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Former AIPAC staffer Keith Weissman,
indicted in 2005 under the Espionage Act alongside colleague
Steven J. Rosen and Defense Department employee Col. Lawrence
Franklin, is desperately worried. In a
lengthy, rambling monologue delivered to independent reporter
Robert Dreyfuss, Weissman breaks a long silence to declare he's
"concerned that if a confrontation between the United States,
Israel, and Iran leads to war, it will be a disaster--one that
Weissman fears will be blamed on the American Jews." It is telling,
but unsurprising, that Weissman--through misrepresentations and
false dichotomy--exhibits little concern for the broader potential
consequence of war. Fortunately, his tired arguments are in a final
lap toward oblivion.
AIPAC, in the business of
advancing Israeli government policies in the United States ever
since its founder left the
Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1951, has long portrayed
itself as the sole distillery of Jewish policy needs to politicians
eager to tap the Israel lobby's seemingly limitless barrels of
campaign donations. But AIPAC's brand has recently sprung a leak as
growing numbers of youthful,
creative, and noisy organizations challenge its tired claims of
representation and even legitimacy. Weissman's actual concern is
that AIPAC and its creaky
constellation of affiliates will be blamed if the United States
is successfully goaded or tripwired into an unnecessary war with
Iran. Accountability has always been anathema for an organization
operating more like a foreign intelligence agency than a tax-exempt
social-welfare organization.
AIPAC has long brushed its
footprints away from trapping pits into which it has successfully
lured American taxpayers. The Los Angeles Times has lauded
its "donor secrecy," while Fortune called AIPAC "calculatedly
quiet." One anonymous AIPAC official even confided to The
National Journal that "there is no question that we exert a
policy impact, but working behind the scenes and taking care not to
leave fingerprints, that impact is not always traceable to us."
According to the interview:
[Support for regime change] was the personal opinion of many
people in AIPAC, but it never uttered the words "regime change." And
I think my efforts were part of the reason why they never did. # How
would it look anyway? This is what makes it so stupid! The American
Jewish community choosing the next government of Iran? Helping to
change the next government of Iran? How can that government have any
legitimacy? It's completely ridiculous. And I think the arguments
that I raised against it convinced AIPAC, no matter what they
personally thought, they realized that what I was saying was right.
Weissman's overblown claims that he was a lone progressive hero
fending off the Israel lobby's push for regime change from AIPAC's
Iran desk must be evaluated against the actual record. Dreyfuss
notes that Weissman was indicted under the Espionage Act over
AIPAC's covert attempts to influence Iran policy, but he writes,
"Perhaps the full story of the Rosen-Weissman case, Franklin's
involvement, and what role was played by AIPAC and by Israel will
never be known." Fortunately for readers, enough is now publicly
known to discount Weissman's version, thanks to documents filed in
Superior Court
during a defamation suit last year.
According to court
documents, Rosen and Weissman were both on a key phone call passing
U.S. government classified information and spin to Washington
Post reporter Glenn Kessler in 2004. Rosen colorfully told
Kessler that based on that information Iran was undeniably engaged
in "total
war" against the United States. Though AIPAC's version of U.S.
Iran assessments wasn't true at the time, and isn't true now,
AIPAC's motive for advancing it was clear--to trigger U.S. military
operations against Iran by stirring up American outrage through the
establishment press. Weissman said nothing to deter Kessler from
propagating the false threat.
Then, as now, Rosen and Weissman's operational concern was that
they not suffer any consequences for shoveling tainted classified
information--and that AIPAC not be implicated in the deed. Rosen
told Kessler (with Weissman still on the line) that he was concerned
about "not getting into
trouble" [.pdf], meaning, as court documents reveal, "Rosen and
Weissman could get in trouble because the information is
classified." Rosen later reflected that FBI wiretaps of the "total
war" phone call to the Washington Post made them look "very
sinister" and "portrayed him as a secret agent rather than a
lobbyist." It didn't help that Rosen later fled to meet with Israeli
embassy officials after the FBI told him to get a lawyer. The
historical record is very clear that the Rosen and Weissman tag team
was conscientiously setting tripwires for regime change.
Dreyfuss chronicles Weissman's self-serving evaluation of the Israel
lobby along a left-right spectrum, with FBI crackdowns on its
neoconservative wing as driving the 2005
AIPAC espionage indictments. "So what does Weissman think was
going on? He believes that U.S. law enforcement officials, including
the FBI, and CIA officials were so angry over the role of
neoconservatives in backing the war in Iraq that they launched an
investigation that sought to link Wolfowitz, Feith, and other Jewish
Pentagon officials to Israeli intelligence, AIPAC, and a panoply of
neocons at the American Enterprise Institute, the Hudson Institute,
and other think tanks in Washington."
Weissman's
self-portrayal is that of a progressive hero reining in AIPAC as its
liaison to Palestinian and progressive groups while trundling around
in a car with a "Free Palestine" bumper sticker. But AIPAC's
skillful use of Weissman--who readily admits that his greatest
attachment to AIPAC was a string of generous paychecks--to access
progressive and Palestinian groups is really no mystery. The lobby
has always monitored even its
weakest opposition closely, all the better to achieve an
unopposed string of stunning successes for Israel, at great cost to
America.
But the only frame more absurd than AIPAC's claim
to represent "the American Jewish community" is analyzing the Israel
lobby from a "right-left" perspective. While AIPAC delights in
creating an ongoing Democratic/Republican race for candidates to
trot out their "pro-Israel" credentials, American taxpayers and
voters are always the losers. Founder Isaiah L. Kenen gloated about
roping The Nation Magazine Associates into his earliest Israel
propaganda campaigns. There's been even more noise of late as
various progressive pundits and policy posers rush to carve out new
positions in front of growing crowds of Americans outraged about the
Israel lobby--now that it's been fully flushed out in the open by
Mearsheimer and Walt. But many progressive policy barkers continue
to flog their skeptical acolytes with expired brands of snake
oil--that everything of importance is really just a
big
left-right battle for influence over Israel and Mideast policy.
It's not and never has been.
The overarching problem
is the Israel lobby's subversion of American governance through
election
fraud, the evasion of
tax regulations and laws regulating foreign lobbies, and the
systematized, ongoing infiltration of operatives into
key government posts to advance the interests of a foreign
state. Unfortunately for AIPAC, the Americans gathering to challenge
it cross party lines. Whether they wear American flag pins on their
suit lapels or Birkenstocks over wool socks is of ever declining
significance. Weissman and his fellow travelers can try to outrun
opponents by pulling an old horse's head from right to left.
Weissman clearly wants to tell his side of the story. But Weissman
and Rosen will only reemerge as legitimate jockeys astride America's
policy circuits when they again register as
AIPAC's agents
of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
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