Pamela Geller

<youtube size="tiny" caption="Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller on Islam, Israel etc." align="right">9SLTx-jQvlE</youtube><youtube size="tiny" caption="Geller claims Hitler inspired by Islam" align="right">HzPTkFTx98E</youtube>Pamela Geller (born 1958) is a far-right blogger, a writer for Arutz Sheva, a former journalist for Mortimer Zuckerman's New York Daily News, and the former associate publisher of the New York Observer. During the 2008 presidential elections she published a post alleging that Barack Obama was the illegitimate child of the late American Muslim leader Malcolm X. She has also alleged that Obama is a secret Muslim. At one point PayPal banned Geller's website "Atlas Shrugs" on the grounds that her site promotes "hate" and "racial intolerance."

History

Geller is the ex-wife of a now deceased wealthy luxury car dealer and has no professional or academic training in journalism. She worked for different right-leaning news publications prior to quitting in 1994 to "stay home with her daughters." At that point she moved to New York City while being financially supported by her husband. She has admitted that in the wake of 9/11 (which was what prompted her blogging) her most valued news source was the then far right-wing political blog, Little Green Footballs. Former ally and LGF founder Charles Johnson stated in 2010 that Geller "got her start on the internet by commenting at my site, Little Green Footballs (LGF). She posted more than 6,000 comments at LGF in our earlier days, when our comment moderation policy was much more laissez faire than it is now." Geller also reportedly learned about Islam by reading virulent critics of the religion:

She spent the next year educating herself about Islam, reading Bat Ye’or, a French writer who focuses on tensions over Muslim immigrants in Europe; Ibn Warraq, the pseudonym for a Pakistani who writes about his rejection of Islam; and Daniel Pipes, whom she ultimately rejected because he believes in the existence of a moderate Islam.

Geller's "closest partner" is Robert Spencer (founder of Jihad Watch) with whom she has authored a book and cofounded the Freedom Defense Initiative (which also uses the name Stop the Islamization of America). She shot to fame after sprouting the roots to the heated debate surrounding Park51 She has also allied with "racist extremists in South Africa in promoting a claim that the black population is carrying out a "genocide" of whites." Geller also advocates in favor of the English Defence League which she refers to as "patriotic."

On 27 February 2009, Geller co-sponsored a reception for Geert Wilders at the Omni Shoreham hotel in Washington DC during the Conservative Political Action Conference. The other sponsors were the David Horowitz Freedom Center, Jihad Watch and Dr Andrew Bostom.

Atlas Shrugs

Geller's blog "Atlas Shrugs" averages about 20,000 visitors a month (spiking on hot topic issues such as the Danish cartoons of Muhammad and Israel's war on Lebanon in 2006) and features Geller's daily "venomous" observations about Islam, Muslims in America, and Middle East politics, often with attached images, some "doctored." The blog's official tagline is: "Evil is made possible by the sanction you give it. Withdraw your sanction." Geller includes endorsements of the blog on her "About" page from Wafa Sultan, John Bolton and Jihad Watch

Views

Islam

"It’s not like Judaism, where you have these different levels of observance... “Islam is Islam. … There’s no way you can be a devout Muslim and not support jihad.”

Muslims

'Moderate Muslims'

ANNE BARNARD Just to be completely clear, so you’re saying if someone is a devout Muslim, meaning if he or she is practicing and believing in the tenets of Islam, they cannot in your view be a political moderate?

PAMELA GELLER No.
...
ANNE BARNARD What would be a moderate Muslim then?
PAMELA GELLER I think a moderate Muslim is a secular Muslim.

On Vlaams Belang

"The implication that Vlaams Belang is somehow neo-Nazi or racist is salacious," Geller told IPS. "They are the only party in Belgium that is staunchly pro-Israel."

On Barack Obama

Pamela Geller: 'It is not enough to fetishize the dead Jews that were murdered in WWII...[we must] make sure that it doesn't happen again. Because a second holocaust is coming. Six million Jews are in the Jewish homeland of Israel. It is now up to you and me to stop -- well -- the anti-Semite in the White House, and his useful idiots in the Congress.'

Robert Spencer: 'That's right'.

On Jeffrey Goldberg

Geller's affinity for Israel is so strong that even staunchly pro-Israel figures like Jeffrey Goldberg have failed to escape her wrath. She has denounced Goldberg as 'Jihad Jeff'; as a 'Jewicidal Jihadi', and as 'a liar and an asshat, jihad Jeffro'; Goldberg is 'the Jew tool that Obama used to sell his taqiya on Israel. She took her leave with the following message:

Jihad Jeff Goldberg, from one Jew to another, go to hell. Cuz it's foe shizzle you are going to rot there.'

On New York Times

The New York Times has frequently been accused of one sided coverage on the Israel-Palestine conflict by critics. But for Geller, the paper is not just anti-Israel, indeed it is the 'mother-ship for Jewicidals both foreign and domestic.'

On Ehud Olmert

Geller wasn't pleased by Ehud Olmert's pronouncements favouring a two state solution. She has labelled him 'Olmurderer' for his offense.

On UK Jewish Groups

After the Community Security Trust and some Rabbis advised British Jews against participating in an anti-Muslim rally organized by SIOE, Geller accused them of "aiding and abetting Islamic jihad and Islamic anti-Semitism."

On the English Defence League

When asked about the English Defence League on her blog, Geller argued that:

I have found Paul Ray to be dishonest and duplicitous. I broke with him in 2007 when he tried to strong arm me to support the BNP. He is abusive. And yet has the indecency to say he has many Jewish friends and then cite me for example, years later. He derides the EDL because they threw him out and yet, he had the audacity to start a new group calling it EDL: St German division despite EDL protestations.They asked him repeatedly not to be associated with EDL.

She adds:

I have researched the EDL and I am comfortable with the EDL. I stand with EDL. They are NOT BNP but the campaign to smear them is relentless. The EDL has my confidence in fighting a global scourge. If, at any time, they take action or do something counter to our fight, I will be first to call them out on it.

Affiliations

• EDL - calls it 'the standard bearers of freedom in the UK'.
• Stop Honorcide!
• CounterJihad Brussels Conference
• Freedom Defense Initiative - a frontgroup Geller runs with Robert Spencer to campaign against the so-called Ground Zero Mosque
• Stop the Islamization of America
• Ground Zero Mosque
• Leave Islam Safely

Publications

• The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War on America with Robert Spencer. The 400-page attack on Barack Obama features a foreword by John Bolton and has been endorsed by Geert Wilders, Brad Thor, David Horowitz, Caroline Glick, Mark Steyn, Andrew C. McCarthy.

Resources

• Little Green Footballs Pamela Geller: Poster Girl for Eurofascists World | Thu, Apr 23, 2009 at 3:37:33 pm PDT, accessed 10 December 2009
• Eli Clifton, CPAC’s Third Rail, Lobelog.com, 19 February 2010
• Anne bayard and Alan Feuer, Outraged and Outrageous, New York Times, 8 October 2010

Contact

• email: writeatlas@aol.com
• Website: http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/ Atlas Shrugs blog
• Address: 1040 1st Avenue PO Box 121 New York NEW YORK 10022.

Notes

==

<youtube align="right" size="tiny" caption="NRTPac Ad: 'Kill the Ground Zero Mosque'">mjGJPPRD3u0</youtube><youtube align="right" size="tiny" caption="Olbermann: There is no ‘Ground Zero Mosque'">QZpT2Muxoo0</youtube>The 'Ground Zero Mosque' controversy was sparked by right-wing blogger and pro Israel activist Pamela Geller about the Park51 (originally named Cordoba House) initiative to build a Muslim community center in Manhattan, New York. The campaign is funded mainly by Joyce Chernick, a WINEP trustee. Construction of the centre, which will include a swimming pool, gym, theatre, sports and prayer facilities, was approved by a New York City community board by a vote 29-1 in favour with 10 abstentions.

Origins of Controversy

The campaign against Park51, which has been deliberately mislabelled the 'Ground Zero Mosque', was started by far-right Zionist activist Pamela Geller. It has since been joined by some members of the families of 9/11 victims, a campaign has been waged mainly by the right wing Tea Party movement and Israel lobby-affiliated neoconservative groups to inflame passions in a series of ads, articles and public pronouncements. In the latest episode, former Republican governor of Alaska Sarah Palin has asked 'peace-seeking' Muslims to 'refudiate'[sic] the mosque. As of 21 July 2010, the campaign's Facebook page (which is promoted by the English Defence League) has over 51,000 members. In late July 2010 the Anti-Defamation League drew sharp condemnation after it endorsed the campaign's demands. ADL's action prompted influential columnist Fareed Zakaria to return an award and the $10,000 honorarium he received from the organization in 2005. Despite intense lobby pressure, Barack Obama has supported the project.

Following the hysteria successfully sparked by the rightwing campaign, public opinion has strongly turned against the mosque, and politicians of even liberal persuasion have started backtracking, expressing scepticism, or outright opposing the project. Barack Obama backtracked from his endorsement the very next day, and the project has been opposed by the likes of Harry Reid, Howard Dean and David Paterson.

The Art of Incitement

<youtube align="right" size="tiny" caption="Center for Security Policy's television ad against the Park51">nkMolLriAkQ</youtube>According to journalist Chris McGreal:

SIOA is behind a series of advertisements opposing the "Ground Zero Mega Mosque", as Geller calls it, which appeared on the sides of New York buses this week picturing a plane flying into one of the World Trade Centre towers and a mosque divided by the question: Why Here?

Geller's answer is that the planned centre is viewed by Muslims as a "triumphal" monument built on "conquered land".

As extreme as that may seem, Geller and her views have been embraced by leading politicians such as Newt Gingrich, the former Republican speaker of the US House of Representatives, and John Bolton, the conservative former US ambassador to the UN, who are scheduled to speak at a rally against the controversial New York Islamic centre organised by Geller for September 11.

Gingrich this week likened the planned centre to putting Nazi signs outside the Holocaust museum.

Response to Park51's LMDC Grant Application

On November 22, 2010 Park51 announced on its blog that it was applying for a Lower Manhattan Development Corporation grant "which would in part fund social service programs for all the residents of Lower Manhattan such as domestic violence prevention, Arabic and other foreign language classes, programs and services for homeless veterans, two multi-cultural art exhibits and immigration services." The media monitoring non-profit Media Matters for America called the reaction the announcement received from right-wing blogs "predictable" and based on "Islamophobia."

The culprit behind the 'Ground Zero Mosque' Pamela Geller wrote: "Imagine the gall of these Islamic supremacists. The very idea that the infidels should finance the second wave of 911 attacks on the American people again exhibits the contempt Rauf and his gang have for the filthy kuffar."

Key Opponents

• American Jewish Committee
• Anti-Defamation League -
• Freedom Defense Initiative - (one of Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller's projects)
• English Defence League
• David Horowitz
• American Family Association
• Charles Krauthammer
• JINSA
• Coalition to Honor Ground Zero - (a CSP front group previously called 'Stop the 911 Mosque' campaign)
• Center for Security Policy
• Investigative Project on Terrorism
• Jonah Goldberg
• Martin Peretz
• Elie Wiesel
• Michael Steinhardt
• Dan Senor
• Geert Wilders
• Sarah Palin
• Newt Gingrich
• Elizabeth Cheney
• Stephen Schwartz
• M. Zuhdi Jasser
• Mark Williams - (chairman of Tea Party Express has called Cordoba House 'a monument to 9/11 attacker')
• Youssef M. Ibrahim
• Rick Lazio
• Robert Spencer
• Pamela Geller
• Middle East Forum - Raymond Ibrahim of MEF denounces the centre by drawing parallels with his own unique interpretation of Cordoba's history
• Scott Wheeler - (runs the one man National Republican Trust Political Action Committee)
• Carol Mann -
• Tariq Ramadan

Resources

• Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/no911mosque
• Park51 Blog: http://blog.park51.org/
• Park51 Official Twitter: http://twitter.com/park51

Media Coverage

• Justin Elliott, "How the "ground zero mosque" fear mongering began", Salon, 16 August 2010
• Keith Olbermann, "Olbermann: There is no ‘Ground Zero Mosque’", MSNBC, 16 August 2010
• As GOP and Some Top Dems Unite in Opposing NY Islamic Community Center, a Roundtable Discussion with Mother of 9/11 Victim, Rabbi, Muslim Lawmaker and Islamic Scholar, Democracy Now!, 18 August 2010
• Matthew Price, 'Controversy over Ground Zero mosque plans', BBC, 19 May 2010
• Harris Zafar, Ground Zero Mosque: A Muslim's Perspective, Huffington Post, 19 July 2010

Funding

According to a Politico investigation Robert Spencer's operations are funded mainly by Joyce Chernick, a WINEP trustee. She also led the effort to raise $3.5 million in venture capital to start Pajamas Media, a far right pro-Israel blog network which has kept up a steady stream of anti-mosque postings.

References

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<youtube size="tiny" align="right" caption="AIPAC student activities czar Jonathan Kessler explains how the lobby muzzles congress">7VDYGLY1WBQ</youtube> The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is a national membership based group which describes itself as "America's Pro-Israel lobby".

History

Dick Cheney at AIPAC's Annual Conference

See main article AIPAC's origins

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is considered one of the three most powerful lobbies in Washington. Founded in 1951 as American Zionist Committee for Public Affairs by I.L. (Sy) Kenen, the lobby sought to circumvent the State Department to appeal directly to Congress to provide aid to Israel. The lobby changed its name to American Israel Public Affairs Committee by the end of the decade. AIPAC is a membership organization and currently boasts 65,000 members across all 50 of the American states. According to the organization's website, 'through more than 2,000 meetings with members of Congress' it's activists 'help pass more than 100 pro-Israel legislative initiatives a year'.

With the fatal blow to Arab nationalism in 1967,'[AIPAC]'s power was simultaneously enabled and enhanced by Israel's emergence as a regional surrogate for US military power in the Middle East'. Wielding enough influence over the congress to pressure Gerald Ford into backing down from threats of suspension of aid to Israel, AIPAC really came into its own during the Reagan years. While in 1981, the lobby had an annual budget of a little more than $1 million and a mere 8,000 members, by 1993, the budget had risen to $15 million, administered by a staff of 158, while the membership had swollen to 50,000. During the same period, establishment of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) greatly expanded the lobby's influence over policy in Washington. While maintaining a fasade of moderation, WINEP serves more as a platform for extremist voices such as Daniel Pipes and Martin Kramer. By the mid-'80s, AIPAC had been a prime factor in the defeat or crippling of initiatives and legislators deemed not friendly enough towards Israel, and the passage of billions in grants.

Initially AIPAC had been supportive of all Israeli governments, but lately, it has exhibited a more pronounced slant towards the right-wing Likud. While the Clinton years saw a temporary eclipse of the lobby due to the administration's penchant for unobtrusive diplomatic solutions, 2001 marked the arrival of a resurgent AIPAC which sought to integrate Israel's actions in the Occupied Territories into the wider 'War on Terror'.

Through WINEP, the lobby has been supplying right-wing intellectuals to Republican administrations, who employ their positions to support Likud policies from within the U.S. government. Given its strong ties to the Neo-Conservatives ascendant in the Bush administration, AIPAC has been instrumental in steering the US government towards following a precipitous policy in the Middle-East. AIPAC was quite enthusiastic about the US war in Iraq, and more recently has been urging actions against other perceived threats to the state of Israel - namely, Iran and Syria.

Espionage Allegations

AIPAC courted more controversy recently when four of its senior members were served subpoenas in an espionage investigation being conducted by the FBI. The investigation involved a Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin passing classified policy documents on Iran to a pair of AIPAC lobbyists - who allegedly passed them to the Israeli government. The FBI interviewed Steven Rosen, the group's director of foreign policy issues and Keith Weissman, a senior Middle East analyst for AIPAC. The FBI also copied the computer hard drives of Steven Rosen. Predictably enough, Congress members rallied behind AIPAC, despite the seriousness of the charge.

According to investigative journalist James Bamford, Rosen and Weissman's actions were 'the selling of ideology, trying to sell a viewpoint.

Larry Franklin is not going to knock on George Bush’s door, but he can get AIPAC, which is a pressure group, and the Israeli government, which is an enormous pressure group, to try to get the American government to change its policy to a more aggressive policy.

As a result of the investigation, Goldberg notes that AIPAC "now seems acutely sensitive to the appearance of dual loyalty."

The theme of this year’s aipac conference was “Israel, an American Value,” and, for the first time, “Hatikvah,” the Israeli national anthem, was not sung. The only anthem heard was “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

Details of the case

Steven Rosen was charged with receiving classified US Government documents from Larry Franklin who was sentenced to 12 years in prison in 2006:

Mr. Rosen and Mr. Weissman were charged in an indictment in August 2005 with conspiring to gather and disclose classified national security information to journalists and an unnamed foreign power that government officials identified as Israel. Aipac dismissed the two men in April 2005.

The indictment said the two men had disclosed classified information about a number of subjects, including American policy in Iran, terrorism in central Asia, Al Qaeda and the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers apartment in Saudi Arabia, which killed 23 Americans, mainly members of the military. Lawyers for the two men have sought to have the indictment against them dismissed.

As Aipac's director of foreign policy issues, Mr. Rosen was a well-known figure in Washington who helped the organization define its lobbying agenda on the Middle East and forged important relationships with powerful conservatives in the Bush administration.

According to Goldberg, after receiving classified information from Franklin,

According to aipac sources, Rosen and Weissman asked Kohr to give the information to Elliott Abrams, the senior Middle East official on the National Security Council. Kohr didn’t get in touch with Abrams, but Rosen and Weissman made two calls. They called Gilon and told him about the threat to Israeli agents in Iraq, and then they called Glenn Kessler, a diplomatic correspondent at the Washington Post, and told him about the threat to Americans.

During the espionage trial Rosen was represented by Abbe Lowell who also represented disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. He also received public support from Martin Indyk.

Rosen claims he was indicted "not because I violated AIPAC policies, but because I followed them:"

Rosen says the organization altered its policy on classified information in late 2005, retroactively, after he and Weissman were dismissed. "I think [AIPAC's] behavior is terrible," he says. "When they lose the case, I hope they'll learn something. It's very unjust - I served them for 23 years, they praised everything I did ... and now they are treating me this way. It's unjust and I think they'll regret it." Rosen adds that AIPAC tried to persuade him to withdraw his claim.

The charges against Rosen and Keith Weissman were dropped in 2009 even though the "FBI claimed that it had enough evidence for convictions."

Steven Rosen's Defamation Suit Against AIPAC

On March 2, 2009 Steven Rosen filed a civil lawsuit in a Washington, DC court against AIPAC for defamation, arguing that AIPAC used him as a "scapegoat" for their own actions and because they "feared a widening federal investigation into its ties to Israel." In Rosen's words: "They sent me out to do a job, I did the job for 23 years. Trouble came - they have to sacrifice me to save the ship. I was a good soldier..."

Rosen is asking for a total of 21 million in damages ($5 million from AIPAC and punitive damages of $500,000 each from former board member).

Former AIPAC staffer turned political analyst MJ Rosenberg argues that Rosen's suit has the potential to destroy the lobby:

The Rosen vs. Aipac case is grinding its way through the courts and could well destroy the lobby without ever making its way on to the front page. Aipac is under siege, and is spending millions to stay alive. But that will not be easy - even if Steve Rosen ultimately accepts a payoff from the organisation and refrains from telling what he knows.

AIPAC on the defensive

In its defense AIPAC is claiming that Rosen was dismissed for employee misconduct. From an AIPAC statement sent to Haaretz:

As the AIPAC pleadings indicate, this defamation lawsuit has absolutely no merit. AIPAC has made it clear during this litigation that it disagrees with Mr. Rosen's characterizations with regard to the events relevant to the litigation. As the pleadings demonstrate, it is AIPAC's position that Steve Rosen's claims are wildly inaccurate, and are undermined by Mr. Rosen's own admissions under oath in his deposition.

Rosenberg argues that AIPAC is attacking Rosen "personally" and although he has harsh criticisms for Rosen's reported Islamophobia and for acting as a "peace-wrecker" throughout negotiations between Israel and Palestine, Rosen calls AIPAC's actions "despicable." So far AIPAC has released a 260 page deposition showing that Rosen visited pornography sites and solicited sexual relations with other men while at work. Rosen shot back by arguing that this was not an unusual occurrence at AIPAC and promised to unveil further reports proving AIPAC's own regular history of employee workplace misconduct.

Rosen shot back that he had "witnessed" AIPAC's executive director Howard Kohr "view... pornographic images on AIPAC computers," as well as "his secretary do it repeatedly, and call people over to see it, including Howard Kohr." He said he "witnessed other members of staff do it," too.

Rosen also claims that AIPAC "threatened" him with the pornography charges to try to intimidate him into not pursuing the case: "They warned me directly that if I persist with this case, they will start up with this pornography business," Rosen relates, referring to AIPAC's claim in its court-submitted dossier that pornographic materials were found on his work computer. "It's nonsense...The pornography threat, he adds, "is something they came up with later and tried to bully me with this ... it's right out of 'The Sopranos.'"

AIPAC's alleged promise to Rosen

Rosen argued that in 2007 his previous attorney Abbe Lowell told him in an email that during a conversation with AIPAC it became clear that while AIPAC claimed it couldn't act now because that would confirm beliefs that it feared further FBI investigations into their actions, they would eventually "do right" by him. In an e-mail dated 8:08 am on December 15, 2007, Lowell says the following to Rosen:

Phil reiterated that ‘when this is all over we will do right by Steve’ but said that nothing can be done now as … we cannot have a situation where on the eve of trial after 3 years all of a sudden AIPAC is paying off Steve not to say things or to say things. He is right. Will discuss.

AIPAC public relations representative Patrick Dorton argued that Rosen's evidence was taken from his counsel's "interpretation" of a conversation and taken out of context:

"If our counsel made such assertions,” Dorton continued, “they were offered as a personal opinion and did not reflect AIPAC’s position. In fact, no payment or benefit was promised by AIPAC and no payment or benefit was ever conveyed, which is why AIPAC is now defending itself against Mr. Rosen's merit-less defamation claim."

Organisation

The AIPAC policy is generally determined by a board of directors who are selected more on the basis of how much they can contribute than on how well they can represent. The board features many corporate lawyers, Wall Street investors, business executives, and heirs to family fortunes. Even within the board, power is concentrated in the hands of a wealthy elite of past AIPAC presidents.

Coordination with Presidents Conference

AIPAC works closely with the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations: the two groups have interlocking directorates. According to Goldberg,

AIPAC is one of the fifty organizations that make up the Presidents Conference. The members of Presidents Conference each have one seat on AIPAC's executive comittee, adn whoever chairs the Presidents Conference is a member of AIPAC's inner ruling body, the officers' group.

However, according to Goldberg, following the Israeli invasion of 1982, AIPAC tried to consolidate its control.

...AIPAC doubled the size of its executive committee, so that the Jewish organizational leaders could be outvoted by a bloc of individuals chosen directly from among AIPAC's mass membership.

IRS Asked to Revoke AIPAC's Tax Exemption

On November 22, 2010 the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) received a 1,389 page filing demanding that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's (AIPAC's) tax exempt status be retroactively revoked. The filing was submitted by the IRmep Center for Policy and Law Enforcement, headed by director Grant Smith. The filing spans nearly 60 years, from the moment AIPAC's founder left the employment of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the present.

The two core charges are:

False Charitable Purpose. AIPAC has been investigated several times by the FBI and is currently in a civil suit over the ongoing acquisition and movement of U.S. government classified information. The filing argues that such activities reveal AIPAC does not function as a bona fide "social welfare" organization.

Fraudulent Application for Tax Exempt Status. AIPAC's original application for tax exempt status contains fraudulent representations and omissions. It fails to mention that AIPAC's parent organization, the American Zionist Council (AZC) was shut down by a U.S. Department of Justice Foreign Agents Registration Act order in 1962. AIPAC incorporated six weeks later and applied for tax exempt status, but failed to reveal that the majority of its startup funding came from Israel, funneled through the AZC.

In January 2010 Smith called in to Diane Rehm Show's on National Public Radio and challenged IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman about the claim that the "IRS goes after powerful violators" of charity tax law, arguing that the US needs to crack down on US charities laundering tax exempt donations into illegal Israeli settlement. IRMEP's filing against AIPAC appeared less than one year later.

Associations

• American Israel Education Foundation (AIEF) is a supporting organisation for AIPAC, which sponsors trips for many members of Congress. Visits by prominent names, such as Sen. John McCain have been sponsored by AIPAC through AIEF, culling favours for which the rewards were not long in coming, since the Senator duly endorsed the separation wall, which has been declared illegal by the International Court of Justice. Howard Dean, the new Chair of the Democratic Party is also an erstwhile beneficiary, and has returned the favor by moving from calls for an even-handed approach to the conflict, to an unequivocal support of Israeli assassination of Palestinian leaders.

• Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations (CPMAJO) is a coordinating body composed of leaders of 55 different organizations and is responsible for formulating and articulating the "Jewish position" on most foreign policy matters. All the members of CPMAJO sit on AIPAC's executive committee, but the actual lobbying is always done by AIPAC and its constituent PACs. While the focus of CPMAJO is on the executive branch of the U.S. government, AIPAC concentrates on the Congress.

• Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) was established in 1985 by AIPAC as a pro-Israeli alternative to the Brookings Institution, which - according to Juan Cole, the Middle-East expert and Professor of History at the University of Michigan - it perceived to be insufficiently supportive of Israel. WINEP enjoys enormous influence in Washington with State Department and military personnel regularly detailed there for an education in the Middle-East. This naturally leads to the development of a much skewed understanding of the region and its conflicts, since WINEP is a heavily ideological think-tank, with a distinct agenda; the type of 'group polarization' that is most evident in the current US administration. Position papers developed by WINEP are routinely distributed not only in government circles, but also to private sectors working for the government.

Publications

Manfred Gerstenfeld and Ben Green, writing in Jewish Political Studies Review in 2004:

In the mid-1970s Si Kenen, editor of the AIPAC-affiliated, Washington-based Near East Report, initiated a media-monitoring column titled The Monitor. Its purpose was to clarify "controversial issues and to expose negative propaganda... One of NER's prime targets was the team of Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, whose column was syndicated in about 250 American cities. When the columns contained errors about Israel, Kenen would send out telegrams to local activists who would then write critical letters to the papers that carried the columns. The climax of this campaign came after Evans falsely claimed that Israel had made a secret request of $4 billion per year for U.S. arms. Evans, who initially refused to retract, had to do so after several weeks. Under the ongoing pressure from letter writers, Evans and Novak stopped writing on the Middle East for several years.

Funding

Some key funders of AIPAC include:

• Sheldon Adelson - a "major" donor.
• Gary Erlbaum - donor

Influence

According to Haaretz, AIPAC has been 'more consistently potent and reliable' than any 'of all the weapons in Israel's policy arsenal'. The list of achievements cited on its website affirms that this claim is anything but frivolous.

Campaign Contributions

While AIPAC as an organisation does not contribute to electoral campaigns, it has carefully cultivated an immense support base through the contributions of its members and various Political Action Committees towards the campaigns of pro-Israel candidates.

Between 1997 and 2001, the 46 members of AIPAC's board together gave well in excess of $3 million, or more than $70,000 apiece. At least seven gave more than $100,000, and one -- David Steiner, a New Jersey real-estate developer -- gave more than $1 million and that's just the board. Many of AIPAC's 60,000 members contribute funds as well, in sums ranging from a hundred dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

AIPAC has also been very successful in mobilising the Jewish community as a voting block. As far back as the Truman era, this block wielded enough power to influence foreign policy; however, AIPAC has further consolidated their position through strategic alliances - most notably with the Christian Zionists.

Today AIPAC wields enough influence that according to William Quandt, a member of the National Security Council in the Nixon and Carter administrations, "Seventy to 80 percent of all members of Congress will go along with whatever they think AIPAC wants." During the 80s, AIPAC was instrumental in securing an annual aid package of $3 Billion for Israel.

In the end the most significant criticism of AIPAC has come from other Jewish organizations which claim that it does not represent views of the majority of US Jewry. On every issue, AIPAC is significantly to the right of the generally progressive US Jewish population in its views. This has led to the emergence of new challengers for the leadership of American Jewish politics, which are far more attuned to views of the population. Most notable amongst them is the Israel Policy Forum (IPF). However, it will be some time before they are able to match the strong fundraising, and organizing capabilities of AIPAC.

AIPAC's success is due to its ability to reward legislators and congressional candidates who support its agenda and to punish those who challenge it. It ensures that those with a pro-Israel stance receive strong financial support from many pro-Israel political action committees and anyone deemed hostile to Israel 'can be sure that AIPAC will direct campaign contributions to his or her political opponents'. Letter-writing campaigns are organised by AIPAC and they also encourages newspaper editors to endorse pro-Israel candidates. During the 1984 elections, Senator Charles Percy from Illinois was targetted by the AIPAC. In the words of a prominent Lobby figure, Percy had ‘displayed insensitivity and even hostility to our concerns’. According to Thomas Dine (who was head of AIPAC at the time), ‘All the Jews in America, from coast to coast, gathered to oust Percy. And the American politicians – those who hold public positions now, and those who aspire – got the message.’

AIPAC is described as 'de facto agent for a foreign government' which has a 'stranglehold' on Congress. According to former AIPAC staff member Douglas Bloomfield, AIPAC is ‘often called on to draft speeches, work on legislation, advise on tactics, perform research, collect co-sponsors and marshal votes’ and ‘it is common for members of Congress and their staffs to turn to AIPAC first when they need information, before calling the Library of Congress, the Congressional Research Service, committee staff or administration experts.’ In the words of former Democratic senator Ernest Hollings, ‘you can’t have an Israeli policy other than what AIPAC gives you around here.’ The result is that debate on US policy towards Israel is stifled with critics of Israel becoming an 'endangered species' in the foreign policy establishment. As Mearsheimer & Walt state, the 'inability of Congress to conduct a genuine debate on these important issues paralyses the entire process of democratic deliberation'.

When it comes to presidential elections, the Washington Post estimated that Democratic presidential candidates ‘depend on Jewish supporters to supply as much as 60 per cent of the money’. Key organisations in the Lobby also 'make it their business to ensure that critics of Israel do not get important foreign policy jobs.'

According to Jeffrey Goldberg,

[AIPAC] analyzes congressional voting records and shares the results with its members, who can then contribute money to candidates directly or to a network of pro-Israel political-action committees (PAC). The Center for Responsive Politics, a public-policy group, estimates that between 1990 and 2004 these pacs gave candidates and parties more than twenty million dollars.

At the Camp David summit in July 2000, some of Clinton’s closest advisers from prominent pro-Israel organisations, such as Martin Indyk (former deputy director of research at AIPAC and co-founder of the pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP)) and Dennis Ross (who joined WINEP after leaving government in 2001).

AIPAC was also actively involved with a letter sent to Bush in 2001 'demanding that the US not restrain Israel from retaliating against the Palestinians'. The article continues by stating that...

'Maintaining US support for Israel’s policies against the Palestinians is essential as far as the Lobby is concerned, but its ambitions do not stop there. It also wants America to help Israel remain the dominant regional power. The Israeli government and pro-Israel groups in the United States have worked together to shape the administration’s policy towards Iraq, Syria and Iran, as well as its grand scheme for reordering the Middle East'.

Political Intimidation

The other prong of AIPAC's strategy has been the political intimidation of critical voices. AIPAC's victims include two former chairmen of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Arkansas Democrat J. William Fulbright and Illinois Republican Charles Percy, and Sen. Roger Jepsen. They have also helped defeat Paul Findley and Paul N. McCloskey, Earl Hilliard and Cynthia McKinney.

Paul Findley

In 1982, Asher led a campaign to defeat Paul Findley, a Republican congressman from Springfield, Illinois, who was seen as being unfriendly towards Israel. According to Asher he recruited an obscure Democratic lawyer Richard Durbin to run against Findley. After Durbin assured Asher of his pro-Israel credentials his campaign became a beneficiary of AIPAC munificence. Asher told Goldberg:

He beat Findley with a lot of help from Jews, in-state and out-of-state. Now, how did the Jewish money find him? I travelled around the country talking about how we had the opportunity to defeat someone unfriendly to Israel. And the gates opened.

Earl Hilliard

In 2002, Mayer Mitchell led a campaign against Earl Hilliard of Alabama who had criticized Israel during Sharon's Operation Defensive Shield. Mitchell helped direct funds to Hilliard's challenger Artur Davis, who who won the primary and the seat.

Stealth PACs

AIPAC does not itself contribute to campaigns. Instead it directs funds to favoured candidates through a network of pro-Israel PACs. Often, when an individual candidate is favoured, these PACs will organise multiple fundraisers in different parts of the country. The PACs are deliberately given generic names to obscure their pro-Israel provenance. According to former AIPAC president Robert Asher the PACs are usually given 'euphemistic names': “I started a pac called Citizens Concerned for the National Interest,” he told Jeffrey Goldberg.

The anti-Semitism charge

The charge of anti-Semitism is another means for AIPAC to silence critics of Israel. Even the recent FBI investigation into the charges of espionage - according to Michael Rubin - was merely an 'increasing anti-Semitic witch hunt.' AIPAC also has projects to intimidate and silence academics across campuses throughout the US. In 1979 it formed the Political Leadership Development Program, which "educates and trains young leaders in pro-Israel political advocacy" hundreds of college students were enlisted to collect information on pro-Palestinian professors and student organizations. More recently, this project has been revived by Daniel Pipe's Middle East Forum through its own Neo-McCarthyite Campus Watch.

Legislation backed by AIPAC

AIPAC's focus on Iran was also evident in 1995, when they pressed Clinton who then toughened up policy by imposing an economic embargo on Iran. In 1996, according to Goldberg, 'Rosen and other AIPAC staff members helped write, and engineer the passage of Iran and Libya Sanctions Act which imposed sanctions on foreign oil companies doing business with those two countries.'

AIPAC has also behind a series of new legislation targeting Iran, including the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2010.

Influence over the executive

AIPAC underwent major organizational and operational improvements under Thomas Dine and Steven Rosen who were brought on board at the urging of AIPAC president Larry Weinberg. Under Tom Dine's leadership in the 1980s AIPAC extended its influence to the executive branch. Tivnan describes Dine's thinking thus:

He knew that those who write the books and papers and pamphlets and 'studies' that US policy makers read will own the policy makers. Policy makers need arguments, and those who supply those arguments will be most appreciated.

For this purpose Dine, backed by Weinberg, hired former Rand analyst Steven Rosen and Australian academic Martin Indyk. According to Indyk it was Dine's strategy that 'the premier American Jewish organization vis-a-vis Israel has to develop an ideology and the research to back it up. The Arabists try to delegitimize us just like they try to delegitimize Israel--that it's a strategic liability to US interests. They write the papers but are not accountable to public opinion. We have to combat them by ideas and arguments. Not long afterwards WINEP was established with Weinberg's wife Barbi Weinberg as president and Martin Indyk as executive director.

The 'Strategic Asset' argument

Traditionally Israel was supported in the United States on moral and humanitarian grounds and most of its supporters were liberals, even radicals. But the support waned with the Israeli colonization of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, the rise of the Likud Party, and the 1982 invasion of Lebanon. AIPAC therefore went about establishing a new rationale. Journalist Edward Tivnan writes:

While the Arabists tried to portray Israel as a liability in the region, AIPAC would prove it a strategic asset. Israel deserved US aid, not out of charity, the argument went, but because the US was, in effect, paying for its political stability, military skills, and intelligence. And for the services rendered, the more than $2 billion that the US sent to Israel each year, much of it in grants that did not have to be repaid, was, as AIPAC would soon begin arguing, a 'bargain.'

In 1982, writes Tivnan, AIPAC began publishing a series heavily footnoted of 'position papers' under Steven Rosen's editorship that focused on Israel's strategic value to the United States. The papers had descriptive titles like Israel and the US Air Force or Israel and the US Navy, and touted the strategic assistance that Israel could supposedly offer. Tivnan observes,

the lobby's pamphlets were challenging the Arabists on their own turf, an ivy-covered spot where specialists thrive on such information as Israeli hospitals have "4.7 beds per 1,000 people versus .64 in Egypt" and swoon to such prose as "In short, tank farms in Israel would give USAF both a 'fall-back' facility for Persian Gulf operations and a 'swing' facility for Mediterranean contingencies."

The 'strategic asset' argument was also accompanied by overt attempts to court the US right.

Yet the strategic asset argument, in its more blatant anti-Soviet form, has wider public-relations implications. While AIPAC was romancing hardline policy makers with arguments about "prepositioning" and "lift-times" to "CONUS" (better known as the "Continental United States"), the lobby was also seeking to create a new pro-Israel coalition with the far right in the US whose commitment to Israel has little to do with the US government's traditional support of the Jewish states.

An AIPAC insider told Tivnan:

The other side is playing up the Palestinian issue as a human rights problem--a concern that touches Americans. We want to offset that with the argument that Israel has been forsaken by the left [because of the invasion of Lebanon and the West Bank]; therefore we're becoming more 'neo-conservative.' We want to broaden Israel's support to the right--with the people who don't care about what's happening on the West Bank but care a lot about the Soviet Union.

The AWACS Battle

In 1981, the Reagan administration confronted the organized Jewish community in a prolonged battle over the proposed sale of AWACS planes to Saudi Arabia. After an eleven month battle, Reagan finally prevailed. The incident has often been presented as evidence of the Israel Lobby's relative weakness. Neither AIPAC, nor the Reagan Administration saw it that way. Indeed, the actual sequence of events shows that it was a major triumph for AIPAC. According to Goldberg, after the battle AIPAC 'emerged as one of the preeminent forces in Washington power politics.'

Aftermath

'The administration drew two lessons from the experience,' writes Goldberg,

One was that Jewish lobbyists could be a formidable opponent. The second was that they could be an equally formidable friend. Starting just days after the Senate vote on AWACS, administration officals began seeking out AIPAC oficials and inviting them to join in the planning of government policy...Involving AIPAC in shaping policy helped ensure that the lobby would not oppose policy later on.

The administration also saw AIPAC as a useful ally which could 'often sell administration policies that the White House itself could not sell.'

AIPAC was regularly enlisted to line up congressional support for the overall foreign-aid package, an unpopular program with little grass-roots backing outside the Jewish community...In February 1983, AIPAC director Tom Dine was the only professional lobbyist named to a blue-ribbon citizens' commission assembled by Secretary of State George Shultz to review the US foreign aid program. The following October, President Reagan personally enlisted AIPAC's help to fight a congressional resolution that would have forced him to pull US Marines out of Beirut.

Killing Detente

One of AIPAC's greatest successes was to work alongside the budding neoconservative movement to derail detente during the Nixon administration. The vehicle was the Jackon-Vanik amendment which made trade with the Soviet Union conditional on the emigration of Jewish refugees. The linkage was cooked up by Bertram Podell, a Jewish Democrat from Brooklyn, and relayed to Richard Perle, an aide to the influential senator Henry Jackson, by AIPAC's Isaiah Kenen. Perle worked closely with future AIPAC executive director Morris Amitay to get Senator Jackson's backing. They also found a sponsor in the House of Representatives in Charles Vanik, whose chief of staff Mark Talisman was a lobbyist for Cleveland's influential Jewish community. Together Perle, Amitay and the fellow lobbyists succeeded in securing 72 members of senate and 258 members of the house to back the amendment. The amendment was strongly opposed by the Nixon White House, and Henry Kissinger recruited Republican luminaries of the Israel Lobby -- CMPAJO chairman Jacob Stein and Council of Jewish Federations president Max Fisher -- to reach a compromise solution. (He even arranged for Stein and Fisher to meet Soviet ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin, Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, and president Leonid Brezhnev) Nixon begged lawmakers not to complicate US-Soviet relations. But eventually the lobby prevailed and the amended Trade Reform Act passed the House 388 to 44 and months after Nixon's resignation it also passed the senate 77 to 4, even after the Soviets had agreed to a humiliating compromise. Kissinger blamed Amitay and Perle, who released to the press a letter from Kissinger to Jackson in which he mentioned the Soviets secret compromise. JJ. Goldberg, author of the acclaimed insider account Jewish power : inside the American Jewish establishment (1996) concludes:

...while the amendment may have done little to improve the lot of the Jews in the Soviet Union, it brought about a sea change in the status of Jews in America. Jewish activists had taken on the Nixon administration and the Kremlin and won.

Goldberg adds:

Jews became the poster children of a renewed Cold War. The credibility of American anti-Communism, crippled by the McCarthy excesses of the 1950s, had been utterly decimated by the Vietnam debacle. Jackson-Vanik gave it new life by giving it a new moral argument. The Jewish lobby, for years a central element in coalitions of the liberal left, now became an important factor on the national-security-minded right. In fact, the Jewish community now assumed a crucial role in Washington: it was one of the only major players with close ties to both the left and the right.

Target Iran

Since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Iran and its alleged nuclear weapons program have been the main focus of AIPAC lobbying. During AIPAC's 2005 annual policy conference at the Washington Convention Center, Goldberg reported:

Ariel Sharon and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, among others, addressed five thousand aipac members. One hall of the convention center was taken up by a Disney-style walk-through display of an Iranian nuclear facility.

"It was kitsch, but not ineffective," Goldberg concluded.

Personnel

AIPAC employs about a hundred people at its headquarters.

Principals

• Bernice Manocherian - President
• Howard Kohr - Executive Director (1996-present)
• Morris J. Amitay - former Executive Director (1974-1980)
• Thomas A. Dine - former Executive Director (1980-1993)
• Neal M. Sher - former Executive Director (1993-1996)

Former Presidents

• Melvin Dow
• Amy Friedkin
• David Steiner
• Steven Grossman (1992-)

For years, the real power in AIPAC was held by four ex-presidens who were also part of its influential 'officers' group'. They came to be known as the "Gang of Four".

• Robert H. Asher
• Larry Weinberg (1976-1982)
• Edward Levy
• Mayer “Bubba” Mitchell

Contact, Resources, External links, Notes

Contact details

440 First St NW, Suite 600
Washington D.C 20001
Phone: 202 639 5200
Fax: 202 638 0680
Web: http://www.aipac.org/

External links

• Glenn Frankel, A Beautiful Friendship?, Washington Post, July 16, 2006
• Pro-Israel PAC Contributions to 2002 Congressional Candidates
• Julie Stahl, "More US Lawmakers Visiting Israel This Summer Than Ever Before", web.archive.org/CNS News, August 18, 2003.
• "FBI looks at Pentagon worker in Israel spy probe", CNN, August 28, 2004.
• "FBI Probes Pentagon Spy Case", CBS News, August 27, 2004.
• Justin Raimondo, "The Axis of Treason; Israeli spies in the Pentagon", Antiwar.com, 30 August 2004
• Juan Cole, "AIPAC Spy Case Update", web.archive.org/ProgressiveTrail.org, undated, accessed March 2005.
• Dennis Bernstein and Jeffrey Blankfort, AIPAC's Lobbying, Transcript of a FlashPoints Interview, January 6, 2005.
• Nathan Guttman, "FBI probe into leaked secrets takes aim at AIPAC", DemocraticUnderground.com/Haaretz, March 25, 2005.
• Tom Regan, "FBI at crossroads in probe of pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC: Justice Department may soon decide who to lay charges against in alleged espionage affair", Christian Science Monitor, March 31, 2005.
• Dana Milbank, "AIPAC's Big, Bigger, Biggest Moment", Washington Post, May 24, 2005.
• Nathan Guttman, "Justice Dept. to indict two AIPAC staffers under U.S. Espionage Act", web.archive.org/Haaretz, May 30, 2005.
• Billmon, "The 51st State," web.archive.org/Whiskey Bar, August 18, 2005.
• Michael Massing, The Israel Lobby, The Nation, 10 June 2002
• Michael Massing, The Storm over the Israel Lobby, The New York Review of Books, Volume 53, Number 10, 8 June 2006

Resources

• Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs
• Institute for Advanced Strategic & Political Studies
• Jonathan Pollard
• Stephen D. Bryen

References

• J. J. Goldberg Jewish Power : Inside the American Jewish Establishment (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1996).
• Edward Tivnan, The Lobby : Jewish Political Power and American Foreign Policy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987).

Notes

===

Steven Rosen is a former RAND analyst and an AIPAC lobbyist who is credited with expanding the lobby group's influence from the congress to the executive branch. He was brought to AIPAC by Larry Weinberg, and influential Israel lobbyist Martin Indyk served as his deputy. In 2004, Rosen became implicated in an FBI espionage investigation on charges of passing classified information on Iran from Larry Franklin, an agent in the Pentagon, to the Israeli Embassy's political counsellor Naor Gilon. Months later he was fired by AIPAC executive director Howard Kohr (whom Rosen had earlier chosen for AIPAC leadership).

A friend of Israel (Not)

Though Rosen has tried to establish himself as a champion of Israel in the United States, attacking critics, and claiming credit for convincing Republican presidents' that Israel and American interests are identical, Israel leaders have been more sceptical. According to former AIPAC official MJ Rosenberg,

[Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak] Rabin tried to get him fired; neither he nor Shimon Peres considered him remotely loyal to Israel.

On Lobbying and Influence

In an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg of the New Yorker, Rosen responded to question about AIPAC's influence thus:

A half smile appeared on his face, and he pushed a napkin across the table. “You see this napkin?” he said. “In twenty-four hours, we could have the signatures of seventy senators on this napkin.”

Influencing the Executive Branch

According to Jeffrey Goldberg Rosen arrived at AIPAC with the new idea

that the organization could influence the outcome of policy disputes within the executive branch—in particular, the Pentagon, the State Department, and the National Security Council.

Rosen began to court officials. He traded in gossip and speculation, and his reports to aipac’s leaders helped them track currents in Middle East policymaking before those currents coalesced into executive orders. Rosen also used his contacts to carry aipac’s agenda to the White House. An early success came in 1983, when he helped lobby for a strategic coöperation agreement between Israel and the United States, which was signed over the objections of Caspar Weinberger, the Secretary of Defense, and which led to a new level of intelligence sharing and military sales.

Manufacturing a Strategic Asset

In 1982, writes Tivnan, AIPAC began publishing a series heavily footnoted of 'position papers' under Steven Rosen's editorship aimed not at its membership but at policymakers in the White House, Pentagon and State Department. They focused on Israel's strategic value to the United States. The papers had descriptive titles like Israel and the US Air Force or Israel and the US Navy, and touted the strategic assistance that Israel could supposedly offer.

In an AIPAC monograph The Strategic Value of Israel Rosen argued that Israel offers the US four main advantages:

(1)its "geostrategic position" midway between Europe and the Persian Gulf gives the US an opportunity to move into three theaters of operation--the Gulf, the Mediterranean, and NATO's souther and central fronts; (2) "political stability" of a sound democracy that is not as susceptible as Arab states to a coupe or revolution; (3) "political relability"--today's Arab friends can be tomorrow's ex-rulers, whereas, explains Rosen, "Israel's strategic interests and the value of its people are permanently aligned with those of the Free World"; and (4) "Israel is the one politically and technologically advanced country in the region."

Target Iran

According to Goldberg, Rosen is 'a hard-liner on only one subject—Iran—and this preoccupation helped shape AIPAC’s position: that Iran poses a greater threat to Israel than any other nation...Rosen’s main role at aipac, he once told me, was to collect evidence of “Iranian perfidy” and share it with the United States.'

Iran Libya Sanctions Act

In 1996, according to Goldberg, 'Rosen and other AIPAC staff members helped write, and engineer the passage of Iran and Libya Sanctions Act which imposed sanctions on foreign oil companies doing business with those two countries.'

FBI Espionage probe

Rosen was charged with receiving classified US Government documents from Larry Franklin who was sentenced to 12 years in prison in 2006:

Mr. Rosen and Mr. Weissman were charged in an indictment in August 2005 with conspiring to gather and disclose classified national security information to journalists and an unnamed foreign power that government officials identified as Israel. Aipac dismissed the two men in April 2005.

The indictment said the two men had disclosed classified information about a number of subjects, including American policy in Iran, terrorism in central Asia, Al Qaeda and the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers apartment in Saudi Arabia, which killed 23 Americans, mainly members of the military. Lawyers for the two men have sought to have the indictment against them dismissed.

As Aipac's director of foreign policy issues, Mr. Rosen was a well-known figure in Washington who helped the organization define its lobbying agenda on the Middle East and forged important relationships with powerful conservatives in the Bush administration.

According to Goldberg, after receiving classified information from Franklin,

According to aipac sources, Rosen and Weissman asked Kohr to give the information to Elliott Abrams, the senior Middle East official on the National Security Council. Kohr didn’t get in touch with Abrams, but Rosen and Weissman made two calls. They called Gilon and told him about the threat to Israeli agents in Iraq, and then they called Glenn Kessler, a diplomatic correspondent at the Washington Post, and told him about the threat to Americans.

During the espionage trial Rosen was represented by Abbe Lowell who also represented disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. He also received public support from Martin Indyk.

Rosen claims he was indicted "not because I violated AIPAC policies, but because I followed them:"

Rosen says the organization altered its policy on classified information in late 2005, retroactively, after he and Weissman were dismissed. "I think [AIPAC's] behavior is terrible," he says. "When they lose the case, I hope they'll learn something. It's very unjust - I served them for 23 years, they praised everything I did ... and now they are treating me this way. It's unjust and I think they'll regret it." Rosen adds that AIPAC tried to persuade him to withdraw his claim.

The charges against Rosen and Weissman were dropped in 2009 even though the "FBI claimed that it had enough evidence for convictions."

Rosen's Defamation Suit Against AIPAC

On March 2, 2009 Rosen filed a civil lawsuit in a Washington, DC court against AIPAC for defamation, arguing that AIPAC used him as a "scapegoat" for their own actions and because they "feared a widening federal investigation into its ties to Israel." In Rosen's words: "They sent me out to do a job, I did the job for 23 years. Trouble came - they have to sacrifice me to save the ship. I was a good soldier..."

Rosen is asking for a total of 21 million in damages ($5 million from AIPAC and punitive damages of $500,000 each from former board member).

Former AIPAC staffer turned political analyst MJ Rosenberg argues that Rosen's suit has the potential to destroy the lobby:

The Rosen vs. Aipac case is grinding its way through the courts and could well destroy the lobby without ever making its way on to the front page. Aipac is under siege, and is spending millions to stay alive. But that will not be easy - even if Steve Rosen ultimately accepts a payoff from the organisation and refrains from telling what he knows.

AIPAC on the defensive

In its defense AIPAC is claiming that Rosen was dismissed for employee misconduct. From an AIPAC statement sent to Haaretz:

As the AIPAC pleadings indicate, this defamation lawsuit has absolutely no merit. AIPAC has made it clear during this litigation that it disagrees with Mr. Rosen's characterizations with regard to the events relevant to the litigation. As the pleadings demonstrate, it is AIPAC's position that Steve Rosen's claims are wildly inaccurate, and are undermined by Mr. Rosen's own admissions under oath in his deposition.

Rosenberg argues that AIPAC is attacking Rosen "personally" and although he has harsh criticisms for Rosen's reported Islamophobia and for acting as a "peace-wrecker" throughout negotiations between Israel and Palestine, Rosen calls AIPAC's actions "despicable." So far AIPAC has released a 260 page deposition showing that Rosen visited pornography sites and solicited sexual relations with other men while at work. Rosen shot back by arguing that this was not an unusual occurrence at AIPAC and promised to unveil further reports proving AIPAC's own regular history of employee workplace misconduct.

Rosen shot back that he had "witnessed" AIPAC's executive director Howard Kohr "view... pornographic images on AIPAC computers," as well as "his secretary do it repeatedly, and call people over to see it, including Howard Kohr." He said he "witnessed other members of staff do it," too.

Rosen also claims that AIPAC "threatened" him with the pornography charges to try to intimidate him into not pursuing the case: "They warned me directly that if I persist with this case, they will start up with this pornography business," Rosen relates, referring to AIPAC's claim in its court-submitted dossier that pornographic materials were found on his work computer. "It's nonsense...The pornography threat, he adds, "is something they came up with later and tried to bully me with this ... it's right out of 'The Sopranos.'"

AIPAC's alleged promise to Rosen

Rosen argued that in 2007 his previous attorney Abbe Lowell told him in an email that during a conversation with AIPAC it became clear that while AIPAC claimed it couldn't act now because that would confirm beliefs that it feared further FBI investigations into their actions, they would eventually "do right" by him. In an e-mail dated 8:08 am on December 15, 2007, Lowell says the following to Rosen:

Phil reiterated that ‘when this is all over we will do right by Steve’ but said that nothing can be done now as … we cannot have a situation where on the eve of trial after 3 years all of a sudden AIPAC is paying off Steve not to say things or to say things. He is right. Will discuss.

AIPAC public relations representative Patrick Dorton argued that Rosen's evidence was taken from his counsel's "interpretation" of a conversation and taken out of context:

"If our counsel made such assertions,” Dorton continued, “they were offered as a personal opinion and did not reflect AIPAC’s position. In fact, no payment or benefit was promised by AIPAC and no payment or benefit was ever conveyed, which is why AIPAC is now defending itself against Mr. Rosen's merit-less defamation claim."

Affiliations

• AIPAC - director of foreign policy affairs (1982-2005)
• RAND Corporation
• Middle East Forum - Visiting Fellow and director of the Forum's Washington Project.

Connections

• Keith Weissman
• Larry Franklin
• Martin Indyk
• Howard Kohr

Rosen Lectures

• Criticizing Israel, Outside of Israel, Middle East Forum, 4 June 2010 (Rosen argues against criticizing Israel outside of Israel)
• U.S.-Israel Relations in Crisis, Middle East Forum, 21 April 2010
• Israel and the Iranian Bomb, Middle East Forum, 27 April 2009
• Wishful Thinking and Iran, Middle East Forum, 10 November 2008

Related Articles

• James Bamford, Iran: The Next War, Rolling Stone, August 10, 2006.

References

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Haim Saban

Born in Egypt and raised in Israel, Haim Saban is an Israeli-American media-mogul, billionaire and one of the greatest contributors to the campaigns of pro-Israel politicans in the US. Described by the New York Times as a "tireless cheerleader for Israel," he has also founded various centers and institutions focused on producing policy research favorable to Israel. Saban is a financial donor and founder of the Saban Institute for the Study of the American Political System at the University of Tel Aviv. He is a member of the Board of Trustees at the Brookings Institution. In 2002 he pledged $13 million to found the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. In 2004 Saban told a New York Times reporter: "I'm a one-issue guy and my issue is Israel."

Citizen Saban

Saban is the founder of Saban Entertainment and Fox Family Worldwide. More recently, he has made significant new gains. In 2003 he bought ProSiebenSat.1, Germany's largest privately-owned television network. In 2006, he acquired Univision Communications, the largest Spanish-broadcasting television company in the US for the price of USD 12.3 billion.

According to the Economist:

At a broadcasting-industry conference last month in Cambridge, [Saban] not only expressed interest in acquiring ITV, but then went on to accuse the BBC and Sky News, a British satellite-channel owned by Rupert Murdoch, of putting out biased, overly pro-Arab coverage of the Middle East... His audience was left with the impression that this was “a man motivated by editorial concerns, not a businessman,” as one broadcasting executive put it. Officials at Ofcom, Britain's new media regulator, were amazed by what one called his “pig-ignorant” behaviour.

After Israel's Telecommunications monopoly Bezeq was privatized in 2005, Saban acquired a 30% controlling stake in the company.

Buying Influence

In an interview with the New Yorker 's Connie Bruck, Saban elaborated on the 'three ways to be influential in American politics,' which according to Bruck were: 'make donations to political parties, establish think tanks, and control media outlets.' Bruck notes that in "targeting media properties, Saban frankly acknowledges his political agenda and reportedly tried to buy the Los Angeles Times, because he considered it pro-Palestinian.

Donations

According to Bruck:

In 2002, he contributed seven million dollars toward the cost of a new building for the Democratic National Committee—one of the largest known donations ever made to an American political party...In 2002, Saban donated five million dollars to Bill Clinton’s Presidential library, and he has given more than five million dollars to the Clinton Foundation.

Saban was one of the major contributors to the former California governor Gray Davis, and in return Davis appointed him to the board of regents of the University of California. However, more recently, Saban, along with Steven Spielberg, have shifted their loyalties to Arnold Schwarzenegger after the new California governor's unequivocal support for Israel's latest invasion of Lebanon.

Earlier, similar contributions had earned Saban rewards from the Clinton administration:

Last September [1999], the Federal Trade Commission issued a report concluding that broadcasters were targeting violent content to kids, and Al Gore pledged to regulate children's programming unless the industry policed itself. Fox Broadcasting, which has been negotiating to buy out Saban's share of Fox Family Worldwide, joined several companies in agreeing to stop marketing adult-rated movies during TV shows aimed at young viewers. The month the report was released, Saban co-hosted a $3.5 million fundraiser for the Democrats with producer-director Rob Reiner (No. 371, $161,300), Warner Brothers President Alan Horn (No. 139, $290,750), and grocery magnate Ron Burkle (No. 102, $330,000). George W. Bush blasted his opponent for accepting contributions from an industry he had criticized; Gore insisted he was willing to take a stand against his financial supporters. Saban's generosity did not go unrewarded. During the Bill Clinton administration, the entertainment executive served on the President's Export Council, advising the White House on trade issues. He also took an unusual pride in being a top contributor. When Saban learned that another donor had topped his contributions to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee by a quarter-million dollars, he immediately sent the DCCC a check for $250,000, with a $1 bill attached to it. 'I hope this guy doesn't find out,' Saban told the Washington Post. 'He may send another two dollars.'

Saban's "own" Think Tank

Saban informed a New York Times reporter about his own views about how the conflict in Israel-Palestine would be resolved in 2004: "I'm going to make a very controversial statement and I hope to God that I am proven totally wrong: I think that any resolution will have to go both on the Palestinian side and Israeli side to some form of civil war. It's not going to be without spilling blood." These views did not stop Saban from creating his "own" think tank in 2002 (called Saban Center for Middle East Policy) at the Brookings Institution with former AIPAC staffer Martin Indyk as its head. He explained: 'I want my own [think tank].’ Connie Bruck writes:

Not all of the Brookings board members supported the idea...Brookings is a non-ideological public-policy institute, dedicated to nurturing American democracy. Saban is unabashedly pro-Israel and, according to people who work with him, harbors a wariness of Arabs that may stem from growing up as a Jew in Egypt; he first returned to an Arab country in 2004, when he went to Qatar with Bill Clinton and the Secret Service. But Saban’s gift was then the largest in Brookings’s history: thirteen million dollars, distributed over seven years. And so, in 2002, the Saban Center for Middle East Policy was established.

Ha'aretz reports:

Since he lost the hold he had in the White House through his good friends Bill and Hillary Clinton, the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution and the Saban Forum have become his levers of influence on political Washington and on Jerusalem...the ability of the colorful Israeli-American billionaire to bring together Ariel Sharon and Bill Clinton, Shimon Peres and Henry Kissinger, Tzipi Livni and Condoleezza Rice has become one of the achievements of which he is proud.

Criticism

According to prominent scholars John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, the Saban Center harbors undeniable pro-Israel biases:

It is hard to imagine that a research institute funded by Saban and directed by Indyk is going to be anything but pro-Israel. To be sure, the Saban Centre occasionally hosts Arab scholars and exhibits some diversity of opinion. Saban Center fellows – like Indyk himself – often endorse the idea of a two-state settlement between Israel and the Palestinians. But Saban Center publications never question US support for Israel and rarely, if ever, offer significant criticism of key Israeli policies. Moreover, individuals who stray from the Center’s line do not remain for long, as former NSC official Flynt Leverett’s brief tenure there illustrates.

Moreover, the Brookings Institution's work on the Middle East has degraded since it was transferred to the Saban Center:

Take the Brookings Institution. For many years, its senior expert on the Middle East was William B. Quandt, a former National Security Council official with a well-deserved reputation for even-handedness. Today, Brookings’s coverage is conducted through the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, which is financed by Haim Saban, an Israeli-American businessman and ardent Zionist. The centre’s director is the ubiquitous Martin Indyk. What was once a non-partisan policy institute is now part of the pro-Israel chorus."

Israel Espionage Scandal

US Congress woman Jane Harman had been under FBI and Justice Department investigations after an NSA wiretap caught her coordinating with an Israeli agent so she could intervene in an AIPAC espionage case to reduce charges against Steve J. Rosen and Keith Weissman, the two officials indicted for spying. In exchange, according to Time, AIPAC would lobby then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to appoint Harman as chair of the House Intelligence Committee if the Democrats captured the House after the 2006 elections. The New York Times later reported on the arrangement which named Saban as a key influencer:

In return, the caller promised her that a wealthy California donor — the media mogul Haim Saban — would threaten to withhold campaign contributions to Representative Nancy Pelosi, the California Democrat who was expected to become House speaker after the 2006 election, if she did not select Ms. Harman for the intelligence post.

Steven Rosen/AIPAC's Benefactor

During his defamation suit against AIPAC, Steven Rosen named Saban among several other prominent Jewish-Americans who while financially supporting AIPAC, also acted as his personal benefactor following his dismissal from AIPAC:

Indeed, many of the dozen benefactors Rosen named, including entertainment mogul Haim Saban and Slim-Fast billionaire Daniel Abraham, are also major donors to AIPAC, which fired him after the Justice Department charged him with illegally giving classified information to Washington Post reporter Glenn Kessler and an Israeli Embassy official...Saban gave $100,000 to him, his wife and children.

Saban and the Obama Administration

Saban reportedly "remains concerned that Obama is not fully committed to Israel" and it is for this reason that Obama did not receive financial backing during his Democrat party nomination bid or during his presidency campaign.

After Barack Obama beat Hillary Clinton for the Democrat presidential nomination, Saban was reportedly contacted by Obama for campaign donations, but Obama's unwillingness to respond to Saban's demands in the way that Clinton did resulted in Saban refusing to donate to Obama's campaign:

For example, Saban continued, “Obama was asked the same question Hillary was asked—‘If Iran nukes Israel, what would be your reaction?’ Hillary said, ‘We will obliterate them.’ We . . . will . . . obliterate . . . them. Four words, it’s simple to understand. Obama said only three words. He would ‘take appropriate action.’ I don’t know what that means. A rogue state that is supporting killing our men and women in Iraq; that is a supporter of Hezbollah, which killed more Americans than any other terrorist organization; that is a supporter of Hamas, which shot twelve thousand rockets at Israel—that rogue state nukes a member of the United Nations, and we’re going to ‘take appropriate action’! ” His voice grew louder. “I need to understand what that means. So I had a list of questions like that. And Chicago”—Obama campaign headquarters—“could not organize that meeting. ‘Schedule, heavy schedule.’ I was ready and willing to be helpful, but ‘helpful’ is not to write a check for two thousand three hundred dollars. It’s to raise millions, which I am fully capable of doing. But Chicago wasn’t able to deliver the meeting, so I couldn’t get on board.”

At a March 2010 meeting at Joe Biden's home Saban attempted to pressure Biden into getting the Obama Administration to further pledge allegiance to Israel by claiming that it was in the US's interest to do so.

In the meeting, Saban said that the Administration “may want to consider the fact that their relationship with their Israeli wife is more valuable than their newfound relationship with their Arab mistresses.”

Friends in High Places

Ariel Sharon

Sharon on Saban:

"To me he will always be a dear personal friend. Haim Saban is a great American citizen and a man who always stood by Israel and the Jewish people in times of need. His contribution to strengthening ties between Israel and American political leaders from all parties has been quite remarkable and outstanding."

Saban on Sharon:

"Sharon was a terrific prime minister. First of all as a human being. He's a sweetheart. I would phone him and he would get back to me in five minutes."

Bill Clinton

According to Bruck,

When Bill Clinton was President and Ehud Barak was Israel’s Prime Minister, Saban, who was close to both men, says that occasionally he provided a back channel for communications.

According to the New York Times:

He and his wife, Cheryl…, slept in the White House several times during President Clinton’s two terms.

Mr. Saban has not been shy about calling on his political friends to help sell advertising, too. This year, he invited Germany’s most prominent advertising executives to his home in Los Angeles for dinner with Mr. Clinton. The executives, he said, were stunned…

Clinton had the following to Say about Saban:

"Haim Saban has been a very good friend, supporter and adviser to me,” Mr. Clinton said in an e-mail message. “I am grateful for his commitment to Israel, to a just and lasting peace in the Middle East and to my foundation’s work, particularly on reconciliation issues."

As for Saban's vision for a "just and lasting peace":

"I think that any resolution will have to go both on the Palestinian side and Israeli side to some form of civil war. It’s not going to be without spilling blood."

The relationship is odd enough to make even Saban wonder:

Sometimes I tell myself that there's something a bit nutty here. He's the president of the United States. I sell cartoons. So he is going to serve me and ask if I want regular or fizzy water?"

Hillary Clinton

Bruck notes that the Clinton's have been "essential" to Saban's "acquisition of social and political power." Saban was an ardent supporter of Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential bid, even building a funding campaign before she made the official announcement:

Saban said that he begged Hillary to run for President in 2004, and that he began making lists of prospective donors even before she declared her candidacy, in 2007. “I was so committed to Hillary becoming President, with my whole neshamah,” Saban said. “I put my heart and soul into this campaign.”

While Saban refused to support Obama throughout his presidency campaign and later during most of his actual term in office, he has remained devoted to Clinton:

Hillary Clinton, in her role as Secretary of State, has taken a stern line “condemning” the construction plans, and upbraiding Netanyahu. But Saban—who likes to describe Hillary as a “team player”—remains protective of her. Before Hillary addressed the AIPAC conference on March 22nd, he urged the organization’s leaders to be sure that the convention crowd treated Hillary well.

Angela Merkel

Saban tells Ha'aretz:

But I do not belittle the fact that I can go to Angela Merkel in the Chancellory and say, 'Hi, Angela, how are you?' And she replies, 'Haim, nice to see you.' I don't minimize that. That's a great pleasure.

Shimon Peres

According to Connie Bruck of the New Yorker Shimon Peres, the President of Israel, has been a close friend of Saban’s for more than twenty years.

Arnold Schwarzenegger

While Saban has always described himself as a Democrat, he publicly supported pro-Israel celebrity and Republican, Arnold Schwarzenegger, during Schwarzenegger's governor re-election campaign in 2006, and Schwarzenegger was a featured speaker at the 2009 Saban Forum.

Saban and Israel

Born in Egypt and raised in Israel where he served with the IDF,, Saban declared in 2004: "I'm a one-issue guy and my issue is Israel".

Connie Bruck reports:

Although Saban has lived in the United States for nearly thirty years, he remains deeply connected to Israel. He watches Israeli news shows, via satellite, throughout the day, and is a devout fan of the Ha’gashash Ha’chiver (Pale Pathfinder), a popular Israeli comedy troupe that performed for decades. “He knows every sketch of theirs by heart, and he uses their language very often when he speaks Hebrew,” his friend Dan Gillerman, the former Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations, said. His hundred-year-old mother and his brother live in Israel, and Saban travels there frequently. Through the years, one of his closest advisers has always been an Israeli and, in business meetings with others on his team, the two would occasionally slip into a side conversation in Hebrew.

According to Saban his "greatest concern" is

to protect Israel, by strengthening the United States-Israel relationship. At a conference last fall in Israel, Saban described his formula. His “three ways to be influential in American politics,” he said, were: make donations to political parties, establish think tanks, and control media outlets.

Tax Evasion Charges

In 2006 Saban was implicated in tax evasion charges led by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Saban claimed he had never knowingly engaged in illegal activities and alleged that his financial advisor, Matt Krane, had misled him.

On US Civil Rights

While Saban claims to have opposed some of George W. Bush's policies, he whole-heartedly supported the "anti-terror" laws that were enhanced and introduced during his presidency.

"On the issues of security and terrorism I am a total hawk," he said. "I'm a Democrat for the reinforcement of the Patriot Act. It's not strong enough. The A.C.L.U. can eat their heart out, but they are living in the 1970's. We should all have ID's. You betcha. What do you have to hide? Some friends of mine on the left side think I'm crazy."

Affiliations

• Saban Center for Middle East Policy - Funder/Founder
• Saban Institute for the Study of the American Political System - Funder/Founder
• ProSiebenSat.1 - Owner
• Univision Communications - Owner

Related Articles

• Dan Ackman, Mighty Morphin Haim Saban, Forbes.com, March 17, 2003.

Notes

=====================

<youtube align="right" size="tiny" caption="(Part 2)">jrPJYHVk1-M</youtube><youtube align="right" size="tiny" caption="McCaughey's comments on the public option on the Dylan Ratigan Show (Part 1)">DECSGMd2_BM</youtube>Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (20 October 1948), Elizabeth Betsy McCaughey is a policy analyst best known for writing what has been widely described as a "false" and "error-laden" negative critique of Hillary Clinton's healthcare reform proposals in a 1994 New Republic article titled "No Exit." More recently McCaughey has reappeared as the main source of the "Death Panel" rumor in the US made famous by Sarah Palin. She has also written favorable articles about Tea Party candidates as well as been featured as a speaker at Tea Party rallies and events.

Education and Career

In 1976 McCaughey received her PhD in constitutional history from Columbia University. She has trained in corporate banking and served as a "lending officer in the Food, Beverage, and Tobacco Division." She is the author of several books and her writings have appeared in scholarly journals and news publications. She has been featured on various US news shows throughout the years. McCaughey has lectured at Vassar College and Columbia University and worked at right-wing think tanks including the Manhattan Institute where she authored her infamous New Republic article "No Exit," and the Hudson Institute where she remains today. Shortly after publishing "No Exit", McCaughey became Lt. Governor of New York State from 1994-1998 where she reportedly did not have a "working relationship" with Governor George Pataki. Pataki "ignored" McCaughey's policy recommendations and in response McCaughey accused him of "McCarthyism." In 2004 she founded the "Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths," which she describes as "a nationwide educational campaign to stop hospital-acquired infections." In 2009 one of McCaughey's staff members "abruptly resigned" from the committee "expressing concern that Ms. McCaughey was using it as a platform for some of the harshest — and sometimes false — attacks against President Obama’s health care plan."

History

McCaughey has shifted between the Democrat and Republican party, worked for universities and think tanks, and served in government all while writing for news publications and appearing on news shows to discuss her views on US healthcare debates. Referred to as an "East Coast version of Sarah Palin" in a profile done of her in the New Republic (the magazine that published her infamous "No Exit" article), McCaughey shot to fame and infamy after "No Exit" was shown to be ridden with errors and inaccurate claims. Despite the negative press "No Exit" conjured, McCaughey has had a successful career as a policy analyst and currently runs a campaign against the Obama Administration's proposed healthcare reforms by writing articles and through her website, DefendYourHealthcare. Although she has repeatedly been discredited for reportedly incorporating "fearmongering" into her analyses, McCaughey continues to be quoted as an expert and is frequently invited to speak at US policy and political events.

"No Exit"

In 1994 under the supervision of then New Republic editor Andrew Sullivan (Sullivan wrote in 2009 that he did not "commission the piece"), McCaughey wrote an article providing an extremely negative take on the Clintons' proposed health care reforms titled "No Exit". Many argue that the piece "helped derail health care reform" and influence political debate in Washington. McCaughey's attempt to display neutrality on the issue of health care in the US was seriously undermined by her history of working for right-wing think thanks (at the time of "No Exit's" publication McCaughey was working at the Manhattan Institute) and as revealed years later by Rolling Stone Magazine, because McCaughey was reportedly "influenced by Phillip Morris, the world's largest tobacco company." Even though many journalists such as The Atlantic's James Fallows decried the article's accuracy then and even more so now, TNR was awarded the National Magazine Award for McCaughey's work in 1995.

Death Panels

In 2009 a "false" rumor was circulated in the US stating that the Obama administrations's proposed health care reforms would involve government-sponsored "death panels" allotted with the authority to decide which patients would be allowed to live. Its most effective proponent became former presidential candidate John McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin. What surprised some analysts was the speed and momentum with which the rumor spread, eventually making its way into serious health debates, despite the fact that it was proven wrong time and again. Weeks later it became clear that the main source of the rumor was McCaughey.

in a radio interview with former Senator Fred Thompson, Ms. McCaughey said, “One of the most shocking things I found in this bill, and there were many, is on Page 425, where the Congress would make it mandatory, absolutely require, that every five years, people in Medicare have a required counseling session that will tell them how to end their life sooner.” She went on to say that it encouraged people to cut their lives short “in society’s best interest.”

While it was proven from the onset of the rumor that "the bill offers to pay for Medicare patients to speak with their doctors about their wishes for the end of their life, on issues like who will be allowed to make decisions if they are incapacitated, and what kinds of care are available for terminally ill people," the rumor had a serious effect on the Obama administration's health proposals and "hijacked" the healthcare debate.

But in today’s vicious news cycle, lies take on lives of their own on Web sites, blogs and e-mail chains and go viral in seconds. Ms. McCaughey’s claims were soon widely circulated in the thirst for ammunition against the Democrats’ health care reform plan.

Oregon Democratic Representative Earl Blumenauer also traced the source of the rumor from McCaughey all the way to its proponents in congress and held the media responsible for not pointing out its falsehoods earlier:

The news media was a particular culprit in this drama. This was not just Fox News; seemingly all the national news organizations monitored any meetings they could find between lawmakers and constituents, looking for flare-ups, for YouTube moments. The meetings that involved thoughtful exchanges or even support for the proposals would never find their way on air; coverage was given only to the most outrageous behavior, furthering distorting the true picture... By lavishing uncritical attention on the most exaggerated claims and extreme behavior, they unleashed something that the truth could not dispel.

Comments on the "Public Option"

• "You are missing the major issue. The major issue is that these bills are a medical assault on seniors."

• "The public option is anti-competitive."

Criticism

While McCaughey has written and spoken extensively about the "unfair" treatment she received following the emergence of widespread condemnations of "No Exit" for its lack of factual accuracy, she continues to be featured as healthcare policy expert. According to Media Matters for America Senior Fellow Jamison Foser:

Inexplicably, McCaughey is trotted out on television shows and in newspapers to provide "expert" analysis of current health care reform proposals. Incredibly, McCaughey is cast in precisely the role she performed so fraudulently last time around: as the just-the-facts Ph.D. who has, unlike the advocates of reform, actually read every page of the bill. Once again, she brings with her -- and dramatically waves around -- an almost unbelievably thick three-ring binder, which she incredulously announces is only half of the bill. She peppers her alarmist (and clearly false) claims about health care reform with footnotes and page numbers. Those page numbers happen to be the only things she says that actually appear in the bill. But never mind all that. She's an "expert."

Affiliations

• Manhattan Institute - 1993-1994: John M. Olin Fellow
• Hudson Institute - 1999-2001: Senior fellow, 2002-present: Adjunct Senior Fellow/National Columnist

Contact

Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/betsy_mccaughey
Website: http://www.defendyourhealthcare.us/

Resources

• FackCheck.org
• AARP.org

References

========

Often referred to as a "nonprofit international organization" located in Washington, DC, the Institute for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence (ISTPV) has no website and only exists on the web in the form of references made to it by individuals who list themselves as members of the institute. It appears to be defunct. The organization can be traced as far back as 1994 with references naming former IDF member Yigal Carmon as its director and 1997 in the mainstream media with a reference to Oliver Revell who was quoted and identified in a CNN report as ISTPV's president. The majority of listed members appear to have worked in intelligence organizations prior to joining ISTPV including the FBI and the CIA, and many continue to include their ISTPV membership in their online bios. Vice President Peter Probst left the CIA to establish his own private consultancy and join ISTPV. Many of the members are also involved in different organizations together. Revell and Carmon both work for MEMRI and Gene Gately and Steven L. Pomerantz are members of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

Members

• Oliver 'Buck' Revell - Founder,President
• Yigal Carmon - Former Director, 1994-1997
• Peter Probst - Vice President and Director of Programs, 2001 -
• Steven L. Pomerantz - Vice President,1998 -
• Gene Gately - Executive Vice President
• Tarek Heggy - Advisory Board Member
• Richard Carlson - Board Member
• Robert W. Taylor - Member of Council of Experts
• William M. Kelly (Canada) - Board of Advisors

Contact

Address:
725 15th Street NW
Washington, DC 20005 (Address is registered to a private investment firm)
(202) 628-5247 (Number not in service)