The great pleasure of the Harman-Saban story is that it suggests (I know, I'm repeating myself) that MSM journalists are finally getting on the Israel lobby story. Once you start pulling this out from under the carpet, who knows where it ends! A couple of points from Zachary Roth's fine summary of the Times story at TPM (who needs to read the Times!) are worth underlining:
–Harman reportedly told Haim Saban that she would have more pull with the White House than with the Justice Department visavis dropping the espionage case against the former AIPAC staffers. Bear in mind that this is the Bush White House she was speaking of, and that she had good connections to Alberto Gonzales, the Attorney General, for whom she was carrying water at the New York Times, getting them to postpone the wiretaps story.
I think this is an important point because routinely the critics dismissed Walt and Mearsheimer in '07 by saying, Oh we all know that the Israel lobby controls the Congress, but it doesn't affect the White House. I heard Dennis Ross and Martin Indyk argue as much at Cooper Union when they were debating Mearsheimer.
What the Harman comment hints at is just what Walt and Mearsheimer said, that the neoconservatives are part of the Israel lobby and they were all over the White House. (Their variant, liberal Democrat Israel-firsters such as Ross, is now semi-installed in the White House, competing, as Bruce Wolman has noted, with the realists).
Also it demonstrates that when it comes to ideological support for Israel, party is no bar. This is why neoconservatives have jumped from Democratic to Republican administrations, and why Norm Coleman and Al Franken, who disagreed on everything, could get together for a pro-Israel rally during the Gaza slaughter. I suspect that Harman's friends were other hawkish Jews. And yes, there's a Jewish identity piece to this puzzle.
–Haim Saban's reported offer to deprive Nancy Pelosi of financial support if she failed to play her part in the deal is consistent with other reports of his behavior. In this excellent profile in Portfolio, Saban comes off as a macho kingmaker. And remember this report on Huffpo a year back in which Saban offered Young Democrats of America $1 million to throw two superdelegates Hillary's way. (Saban denied the report.)
Phil,
In 1990, Edith visited me and looked around for newspapers. There were none. She noted the absence of a television, and asked, where do you get news?
I said that I read books not newspapers, and spoke to people directly.
That was the one point in my memory where she criticized me.
At her apartment, every morning I visited, she and her husband Bob and I divvied up four or five newspapers (New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe) before she went off to chambers.
How many posts did you report on this? 18 so far?
How many on Freeman? 20?
Is this really what is important in your perspective?
Hey Sayanim Witty,
Yeah, it's really important. Maybe Jane Harman can be blowing Pollard when this is all over and they're cellmates.
@witty:: you are also free to decide what is important to you and cover that on your own blog.
Juan Cole is President of the Global Americana Institute
link to juancole.com
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Harman Scandal: All about War on Iran
Jeff Stein of CQ.com reported on Sunday evening that the National Security Agency had picked up a telephone conversation by Representative Jane Harman (D-CA) with a suspected spy for Israel. It is alleged that in the conversation, the spy urged Harman to intervene to stop the prosecution for espionage of Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman, two career lobbyists for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee who headed up its Middle East bureau. The Israeli agent promised to lobby Pelosi to get Harman the chairmanship of the House Intelligence committee, but appears to have gone too far in doing so.
You see, for someone to call Harman and ask her to weigh in with the Justice Department on behalf of Rosen and Weissman is not illegal. But once she was offered a position, the conversation was suddenly about a bribe. At that point she is said to have hung up after asserting "This conversation never happened."
Israel lobbies did fundraising for Nancy Pelosi in 2006 in hopes of getting Harman the chairmanship.
Two things here. It should be remembered that this whole affair has been about getting up a war on Iran. That was the point of Franklin leaking to Rosen and Weissman in the first place. Someone should go back through Harman's statements on Iran.
Second, the transcript should be released and if it is as alleged, Harman must resign. Congress declares wars or implicitly authorizes them. American soldiers have a right to know that the representatives who send them to war are doing so on behalf of US interests. And that congressional intelligence reports are not plants by a foreign intelligence service.
Let us just stop and review what is being alleged, and to underline what it means for US security and policy.
The US is spied on, and a classified Pentagon document is passed to the Israeli embassy by AIPAC officials. They are caught because the FBI had them under surveillance. Apparently the FBI is one of the few US government institutions that is not corrupt on the issue of foreign influence on US institutions and policy. Then when the two AIPAC spies are indicted, a Mossad agent attempts to derail the prosecution by suborning a member of Congress and promising her the chairmanship of the Intelligence Committee.
Harman is denying it all, of course. But then so did Rosen and Weissman deny it all (or allege that the lack of a US official secrets act means that their passing of a classified Pentagon document to a Mossad agent was not in fact treason or illegal). Harman's denial is clever, since the NSA wiretap is presumably classified, and so she can't be contradicted until the document is released.
Richard, yes this is incredibly important. It's blowing the lid off the most important story of our time. The influence-peddling here is as astounding as the Blogovich scandal!
First of all, think of how astounding the timing is on this story . . . as the US is on a "collision course" with Israel over its reticence about the two-state solution . . . as Rosen and Weissman are about to go to trial . . . as a possible payback to AIPACsters who wre high-fiving over sabotaging Freeman's appointment at NIC . . . and, most importantly, as a warning shot to the other Israel-first senators and congresspeople who may be "waddling in" on AIPAC's behalf to circumvent momentum on the Palestinian homeland.
I also think how it was leaked is exceptionally interesting. The leakers didn't go to the New York Times or the Washington Post — they went to CQ! CQ did the investigative reporting with triple-checks that forced the Times to run a page-one story this morning (in part, because the story implicated influence-peddling at the Times in holding back the story for a year because of Harman's intervention).
It's frightening that Harman had such a powerful position, and is so beholden to AIPAC. AIPAC needs to register as a foreign agent immediately.
One other note — Pelosi is in an interesting bind. She has to order a House ethics investigation of wrongdoing in which she was a target! According to the story, Harman was conspiring to have Saban hold back campaign dollars if Harman wasn't appointed Chair of the House Intelligence Committee. Wow. Talk about pay for play. Isn't that element of the story AS BAD OR WORSE than Blagovich and the vacant Senate seat?
Call your congressman and senator today.
And then call again on the day the AIPAC convention attendees go to lobby congress for Israel.
You have two choices…hold their heads underwater until the bubbles quit coming up or lose your country.
Richard Witty, the fact that Phil requested commenters not to be "vicious" to you does not actually mean you get to run the blog. I know that's hard to understand, like understanding that the divine blessing which made us Jews doesn't mean we are necessarily entitled to our own country. Where did you get your out-sized conceptions of entitlement?
We must expose and then throw out of office Democratic neocons, who hide behind the facade of liberalism.
Good summary, Xym…I mean CO.
I'm puzzled. Witty very politely objected to these stories about Harmon, yet they STILL appear on your site, Phil.
Please remove all mention of Harmon and return to important matters like the Hamas charter and the Mufti of Jerusalem.
This is your last warning!
Painful day for the lobby supporters. Poor Witty is reduced to whining that Phil is spending too much time on the Harman story. Look away everone, look away, nothing to see here.
This story is big. It looked like the original Franklin, Rosen, Weissman, Arad story had been put to rest but now this blows up and adds Harman, Pollack and Sabin to the mix. The lobby exposed in all of its ugliness.