How Israel Made AIPAC

• Episode 14 Conclusion: Foreign Influence Operation

  A declassified 1961 Senate Foreign Relations Committee memo finally reveals the original reason for ever investigating the Israel lobby. In 1954, Israel launched the Operation Susannah false flag terrorist attacks on U.S. facilities in Egypt aimed at scuttling the return of the Suez Canal to Eqypt. But the Israeli terrorists were caught and prosecuted, leading to a diplomatic crisis with the U.S. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee feared that Israel and its U.S. operatives could launch future violent attacks to influence American policy. Pinhas Lavon, the Israeli Minister of Defense blamed for the failed terror operation, became a board member of the Jewish Agency, the same Israeli government funded entity that funded AIPAC's startup lobbying and public relations campaigns in the U.S. Details from declassified FBI files released in 2012 reveal AIPAC founder Isaiah Kenen's early interactions with the Mossad, which led the FBI to conclude he was more involved in a massive covert operation for Israel's government than simply public relations and lobbying. The FBI report frankly categorized Kenen’s exchanges as examples of “efforts being made by the Israelis to change the policies of the United States State Department.” Israel spent $61 million setting up an Israel lobby in America. While Israel's most prominent critics say the lobby is "American as apple pie," that is only true in the sense that apple pie is also a foreign import. It is the conclusion of this podcast that AIPAC is the expansion and continuation of this Israeli foreign influence operation.  This concludes the podcast "How Israel Made AIPAC".  If you would like to review citations for all of the content in the podcast, and even reproductions of formerly classified documents, purchase a copy of the paperback version of the book "How Israel Made AIPAC: The most harmful foreign influence operation in America." Or, request one of a limited number of free paperback copies of "How Israel Made AIPAC" by emailing your name and mailing address to [email protected]. This podcast was created and is copyrighted by the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy. If you would like to learn more about IRmep or support IRmep research, visit www.IRmep.org. Podcast website: https://IRmep.org  To support this podcast visit https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/1388020

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• Episode 13: Above the Law

  AIPAC learns the more entangled and influential its funders become in elite political circles, the less likely its operatives will be prosecuted for electoral fraud and joint espionage operations with Israel's government. Foreign Agents Registration Act enforcement gradually becomes a cudgel to wield exclusively against out-of-favor foreign governments as elite law firms and associates of high officials such as Marion Javits and Billy Carter are paid to lobby for Iran and Libya. Courts rule that attorney-client privilege can shield key communications between foreign principals and their U.S. agents, further eroding FARA.  The anti-Zionist American Council for Judaism's leadership and George Washington University legal scholar William T. Mallison pressure the Justice Department to obtain the Jewish Agency's foreign financing and control documents. After its 1953 covenant with the Israeli government (which also finances the Jewish Agency) is filed with the Department of Justice, the Jewish Agency suddenly stages a suspicious paper "reconstitution" claiming it actually has an entirely different foreign principal with no Israeli government linkages. Liberated from White House, DOJ and Senate scrutiny, AIPAC engages in a  joint espionage operation with Israel's Minister of Economics against U.S. industry in 1984. In 1986 two AIPAC officials rig the California senate race to install Alan Cranston, who goes on to lavishly fund aid to Israel. In 1988 AIPAC illegally coordinates "independent" stealth PACs with misleading names to advance other Israeli government preferred candidates. In 2004 AIPAC executives Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman try to tripwire the U.S. into war with Iran using stolen classified Department of Defense information, even as an Israeli prosecutor finds the Jewish Agency continues to launder billions into Illegal Israeli settlements. AIPAC quietly works to gut U.S. lobbying laws and enact special carve-outs for itself over lobbying junkets as Foreign Agents Registration Act enforcement slowly crumbles. The 2002 book Jewish Polity and American Civil Society declares that AIPAC is now free to engage in unlimited U.S. lobbying in concert with Israel's government.  Podcast website: https://IRmep.org  To support this podcast visit https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/1388020

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• Episode 12: Secret Deal

  JFK's initiative to inspect the Israeli nuclear weapons production facility at Dimona and keep the Israelis from going nuclear dies in Dallas. AIPAC strives mightily, promoting legacy media reports, to convince Americans that Dimona will never produce nuclear weapons. Barrons charges the State Department "once more placed itself in a ridiculous posture by accusing Israel of conspiring to build atomic weapons." AIPAC's umbrella group switches to an offensive posture against registering as a foreign agent. FARA section staffers criticize capitulation on the registration issue and ask soon-to-be Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach to hold firm. AIPAC's umbrella floods the DOJ with irrelevant payroll and other unsolicited documents. Finally in 1964 an agreement is struck for the lobby to file "representative" expenditure reports. In early 1965 the DOJ receives damning reports of massive payoffs to media organizations like the New York Times, sundry academics doing "independent" research, Zionist operatives and spokespersons barnstorming America to promote Israel. But rather than publicly disclose the itemized expenditure filing as required by FARA, the  DOJ locks it away….until 2008. One FARA staffer is outraged.

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• Episode 11: Fighting Justice

  The Department of Justice orders AIPAC's umbrella organization to begin registering as an Israeli foreign agent on November 21, 1962. JFK friend Simon H. Rifkind is hired to help the lobby wriggle out of the order, claiming they would stop laundering Jewish Agency funding into the United States for Israel lobbying and propaganda. Rifkind argues that registering as a foreign agent would "choke the very life" out of the Zionist movement. The anti-Zionist American Council for Judaism celebrates news of the order, as the New York Times scrambles to get inside information.   Justice Department lawyer Nathan Lenvin warns Israel lobby representatives that the Fulbright Senate hearings on foreign agents proved beyond doubt that the AIPAC umbrella was not disseminating "educational" material but rather was receiving huge Jewish Agency cash infusions to propagandize Americans and lobby Congress in league with the Israeli state.    A curious Wall Street Journal report that Justice Department officials were "weighing the risk of offending Jewish opinion in the U.S" triggers a huge outpouring of letters from American Jews to Congress and RFK that they should follow rule of law. In October, 1963 the FBI offers its assistance to enforce the FARA order as additional evidence of foreign control continues to accumulate. Fortunately for AIPAC, on November 22, 1963 JFK is assassinated and the drive to enforce the FARA order gradually begins to fall apart. Podcast website: https://IRmep.org  To support this podcast visit https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/1388020

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• Episode 10: Senate Investigation

  AIPAC founder Isaiah L. Kenen flees for Iran as the Justice Department moves closer to registering the Israel lobby as a foreign agent because of its overseas funding. The American Council for Judaism fights the Zionist takeover of comunal fundraising entities in the US. Senate Foreign relations Committee investigators uncover massive Jewish Agency/Israeli government funding flows into U.S. lobbying and public relations via seized documents. Jewish Agency lawyers whither under Senator J.W. Fulbright's interrogations as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's foreign-funded political activities are exposed. Fulbright questions by AIPAC's founder is registered as a domestic, rather than a foreign, lobbyist. Podcast website: https://IRmep.org  To support this podcast visit https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/1388020

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