"The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" a book due out in September

[December]

"The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy," a book due out in September by University of Chicago professor John Mearsheimer and Harvard University professor Stephen Walt, argues that the pro-Israel lobby has had a negative effect on U.S. foreign policy.

Expanding on a previous academic article that caused uproar and protest, Mearsheimer and Walt argue that the Israel lobby -- including Jewish organizations, Christian fundamentalists and neo-conservatives -- helped, among other actions, to stop diplomatic talks between the U.S. and Syria and hampered efforts to solve the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

READ MORE -

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-israelbook_aug21,1,6109069.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

__________________________

9/11 hijack ’suspects’ alive and well
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1559151.stm

http://rense.com/general68/poss911.htm

[tony mitra]

I have glanced through a working paper on it, put up as a PDF file freely available to readers as part of Faculty Researched Working Paper series by Harward University, John F Kennedy School of Government, at : http://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/Research/wpaper.nsf/rwp/RWP06-011

The London Review of Books has covered it in an abridged rewrite last year at: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/mear01_.html

This paper, along with many others, for example, show Israel's involvement in influencing the US decision to invade Iraq in 2003.

Good read, for those interested to learn more about how Lobbying works within the US Administration, and in particular, about the workings of the Israel Lobby over the past few decades.

[December]

Thank you for the links, Tony Mitra. :thumbsup:
Here's the book -

http://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/Research/wpaper.nsf/rwp/RWP06-011/$File/rwp_06_011_walt.pdf

__________________________

9/11 hijack ’suspects’ alive and well
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1559151.stm

http://rense.com/general68/poss911.htm

[December]

Ralph Nader Explains How Jewish Lobby Robs Americans.
Video -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rD_rWcDRZQ&mode=related&search=

http://img.search.com/4/4c/Nader.jpg


_________________________________

9/11 hijack ’suspects’ alive and well
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1559151.stm

http://rense.com/general68/poss911.htm

[heyjude]

Ralph Nader is not a news source. He is a nut case.
The neo-cons regularily sell out their own country to Israel. That might be ok, but their country is mine too. And I am fed up. Israel has, with the compliance of the US, become a loose cannon in the world. They observe no laws, not even their own. And we provide them with security to do it. This needs to stop.

[jafar00]

Someone is going to use the "A" word any second now.

[heyjude]

Someone is going to use the "A" word any second now.


What is the A word?

[December]

The Israel Lobby - A Danger To The World...
Video

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7999343597466477342
_________________________________

9/11 hijack ’suspects’ alive and well
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1559151.stm

http://rense.com/general68/poss911.htm

[Anti-Racism]

Good read, for those interested to learn more about how Lobbying works within the US Administration, and in particular, about the workings of the Israel Lobby over the past few decades.


One of the important things to remember here:

They never claimed Israel was the only influential lobby. They make the point that other highly influential lobbies exist, but they are not as concerned with the middle east.

Our government is for sale. It is a mistake to blame Israeli lobbyists for taking advantage of this.

[December]

Did anyone read this book already?

[crimzonsol]

My dad works for the Israeli lobby, I do not need a book to tell me that they are fuckers.

[December]

My dad works for the Israeli lobby, I do not need a book to tell me that they are fuckers.


How did he get this job?

[crimzonsol]

My dad works for the Israeli lobby, I do not need a book to tell me that they are fuckers.


How did he get this job?


Don't know, Don't care. He is an asshole, of course I am a teenager so that would explain alot of it. He doesn't really talk that much about his work.

[Lasher]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIPAC#Espionage_allegations

This is a good link for this subject.[hr]
Plea May Affect Aipac Lobbyists’ Cases


Fri. Oct 07, 2005
WASHINGTON — Jewish organizations are worried that a reported plea bargain involving a former Pentagon official will complicate two former pro-Israel lobbyists’ efforts to defend themselves against charges that they passed on secret information to Israel.

Article tools
Text size: Larger | Smaller
Print this article
Email this article
More in News

The former Pentagon official, Lawrence Franklin, reportedly has agreed to plead guilty to disclosing highly classified information to unauthorized people and to improperly keeping highly sensitive documents at his West Virginia home.

Franklin was accused of passing on the documents to the two pro-Israel lobbyists, Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman. At the time of the alleged crimes, both men were top staffers at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

“This is the type of situation where one of the defendants, in exchange for a lesser sentence, cooperates against the other defendants; every man for himself,” said a former Aipac official, who is still close to the lobbying group. “This is reason for concern,” said the former official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Rosen was Aipac’s chief strategist and political enforcer for more than two decades; Weissman was the committee’s former Iran specialist. Both were charged with illegally receiving the information and then sharing it with foreign officials and with journalists.

Franklin’s lawyer, Plato Cacheris, told National Public Radio last week that his client would testify against Rosen and Weissman. The former Pentagon official was scheduled to enter his guilty plea Wednesday, after press time.

For months, Aipac insisted that none of its employees had broken any laws. However in April the organization dismissed Rosen and Weissman, allegedly because of information that arose from the FBI investigation.

Aipac officials say they have been told by the Justice Department that the organization is not a target of any probe. But Aipac officials and leaders at other Jewish organizations are still concerned about bad publicity that could emerge during Rosen and Weissman’s trial. Set to begin in January, the trial will be held in a federal courthouse in Alexandria, Va.

The reported plea comes as the judge hearing the case against the two former Aipac staffers raises tough questions about the government’s reluctance to share information with the defendants, suggesting it could lead to a dismissal.

In a routine scheduling session September 19, prosecutor Kevin DiGregory’s plans to withhold from the defense a portion of tapes and transcripts of conversations among Rosen, Weissman and others took aback Judge T.S. Ellis. In these conversations, the defendants allegedly incriminate themselves.

“I am having a hard time, Mr. DiGregory, getting over the fact that the defendants can’t hear their own statements, and whether that is so fundamental that if it doesn’t happen, this case will have to be dismissed,” Ellis said. “Have you ever heard of a case where a defendant couldn’t have his own statements? I have been on the bench 18 years, with another 20 years before that, and it has never happened.”

Prosecutors said the wiretap material was “owned” by various government intelligence agencies and that it was up to those agencies to share the material.

Thomas Reilly, a Justice Department lawyer, invoked the notorious secrecy of the three-judge panel that orders wiretaps under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. He suggested that the sensitivity lay not in what Rosen and Weissman had said but in the party with whom they were speaking.

“It involves FISA-derived electronic surveillance, your honor, of the defendants and third parties,” Reilly said.

Ellis was skeptical of the government’s position. “I can understand how that conceivably might be national security information, but I find it hard to understand how the defendants shouldn’t have access to it,” he said, adding that he might review the material himself.

In a response filed September 29, the government cited precedents to show that prosecutors need not reveal wiretapped information that is not exculpatory or irrelevant to the defense. They likened keeping the information secret to laws that protect informants.

In the September 19 hearing, Ellis said it was up to him to determine relevancy. The defendants have until October 7, 2006, to respond.

Rosen’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, had raised the issue because he said that a lack of access to material would prevent him from meeting court deadlines to file motions to dismiss. Ellis appeared sympathetic and postponed some of the hearings, though he was adamant that the trial would start January 2, 2006.

Lowell said in court that he had spoken to lawyers for the foreign officials — apparently the Israelis — and had little hope of calling them for the defense.

Aipac is committed to paying for the legal defense of Rosen and Weissman because of an indemnification clause in employee contracts. Aipac employees sign an agreement that protects them from legal harm until all appeals are exhausted, according to a source close to the defense of Rosen and Weissman who has firsthand knowledge of the clause.

Aipac’s bill for the pair’s defense has topped $1 million.

Rosen and Weissman were charged with “conspiracy to communicate national defense information to people not entitled to receive it,” which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. Rosen also is charged with actual communication of national defense information, also punishable by 10 years in prison.

The charges come under the Espionage Act but do not rise to the level of espionage.

The indictment lists charges involving incidents dating back to 1999, and is related to information on Iran and to terrorist attacks in Central Asia and in Saudi Arabia. For a period in 2004, Franklin worked covertly with the government and relayed allegedly classified information to Rosen and Weissman. One charge against the pair accuses them of relaying the information to a foreign official, widely reported to be an Israeli Embassy staffer.

It is not clear why Franklin decided to enter a guilty plea after maintaining for more than a year that he was innocent. In a July interview with Corporate Crime Reporter, Franklin’s lawyer, Cacheris, said that Franklin cooperated with the FBI investigation early on, without having a formal understanding with the government and without being represented by a lawyer. Only after he learned that the government intended to prosecute him, Cacheris told the Reporter, Franklin decided to hire an attorney and stop his cooperation. Cacheris reportedly said that at first, while still being represented by a public defense attorney, Franklin drafted a plea agreement that would have sent him to prison for six years. The lawyer added that after he was hired he advised Franklin that he should not “be indulging in any pleas in this case.”

In the past, Cacheris had suggested that Franklin would plead guilty to charges that he moved classified documents out of a designated area to his home in West Virginia. That is the least of the charges against him, and doesn’t involve Rosen or Weissman.

Fri. Oct 07, 2005

[crimzonsol]

Thanks Lasher and to those who have provided links to more information.
Just to be clear, the AIPAC does not represent Israels intrests, it represents the ultra-conservative side of Israel.

[Lasher]

By whom are the non-ultra-conservatives represented?

[crimzonsol]

By whom are the non-ultra-conservatives represented?

The ultra-conservatives in Israel have slowly been building power ever since Israel occupied Palestine. The only chance to stop them lie with the Palestinians, but their ultra-conservatives have been hard at work making sure that the Palestinians are firmly under their control. The ultra-conservatives of both sides have played their game well and hope is almost gone, the only thing that can stop them is people who see through the war mongering, their last remaining road block is the Post-Zionists...
Here is a website that contains information about them: http://nswas.org/rubrique22.html

Other than people like those at Neve Shalom, there is no one to represent the population of Palestine or Israel, both of whom want peace and security, but both have been convinced that they can only have one...

[Lasher]

Ralph Nader is not a news source. He is a nut case.
The neo-cons regularily sell out their own country to Israel. That might be ok, but their country is mine too. And I am fed up. Israel has, with the compliance of the US, become a loose cannon in the world. They observe no laws, not even their own. And we provide them with security to do it. This needs to stop.


Amen, friend!