressing concerns were registering the Israel lobby as foreign government agents and inspections of the Israeli nuclear weapons program.'
So Mossad joins the list of interests threatened by the Kennedys, along with the CIA/MI complex, the Cubans, the Outfit, Teamsters. All had motive, means and opportunity.
I'm sorry, I keep forgetting, it was Oswald. My bad.
You're baclk in the ozone again, Phil.
Biden stated that AIPAC was a likud dominated organization, that there were differences of opinion within Israel and about Israel.
And, now you are stating that that is not the case, that it IS authoritative, and speaks for Israel, rather than a limited perspective on Israel.
I think you are taking a foolish position on this development.
Biden is saying that he and Obama will think independantly of AIPAC, while still respecting Israel's genuine needs, and you condemn Biden for that.
Please stop the conspiratorial view and move to the sober political view.
"JFK's most pressing concerns"?
And you praise an author that knows what others' think?
The Diem assasination, checkpoint charlie, Cuba, MLK and the civil rights movement. No wonder he was such a lousy president if that was priority #1
"Newly declassified documents reveal that before his death, JFK's most pressing concerns were registering the Israel lobby as foreign government agents and inspections of the Israeli nuclear weapons program." — Grant Smith
Glenn Condell beat me to it above. After Johnson succeeded Kennedy, the US regarded Israel's provocative nuclear proliferation at Dimona with a benign "see no evil" gaze.
In "Final Judgment," Michael Collins Piper draws the explicit connection: "Israel's intelligence agency, the Mossad, collaborated with the CIA and the mob in the assassination of John F. Kennedy because JFK stood in the way of Israel's efforts to build a nuclear arsenal."
Piper's assertion that Israel helped assassinate Kennedy probably never will be proved. However, Israel's 1967 attack on the USS Liberty couldn't be concealed. As a belligerent military power subject to no nuclear safeguards, Israel represents the greatest danger to peace on the planet. US coddling of this apartheid rogue regime is treasonous. Barry and Joe, both lawyers, can't plead ignorance.
Witty:
Biden is saying that he and Obama will think independantly of AIPAC, while still respecting Israel's genuine needs, and you condemn Biden for that.
Oh, come.
Next thing, you'll be telling us he's a maverick.
In his long obedient political career, Biden has devoutly avoided thinking independently about anything.
The skies are at last opening for his devotion, so he's hardly about to mess with a good thing now.
before israel disappears from history, not just changes but goes, i want to visit these jewish created areas for palestinians in the land of david and solomon:
Majdanek, Jaworzno, Potulice, Zgoda,Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen, Bergen-Belsen, Mauthausen, Ravensbrück, Auschwitz, Dachau, Flossenbürg, and hundreds more.
last year i went on a christian-zionist(oxymoron) tour of the golden land. to visit these "special" places was not permitted.
Christian-Zionism isn't an oxymoron at all, but a real US development in Christianity with roots in Puritanism.
If you allow me an uninformed subjective statement, from an anti-authoritarian perspective: It no doubt seems to be helpful to have additional scriptures that can be used highly selectively, e.g. concerning homosexuality. I have been watching all these military minded US pastors for quite some time, they cite the Old Testament much more often than the New and highly selectively.
Try to find rules about e.g. homosexuality in the New Testament. Remember Christ, at least according to legend, was somehow permissive concerning us sinners
The Hebrew Bible is quite explicit that the operation of the Covenant with Israel obligates the permanent end of Israel as a political entity and only allows the establishment of new covenantal community in the Land of Israel via prophetically confirmed divine mercy associated with a miracle.
At its creation AIPAC's focus seems to have been almost totally local, and to this day AIPAC positions seem to correlate for more with major contributors than with those of the Israeli government.
Jim Garrison, the New Orleans District Attorney who believed there was governmental involvement in the assassination and brought the only judicial proceeding in the Kennedy case, was born in the same Iowa town where Rachel Corrie's mother.Cindy, was born. Dershowitz creams Garrison in his recent book on the Kennedy assassination, if I remember right.
One of AIPACs strongest bastions in the U.S. House is the House Foreign Relations Committee formerly known as the House International Relations Committee. For a number of years Henry Hyde chaired this committee and he was of course followed by Tom Lantos. The Mideast subcommittee was chaired by Republican Ileana Ros Lehtinen (R) and then Howard Berman (D). It is in this subcommittee that the anti-Iraq, anti-Iran, anti-Syrian, pro-Israeli, anti-Palestinian tough worded legislation is generated. It is this subcommittee that received HCR111 in 2003 calling for an investigation into Rachel's death which of course never made it out of committee. Ros Lehtinen refused to meet with the Corrie family even though her committee colleague Rep. Jim Leach requested the meeting. Numerous attempts were made but a meeting with a staffer and a brief encounter with Ros Lehtinen were all that could be accomplished. On a Tuesday night I stopped in Ros Lehtinen's office,spoke briefly with the staffer, Yleem, and I recall her following me into the hall and inquiring what we were doing on the Hill. I replied that we were mostly meeting with staffers on the Senate side. The next morning we were told that AIPAC had just been at Rachel's Senator's office and asked the staffer where the Corries were going with this. In addition, the staffer said the AIPAC representative had a Corrie file with him. I have wondered if it is a true statement that the Mideast subcommittee of the House Foreign Relations Committee is controlled by a Jewish-AntiCastro Cuban coalition. And, I have wondered if the seeds of such were sown in the Garrison/Bay of Pigs, Cuba,Kennedy U.S.S. Liberty era much the way that the neocons germinated in Scoop Jackson's office. And, AIPAC is at home with them all…
You forgot to throw in the aliens in area 51.
more on Ros Lehtinen:
Winning her seat in 1989, Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican, was the first Hispanic woman to be voted into the House. Her family fled her native Cuba when she was a child. Although she rarely calls attention to her ancestry, Ros-Lehtinen’s maternal grandparents were Sephardic Jews from Turkey who had been active in Cuba’s Jewish community.
“I feel very connected to strong Jewish roots and I’m very proud of it. I just don’t want to advertise it for political reasons, to avoid the appearance of pandering,” said Ros-Lehtinen in an interview with the Advocate this week. She was brought up Catholic.
http://www.thejewishadvocate.com/this_weeks_issue/news/?content_id=1250
Witty wrote: "you condemn Biden for that."
The significance of the observation that AIPAC is indeed an arm of the Israeli government is not to rebuke Biden for his innuendo that it is merely an extension of Likud, but rather to point out that he is wrong in denying the hand-in-glove relationship between the two, and is wrong in his apparent belief that U.S. Jewish Zionist lobbies do not have a hand-in-glove relationship with the Israeli government. And while AIPAC is certainly the most egregious offender, and its U.S. members abuse their U.S. citizenship status and lobbying rights more than most, there are many organized U.S. Jewish groups that are also basically branches of the Israeli government, and are serving the interests of the Israeli government at the expense of American interests. That’s what a “Zionist” is: someone who serves the interests of the nation of Zion.
Non-Jews like Biden, particularly those ostensibly working for the U.S. government and U.S. interests, should put a bit more thought into how they categorize themselves, and shouldn’t go around saying things like “I am a Zionist. You don't have to be a Jew to be a Zionist”, which is basically a public admission of serving the interests of Zion, and a statement to the effect: you don‘t have to be a Jew to betray your own country on behalf of Zionism.
The FBI should start interviewing government employees, including members of Congress, the judiciary and the executive branch, to find out exactly how many of them would categorize themselves as Zionists (ie someone dedicated to serving the interests of the nation of Zion, its values, and its agenda). No doubt the results of those interviews would explain many of the troubles in which America finds itself today.
Ed:
POLL: MORE AMERICANS ARE PRO-ISRAELI
NEW GALLUP SURVEY REVEALS ISRAEL IS ONE OF FIVE COUNTRIES AMERICANS FEEL MOST FAVORABLY ABOUT; PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY RANKS NEAR BOTTOM ALONG WITH IRAN, NORTH KOREA
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THE NEW ISRAEL AND THE OLD
WHY GENTILE AMERICANS BACK THE JEWISH STATE
A Gallup poll in June 1948 showed that almost three times as many Americans "sympathized with the Jews" as "sympathized with the Arabs." That support was no flash in the pan. Widespread gentile support for Israel is one of the most potent political forces in U.S. foreign policy, and in the last 60 years, there has never been a Gallup poll showing more Americans sympathizing with the Arabs or the Palestinians than with the Israelis.
Over time, moreover, the pro-Israel sentiment in the United States has increased, especially among non-Jews.
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:-)