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WASHINGTON — A new Jewish lobby that claims to be supportive of Israel has been linked to Qatar. ShareThis A former Israeli diplomat has asserted that J Street has been connected to Qatar through the U.S. public relations firm of Fenton Communications. Lenny Ben-David, a former diplomat and now consultant, said J Street founder Jeremy Ben-Ami, a senior vice president at Fenton until the lobby's establishment in 2008, could have been involved in a March 2009 project by Qatar to undermine support for Israel in the United States. The Fenton contract with Qatar was disclosed as J Street, regarded as...

Yesterday Morning's headlines blared "Man Arrested Attempting to Spy For Israel." The small print continued to explain that Israel was no way involved in the sting. The FBI has long believed the accused spy Stewart David Nozette,was up to no good so it created this sting to nab him. Because the FBI has a strong belief that American Jews have a dual loyalty between Israel and the US, the chose to build the sting around Israel. Truth is, Nozette did not grab the bait because of any love toward the Jewish State, but because of the offer of cold hard...

The Obama administration appears to be welcoming the efforts of the left-leaning Jewish lobby in Washington, J Street. While Israel's ambassador to the U.S. will probably not be attending the group's October 25 conference, senior U.S. administration officials who have confirmed their participation include James Jones, national security adviser in the Obama administration. J Street was set up more than two years ago to offer an antidote to the large and powerful America Israel Public Affairs Committee. AIPAC enjoys substantial support in both the Democratic and Republican parties and is identified with a more "rightist" line on the peace process....

In July, President Obama met for 45 minutes with leaders of American Jewish organizations. All presidents meet with Israel’s advocates. Obama, however, had taken his time, and powerhouse figures of the Jewish community were grumbling; Obama’s coolness seemed to be of a piece with his willingness to publicly pressure Israel to freeze the growth of its settlements and with what was deemed his excessive solicitude toward the plight of the Palestinians. During the July meeting, held in the Roosevelt Room, Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, told Obama that “public disharmony...

Seventy-one senators have signed an AIPAC-backed letter to US President Barack Obama supporting his effort to encourage Arab states to normalize relations with Israel. It comes after Americans for Peace Now and other left-wing pro-Israel groups - including Brit Tzedek v'Shalom and J Street - made a battleground of the document, which was circulated by Sens. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) and James Risch, (R-Idaho). They called on senators not to sign it unless it is amended to include mention of steps that all the parties in the Middle East need to take towards peace - especially Israel's need to stop settlement...

Two pro-Israel American organizations and the Republican Jewish Coalition lashed out at U.S. President Barack Obama for awarding a Presidential Medal of Freedom to Mary Robinson. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) called on the administration to “firmly, fully and publicly repudiate her views on Israel and her long public record of hostility and one-sided bias against the Jewish state.” The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) also condemned the decision to award former South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The ZOA pointed out that both Tutu and Robinson “have made statements and presided over organizations and conferences that were viciously...

A delegation of 25 US congressmen began a six-day trip to Israel on Monday in the largest ever Republican mission to visit the Jewish state, the US embassy said. They held talks with Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who told them Israel was willing to immediately resume direct talks with Syria, but ruled out returning the Golan Heights which were captured in 1967 and annexed in 1981. "Whatever the case, the Golan must remain under Israeli control in any agreement with Syria," Lieberman said in a statement. Syria insists that it be given back the strategic plateau. Turkey last year brokered...

The news came out around the same time as the news that Dan Rather faked a report about President Bush. When the news first broke, I was waiting for someone in the blogisphere to prove the charges fake, just as they did with the Rather story. But that follow-up report never happened. As time went by it became clearer that there was a real live actual ongoing investigation of some AIPAC lobbyists taking classified information to give to Israel. I refused to believe it, with Pollard in jail for so long, how could Israel be so stupid once again. The...

He was arrested, subjected to humiliating interrogations, accused of spying for Israel, lived under the specter of a 13-year prison term and sold everything he owned to pay for his legal defense. But Lawrence Franklin, 63, a former senior officer in the U.S. Air Force, an intelligence expert, university professor and senior official in the U.S. administration, did not crack.

The infamously wiretapped Jane Harman wants to shut down the federal agency slated to oversee the use of satellites for spying on U.S. residents suspected of terrorism and other evildoing. The California Democrat, who was wiretapped talking about the fate of two Israel lobbyists suspected of espionage, has introduced two bills that would shutter the Department of Homeland Security's innocuously-named National Applications Office.

WASHINGTON - A small band of determined women raised their voices against America's most powerful political lobby—the Israel lobby—and they got their point across. When Israeli Pres. Shimon Peres began speaking to the annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) policy conference at the Washington Convention Center May 4 six members of CODEPINK Women for Peace raised banners saying “Want Peace? End the Occupation,” “What About Gaza?” and “No Money for War Crimes.” The next day, when U.S. Vice President Joe Biden began addressing the AIPAC meeting, another pair of CODEPINK members disrupted his speech. Each day, as the activists—some...

Sometimes its the things you don't see as controversial gets the biggest negative response. Over the weekend I posted about the AIPAC case, suggesting that it was all an anti-Jewish vendetta: The FBI was had its "Case" Against the Evil Jewish Lobby. Problem was, the case was a fraud. That is why the case was eventually dropped. The prosecution realized that it could not prove their case. Since that post, I was called paranoid in 6 different languages. Today, the AIPAC Case was officially dismissed, in his first post trial interview, former defendant Steve Rosen warned about the real reason...

The ZOA has expressed deep concern that the America-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a leading pro-Israel lobby, has endorsed establishing a Palestinian Arab state alongside Israel’s longest border on the assumption that such a state will produce peace. In this year’s lobbying effort by AIPAC, AIPAC activists were instructed to ask their congressmen to sign on to letters addressed to Obama that explicitly promotes the need for a “viable Palestinian state.” ZOA is mystified that AIPAC is supporting the establishment of a Palestinian state despite the fact that Mahmoud Abbas refuses to accept Israel as a Jewish state and other...

After costing the named defendants their positions, subjecting them and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) to unwarranted slander and speculation, and running up the defense legal tab to over four million dollars, the Department of Justice last Friday moved to dismiss the indictment against Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, former officials of AIPAC. The language in the government’s motion to dismiss is dry and somewhat disingenuous (the motion can be found here in PDF). The motion suggests that it wasn’t obvious from the outset that the case would require some disclosure of classified information. It’s hard for me...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Speech at AIPAC For video: www.aipac.org/about_AIPAC/Learn_About_AIPAC/2841_24653.asp 05/05/2009 It's very good to be with all of you, and I want to thank all of you. I want to thank first the members of Congress who are assembled there, the leaders of AIPAC, you David, Howard Friedman, Lee Rosenberg and Howard Kohr, all the delegates of AIPAC and the hundreds of students that are in the room, all the friends of Israel. I want to thank all of you for your unwavering support for Israel and for strengthening the great friendship between Israel and the United States. As...

Just in time for the annual AIPAC conference, the US Justice Department announced last week it is dismissing its charges against former AIPAC staffers Keith Weissman and Steve Rosen. Their prosecution, and what it exposed about the nature of AIPAC, and the position of Israel, and of pro-Israel Jews and non-Jews in America must serve as a cautionary tale for Israel and its American supporters. A brief summary of the now five-year-old affair is in order. In August 2004, just as the question of how the Bush administration should contend with Iran's nuclear weapons program was becoming the issue of...

AIPAC delegates to lobby for two-state solution By HILARY LEILA KRIEGER, WASHINGTON AND JERUSALEM POST While Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is refusing to explicitly endorse a two-state solution to resolve the Palestinian conflict, participants at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee Policy Conference will this week be urging their elected representatives to press President Barack Obama for precisely that. The pro-Israel advocacy group's annual conference culminates each year with a mass lobbying effort, in which the thousands of participants from across the United States spread out across Capitol Hill for meetings with their respective members of Congress and encourage them...

FrontPageMagazine.com | Monday, May 04, 2009 SNIPPET: "Then, on May 1, came the welcome news that the U.S. Department of Justice dropped its case against Rosen and Weissman. In the words of The Washington Post, this decision amounted to "a stunning vindication" for them. Beyond that, it confirms the limits on arbitrary and prejudicial government actions."

In a short address early morning in Jerusalem PM Netanyahu addressed the delegates gathered at the AIPAC conference, "We want peace with the Arab world and We want Peace with the Palestinians" the PM said, "6 Prime Ministers and 2 US Presidents have not succeeded in achieving this Final peace settlement, i Believe its possible to achieve it, But it requires a fresh approach, and the fresh approach that i suggest is by persuading a triple track towards Peace between Israel and the Palestinians, a Political track, a Security track and a Economic track". "The Political track means that we...

C-span 3 live updates, reports and excerpts of the speech will be posted on my blog http://www.bibireport.com

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- Newt Gingrich addressed the AIPAC policy conference and called for ousting the regime in Iran and bombing its missile sites. Gingrich, a former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and a likely presidential candidate in 2012, faulted the last Bush administration and the current Obama administration for engaging with Iran as long as it is led by theocrats who threaten Israel. "We need to recognize that there are some regimes we will never be able to cut a deal with because they are in fact evil," he said Sunday, the opening day of this year's American...

The news came out around the same time as the news that Dan Rather faked a report about President Bush. To be honest, when it first came out I was waiting for someone in the blogisphere that it was fake, just as they did with the Rather story. But that report never happened. As time went by it became more clear that there was an actual ongoing investigation of some AIPAC lobbyist taking classified information to give to Israel. I refused to believe it, with Pollard in jail for so long, how could Israel be so stupid once again. The...

ALEXANDRIA, Virginia - Federal prosecutors moved Friday to dismiss espionage-related charges against two former pro-Israel lobbyists accused of disclosing classified U.S. defense information, ending a tortuous inside-the-Beltway legal battle rife with national security intrigue. Critics of the prosecution of Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee accused the federal government of trying to criminalize the sort of back-channel discussions between government officials, lobbyists and reporters that are commonplace in Washington. AIPAC is an influential pro-Israel lobbying group. The indictment had alleged that Rosen and Weissman conspired to obtain and then disclose to journalists and the...

The real scandal in this case starts with the attempted criminalization of policy differences and legitimate lobbying, and ends up in the wiretapping of Congress and the wrecked careers of Messrs. Rosen, Weissman and Franklin. This smacks of abuse of power, and somebody at Justice should be held to account.

A source close to the Trial of the two former AIPAC executives, Federal Prosecutors asked a judge to drop charges against the two ex-AIPAC staffers accused of passing along classified information. In a statement Friday, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia said restrictions on the government's case imposed by Judge T.S. Ellis III made conviction unlikely. "Given the diminished likelihood the government will prevail at trial under the additional intent requirements imposed by the court and the inevitable disclosure of classified information that would occur at any trial in this matter, we have asked...

Israeli strategy is all too often constructed, if not dictated, by American foreign policy and in particular, the American President. How then could American Jews risk the survival of the State of Israel on a man who they knew befriended and listened to an anti-Semitic pastor for 20 years, surrounded himself with anti-Semitic friends and advisors, promised to unconditionally reach out to Israel's (and America's) enemies, and flip flopped on the status of Jerusalem? I have been clear that the status of Israel was too essential to the survival of the Jewish people to risk its continued existence with a...

"I knew it! The NSA was not the agency tapping Rep. Jane Harman's calls" "The NSA story never made any sense." "The only other agency that has authority to place wiretaps on calls inside the United States is the Justice Department. It requires court approval."

The U.S. government may abandon espionage-law charges against two former lobbyists for a pro-Israel advocacy group, officials said yesterday, as a prominent House lawmaker denied new allegations that she offered to use her influence on their behalf. SNIP With the trial set to begin June 2, the Justice Department is reviewing whether to proceed as planned or withdraw the indictments after a series of adverse court rulings, according to law enforcement sources and lawyers close to the case. Defense attorneys recently subpoenaed a number of senior Bush administration officials, including former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, former national security adviser...

California Democrat Jane Harmon tried to sell her influence to end an espionage case against to spies in return for help becoming House Intelligence Committee chairwoman. In a newly released NSA wiretap report, Harmon has been exposed negotiating a quid pro quo deal with an official of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). The agreement apparently called for Harmon to sell the influence of her Congressional office by lobbying the Justice Department to reduce espionage charges against two AIPC operatives. In return AIPAC would lobby then minority leader Democrat Nancy Pelosi to name Harmon as the Chair of the...

Rep. Jane Harman, who has come under criticism for what she said in apparently wiretapped conversations with two pro-Israel lobbyists under investigation for espionage, went on CNN today to defend herself, calling the government wiretaps an "abuse of power." "And let's see who else was wiretapped. I mean lots of members of Congress talk to advocacy organizations. My phone is ringing off the hook in my office from worried members who are asking whether I think it could have happened to them. I think this is an abuse of power," she told Wolf Blitzer in an CNN interview. The story...

Major scandal erupts involving Rep. Jane Harman, Alberto Gonzales and AIPAC [updated below - Update II (Interview w/Jeff Stein)] Other obligations prevent me from writing until later today -- and I intend to focus on Rahm Emanuel's war-crimes-protecting proclamation that Obama's desire for immunity extends beyond CIA officers perpetrating torture to the "policy makers" who ordered it (watch today as the hardest-core Obama loyalists start explaining how the UN doesn't matter, international treaties are irrelevant, and war criminals need not be held accountable) -- but, until then, I wanted to highlight this extremely important and well-reported story from CQ's Jeff...

Rep. Jane Harman , the California Democrat with a longtime involvement in intelligence issues, was overheard on an NSA wiretap telling a suspected Israeli agent that she would lobby the Justice Department reduce espionage-related charges against two officials of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, the most powerful pro-Israel organization in Washington. Harman was recorded saying she would "waddle into" the AIPAC case "if you think it'll make a difference," according to two former senior national security officials familiar with the NSA transcript. In exchange for Harman's help, the sources said, the suspected Israeli agent pledged to help lobby Nancy...

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Sunday canceled his plans to attend the upcoming AIPAC summit, after it became clear that US President Barack Obama would not meet him during the conference. Netanyahu announced that while he will not attend the conference in person, he will send a video-taped message to Washington.

Report: Jane Harman recorded vowing take action for AIPAC on wiretap @ 9:33 am by Jeremy P. Jacobs Congresswoman Jane Harman was recorded on a NSA wiretapped conversation agreeing to work to downgrade espionage charges against two officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in return for help securing the chairmanship of the House Intelligence Committee, according to Jeff Stein's anonymously sourced column in Congressional Quarterly. Harman, a California Democrat, was allegedly recorded in a conversation with a suspected Israeli agent. The conversation reportedly took place before the 2006 election, when Democrats seized control of the chamber and, therefore,...

From [1] time to time I’ve written about some of the more preposterous aspects of the government’s case against former AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) officers Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman. The government alleged that at a June 26, 2003, lunch, a Department of Defense employee, Lawrence Franklin, disclosed classified national defense information related to potential attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq to Rosen and Weissman, who were then employed by AIPAC. Franklin admitted that he’d told the AIPAC employees about Iranian participation in terrorism, asked them to pass the information on to the National Security Council, and sought...

Nuclear Terror: Some Obama advisers have a dubious strategy to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran: Present "a common front" including Russia and China and "demonstrate U.S. respect" for the Islamofascist regime.It may be judged the most astonishingly naive analysis of Tehran's nuclear ambitions ever unveiled. Last week, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) — a think tank founded by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and which should know better — released a report titled "Preventing a Cascade of Instability: U.S. Engagement to Check Iranian Nuclear Progress." Among the paper's signatories: Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind.; House Middle East...

In the United States, celebrations of Israel's fifty years as a state have tried to project an image of the country that went out of fashion since the Palestinian Intifada (1987-92): a pioneering state, full of hope and promise for the survivors of the Nazi Holocaust, a haven of enlightened liberalism in a sea of Arab fanaticism and reaction. On 15 April, for instance, CBS broadcast a two hour prime-time program from Hollywood hosted by Michael Douglas and Kevin Costner, featuring movie stars such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Kathy Bates (who recited passages from Golda Meir minus, of course, her most...

This is a commentary on two articles about Obama, one from Mere Rhetoric and another from the WSJmore

WASHINGTON – Senator McCain's running mate in the US presidential election, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, met with the board of directors of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee on Wednesday and expressed her admiration for Israel. The meeting took place inside Palin's hotel, sources said. A campaign official would not say who asked for the meeting, but said it was geared towards putting the American Jewish community at ease over her understanding of US-Middle East relations. "That's obviously going to be an issue," the aide said. "It's not like being the senator from New York, obviously. But these aren't issues...

Double Down 06 Sep 2008 04:32 pm Bill Kristol on Sarah Palin. All he writes about in this piece of propaganda is electoral strategy and the people he hates in the media. In a week, he hasn't said a word about Sarah Palin's foreign policy views. I know she's being safely indoctrinated by Joe Liebermanand AIPAC as we speak, but the fact that Kristol, like the rest of us, has not yet been able to point to a single view of hers on foreign policy in her entire life, is eloquent enough.

BREAKING SCANDAL: Obama Campaign Approved “Israel Lobby” Terminology …possibly as code for “Jewish Lobby” A My.BarackObama.com user re-posted the following E-mail (http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/emk/gG5VZB) he received from a site administrator or moderator, who is therefore an official representative of Barack Obama’s campaign. Emily is obviously counseling EMK to use “Israel Lobby” (the title of Walt and Mearsheimer’s infamous book) as code for “Jewish Lobby.” Hi [EMK], Thank you so much for your involvement in the My.BarackObama online community. Your voice is valued here; however, we were forced to remove your recent blog post that referred to the “Jewish lobby.” Please use the...

               Now We Know Jennifer Rubin - 07.23.2008 - 10:50 AM Barack Obama has repeatedly expressed puzzlement at how American Jews could be wary of him. At various shuls and before AIPAC he has brought up the email/whispering campaign, his middle name and even the comments of other African-Americans to explain why Jews haven’t all been smitten by the Great Man. The tone, not just from him, but from his blogoshpere friends has often been one of “But how can it be that they doubt him?” Well, now there are plenty of stories...

While visiting US presidential hopeful Barack Obama was meeting with top Israeli leaders on Wednesday, representatives of leading Israeli and American Jewish organizations came together under the banner of the Coalition for a United Jerusalem to demand that the candidate reaffirm his initial support for a unified Jerusalem under Israeli control.

Breaking the Code: Obama’s Anti-Israel Message Written by Rand H. Fishbein, Ph.D. Published Monday, July 21, 2008 http://www.themedialine.org/news/news_detail.asp?NewsID=22158 If words are a window onto the soul, then Barack Obama’s comments before a recent gathering of more than 7,000 delegates at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) 2008 Policy Conference reveals much about his true attitude towards Israel and the not-so-secret agenda of his foreign policy advisors. Here was an opportunity for the great orator to set the record straight and to disabuse his critics of the widely held notion that his sympathies lie not with Israel’s enemies, but with...

Representative Ron Paul says House Speaker Nancy Pelosi removed a section from a bill passed by Congress which would have barred the U.S. from going to war with Iran without a congressional vote, claiming she did so at the behest of the leadership of Israel and AIPAC. Paul, a former Republican presidential contender who formally removed himself from the party’s nomination race last week, makes the allegation on C-SPAN during a recently held foreign policy conference in Virginia. Paul says Pelosi’s first act as House Speaker in 2006 was to “deliberately” remove a portion of a legislative spending bill which...

Promises of a friendlier US position towards Egypt, and the rest of the region, were voiced by a supporter of the Democratic Party candidate. Dina Ezzat heard what might happen -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bill Richardson, the governor of New Mexico, a former US presidential candidate and a current key figure in the campaign backing Barack Obama, the Democratic candidate for this year's presidential elections, was in Cairo this week in an advanced attempt to promote Obama as a US president with a will to fortify good relations with the region, including Egypt, which he described as a country with a pivotal role...

Beyond the platitudes showered upon Israel and AIPAC by the presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama at AIPAC’s Annual Policy Conference held in Washington D.C. June 2-4 looms the question of whether the candidates’ words will be translated into policies? The only real measure of their intentions might be revealed in their choice of advisors.

AIPAC's Lack of Cojones About Senator Obama Last week during the Shavuot holiday I spoke to some people who were present at Senator Barack Obama's speech at AIPAC. Before he spoke attendees were reminded that Obama was their guest and that he should be treated as a respected guest, a not so hidden warning not to confront Obama with the truth about his false support of Israel. But once he made his pronouncement of an undivided Israeli capitol of Jerusalem. Of course he waited till after he left the convention to back off that pledge. AIPAC has never shirked its...

For Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, the stars certainly seem aligned. Seventy percent of Americans consider the economy in a recession. Two-thirds consider the war in Iraq a bad idea. A new Gallup Poll shows Obama leading presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain 46 to 44 percent. And the ratings for "American Idol" fell 10 percent. Given all this, plus a swooning, pro-Obama media, what's a Republican to do? Guess it's time to look on the bright side, and find something positive about the possibility of a President Barack Obama. I called Margaret, a Republican friend who lives...

There is already a widespread consensus that Barack Obama will say whatever he has to say to get elected. His own pastor, Jeremiah Wright, said that he understood why Obama had to distance himself from him to avoid unfavorable attention. Obama also put on an American flag pin (perhaps for the first time) along with an Israel flag pin to talk to AIPAC, but he would probably wear a Palestinian flag pin if he spoke to the International Solidarity Movement. We also recall Yassir Arafat’s technique of saying in English what he wanted the West to believe while using Arabic...