(WMR) -- The
American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) might learn a thing or two
from Lyndon Johnson�s famous quote about FBI director J. Edgar Hoover: �It�s
probably better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent
pissing in.�
Having received no word back from AIPAC on receiving
credentials to cover their annual policy conference at the Washington
Convention Center, this editor set out to pick up as many side conversations
and abandoned AIPAC literature from the attendees� hotel venues.
This year�s AIPAC policy conference�s theme is �Relationships
Matter.�
At a luncheon event at the Hyatt Hotel across from the
convention center, 193 student government association presidents from colleges
and universities across the nation, including a fair number of historically
African American universities, were treated to a right-wing message of
unbridled U.S. support for Israel. Although AIPAC�s website states that College
Democrats of America were invited to the luncheon in addition to the College
Republican National Committee, the AIPAC message was clearly conservative in
nature. One student, upon leaving the luncheon, said to his colleagues that he
was encouraged by the luncheon�s theme of �spreading the conservative message
on campus.�
For AIPAC, that message is ensuring that campus student
organizations toe a pro-Israel line and that all campus initiatives to
disinvest in Israel are defeated.
But it is not just America�s college students who are being
subjected to AIPAC�s right-wing propaganda blitzkrieg. This editor overheard a
conversation by another AIPAC attendee about continued non-profit funding for a
network of summer camps to stress support for Israel and �Jewishness� among the
generation following in the footsteps of college students and the generation
following that. Clearly understood in the conversation was that the effort
was planning for 30 years into the future.
Speakers already featured at AIPAC�s policy conference are
those who represent a �Who�s Who� of Israel�s influence peddling in Washington:
former CIA director James Woolsey; Washington Institute for Near East Policy
(WINEP) executive director Robert Satloff (who replaced Dennis Ross, who now
serves as a Middle East policy adviser to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton);
and former Coalition Provisional Authority press spokesman Dan Senor of the
Council on Foreign Relations (and the husband of CNN�s Campbell Brown. At CNN,
with the examples of Campbell Brown and John King, it is best under the
tutelage of CNN Washington bureau chief and former AIPAC press spokesman Wolf
Blitzer to marry Jewish and convert to Judaism or possibly run the
risk of losing your job).
Also speaking at AIPAC was Representative Jane Harman (D-CA),
who was identified by National Security Agency (NSA) �Stellar Wind�
wiretaps trying to get an espionage case dropped against former AIPAC officials
Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman in exchange for landing the coveted job as
chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. The espionage
case against Rosen and Weissman was dropped by the Obama administration prior
to the AIPAC conference. Harman is but one of Israel�s and AIPAC�s many water
carriers in the U.S. Congress.
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Hasidics brave the wet weather to protest at the AIPAC conference: they can be counted on to be there every year. They expected more of their collegues to be arriving from New York in time for the May 4 banquet event. |
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AIPAC conference attendees were greeted by this mobile billboard across from one of the conference hotels. |
This editor recently spoke briefly to former Representative
Paul Findlay (R-IL), who was driven from office by AIPAC money for refusing to
bow down to Israel�s dictates. Findlay later wrote a book, titled �They Dare to
Speak Out� about the power of the Israel Lobby in Washington.
A former top U.S. diplomat recently told this editor that,
at a luncheon, Rosen once told him that AIPAC was so powerful that by the end
of the afternoon Rosen could have 70 signatures of U.S. senators, with no
questions asked, on a napkin he was holding up.
AIPAC insists that it is a private lobbying organization
funded through private donations. From the license plates pulling into the
convention center and hotels it appears that much of AIPAC�s support comes from
New York. However, given the presence of Israel�s top government, military,
diplomatic, parastatal, and intelligence leadership at the AIPAC policy
conference, it appears that AIPAC is running afoul of the Foreign Agents
Registration Act (FARA) of 1938, which requires lobbying organizations that
represent foreign governments to register with the Justice Department.
FARA was originally enacted to combat Nazi German propaganda
in the United States. Given AIPAC�s indoctrination of college students, and
summer camp-age children in their political dogma, it would appear that the
Israelis and their American supporters are taking a page right out of the Nazi
playbook that resulted in the passage of FARA. But AIPAC claims FARA does not
apply to it. However, FARA was enacted when it became apparent that Berlin was
funding the German American Bund and two camps for the indoctrination of
young people, Camp Nordland in New Jersey and Camp Siegfried in New York. It
all sounds very familiar.
Previously
published in the Wayne
Madsen Report.
Copyright � 2009 WayneMadenReport.com
Wayne
Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and
nationally-distributed columnist. He is the editor and publisher of the Wayne Madsen Report
(subscription required).