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Home  Blog October 2009 October 13, 2009
October 13, 2009: JFK, Bobby, Fulbright and Foreign Agents
Jeff Gates is an author, educator and attorney. His article precedes my book review of Foreign Agents: The American Israel Public Affairs Committee from the 1963 Fulbright Hearings to the 2005 Espionage Scandal
At What Cost the Israel Lobby?
By Jeff Gates
Oct. 12, 2009
More than 46 years ago, President John F. Kennedy sought to preclude a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. In June 1963, he wrote the last in a series of insistent letters to Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. Those letters sought what Israel now demands of Iran: international inspections of its nuclear facilities. The key difference: Kennedy knew for certain that Israel, while portraying itself a friend and ally, repeatedly lied to Kennedy about its nuclear weapons development at the Dimona reactor in the Negev Desert.
Best estimates point to sometime between 1962 and 1964 when Israel produced its first weapon in what is now a vast nuclear arsenal estimated at 200-400 warheads. Kennedy’s letter to Ben-Gurion was anything but friendly. The words he chose were drawn not from diplomacy but from the instructions that a judge gives a jury on criminal culpability. In that brusque letter, the U.S. commander-in-chief insisted that this purported ally prove “beyond a reasonable doubt” that the Zionist enclave was not developing nuclear weapons.
One day after that June 15th letter was cabled to Tel Aviv for delivery by the U.S. ambassador, Ben-Gurion abruptly resigned citing undisclosed personal reasons. As his resignation was announced before the letter could be physically delivered, Jewish authors routinely claim that Kennedy’s message failed to reach Ben-Gurion. Nonsense. That interpretative gloss ignores what we now know about Israeli operations inside serial U.S. presidencies—and about Tel Aviv’s routine intercept of White House communications.
Deprived of an Israeli government with which to negotiate, Kennedy was denied a national security victory that may well have spared the world a problem he foresaw almost a half-century ago. In retrospect, that Israeli conduct raises topical questions about the ability of the U.S.—or any nation—to hold Zionist extremists accountable.
The Khazars vs. the Kennedys
During this same 1962-63 period, Senator William J. Fulbright of Arkansas, chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, convened hearings on the legal status of the American Zionist Council. The AZC received funds from the Jewish Agency, a predecessor to the state of Israel. As a recipient of U.S. taxpayer funds, the Jewish Agency used those funds to lobby for more funds. Under U.S. law, that conduct required the AZC to register as a foreign agent.
Attorney General Robert Kennedy joined Fulbright in that quest. That effort was thwarted by the Israel lobby and then by the death of President Kennedy. Thereafter, concerns about the impact of Zionist influence on U.S. policy making continued to grow. By 1973, Fulbright could announce with confidence: “Israel controls the U.S. Senate.” In 1974, he lost his Senate seat. [See: “How the Israel Lobby Took Control of U.S. Foreign Policy.”]
Fast-forward to today and imagine the Middle East without an enclave of nuclear-armed Zionist extremists. The threat that Kennedy posed to Tel Aviv’s arsenal was eliminated five months after Ben-Gurion’s strategically well-timed resignation. When Vice President Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as his successor, LBJ quickly increased the arms budget for Israel. Imagine today’s Zionist influence on U.S. policy had Fulbright and the Kennedys succeeded in requiring that the lobby register as what it is: a foreign agent.
Following the Kennedy assassination in November 1963, Nicholas Katzenbach replaced RFK as Attorney General. Soon thereafter, the AZC evaded registration as it morphed into the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. AIPAC now oversees a transnational network of pro-Israeli political operatives commonly known as “the Israel lobby.”
The Kennedy/Fulbright risk to Zionist influence reemerged five years later when Robert Kennedy announced his candidacy for the presidency during the height of an unpopular war that was vastly expanded under the leadership of the Texan who replaced his brother as president. Another Kennedy presidency posed for Tel Aviv a two-fold threat.
First, Robert Kennedy’s peace candidacy revived the possibility that he would pursue his brother’s agenda and target Israel’s nuclear arsenal in order to preclude a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. Second, with Fulbright still wielding influence on U.S. foreign policy, a Kennedy administration revived concerns about restrictions on the Israel lobby.
When this charismatic contender surged in the political polls, that threat was eliminated June 5, 1968 at a campaign event in Los Angeles. His death at the hand of Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian émigré, coincided with the first anniversary of the Six-Day War. The assassin later cited as his motive Kennedy’s campaign pledge to provide more fighter jets to Israel.
With that murder, the road to the presidency was cleared for Richard Nixon. When lobbied by Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, Nixon readily agreed to endorse an “ambiguous” status for Israel’s nuclear arsenal, akin to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
Special Standard for a Special Friend
Due to its “special relationship” with the U.S., Tel Aviv remains a non-signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Its Dimona facility has never been subjected to the inspections it now seeks for Iran. But for photographs taken inside the Dimona facility in 1986 by nuclear technician Mordecai Vanunu, that “ambiguity” might well remain intact.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has repeatedly certified that Iran is not enriching uranium beyond the 3.5% required for nuclear energy. Tehran has agreed to send its uranium abroad for the further enrichment required for medicine (19.5%), a level still well below the 90% required for nuclear weapons.
In mid-September, the U.S. intelligence agencies reported to the White House that their assessment since the National Intelligence Estimate of November 2007 remains unchanged. They still do not believe that Iran has resumed nuclear weapons development work
What about Israel? What has their lobby been doing? Answer: lobbying. As during the Kennedy era, Tel Aviv remains focused on a single goal: ensuring that its ally and patron continues a six-decade policy ensuring that Israel is not held accountable—for anything.
At what cost has the U.S. acted as if the Israel lobby is not a foreign agent? The strategic issue faced by Fulbright and the Kennedys remains unresolved: how best can the U.S. eliminate Israeli influence as a threat to national security? Since that fateful letter of June 1963, what has been the cost of this lobby to U.S. interests? What costs have been imposed on others by this special relationship? At what point will Americans say: Enough!
http://criminalstate.com/2009/10/at-what-cost-the-israel-lobby/
On July 7, 2008 I wrote:
"Patriotism
means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the
president or any other public official."-Theodore Roosevelt
Patriot and author, Grant F. Smith, Director for the Institute of Research Middle East Policy publication, Foreign Agents: The American Israel Public Affairs Committee from the 1963 Fulbright Hearings to the 2005 Espionage Scandal,
exposes how US Middle East policy has been formulated and thrives due
to the dearth of relevant reporting on AIPAC's activities. This book
should be read by every American tax payer, Congress and foreign policy
maker.
It begins with Senator Fulbright's on target questions to
Jewish-Agency-funded US foreign agents who did not register with the
Justice Department or disclose their true financing, funding flows and
covert activities and illuminates how AIPAC: the American Israel Public
Affairs Committee operates "within a murky nexus regulated by four
important but seldom enforced US laws." [1]
The lax
enforcement of The Logan Act, The Foreign Agents Registration Act/FARA,
the 1917 Espionage Act, Thompson Memorandum guidelines for prosecuting
corporate crime coupled with the fear of being labeled anti-Semitic and
a media who have failed at their commission to seek and report the
truth have all colluded to exert an undue influence over Congress and
thus; we the people of America to be "under the de facto influence of a
powerful foreign interest." [2]
Smith documents how AIPAC-a
constellation of individuals and organizations that make up the "Israel
lobby" continue to actively steer USA foreign policy in a militant and
pro-Israel only direction.
Senator Fulbright's concerns over
activities of unregistered foreign agents who worked to influence
public opinion and policy resulted in the 1963 Senate Foreign Relations
Committee hearings to investigate the Jewish Agency and uncovered the
"conduit" operation run by the American Zionist Council. In 1959, The
American Zionist Council was renamed AIPAC.
Within eight
years, the Council received over a half a million "from the Jewish
Agency to create a favorable opinion in this country for Israeli
government policies. The Senate investigation closed down the conduit,
but the extensive propaganda activities still go on…[and] by 1998, "US
aid to Israel exceeded $3 billion a year, the highest amount of US aid
given to any country." [3]
"AIPAC's illegal tactics harm
America…[and] corporate crime inflicts far more damage on society than
all street crime combined…Harvard economist Thomas Stauffer estimated
the total cost of [the] prolonged conflict in the Middle East at $3
trillion [in 2002 USA dollars and he] lays a good deal of the blame for
this at the doorstep of AIPAC." [4]
On George
Washington's birth date, his Farewell Address has been read aloud in
Congress ever since 1896. However, his warning has not yet seeped into
the consciousness of our elected officials, to "Observe good faith and
justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all...and
passionate attachments for others should be excluded; and that, in
place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be
cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred
or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave...a passionate
attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils.
Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an
imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest
exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the
former in the quarrels and wars of the latter, without adequate
justification."
It has been said that the root of all
evil is the love of money, and most nefarious are the consequences of
nearly two-trillion American dollars which have reaped "special trade
advantages, and preferential contracts. U.S. aid to Israel cost some
275,000 American jobs each year...Additional known items include loan
guarantees-which the U.S. most probably will be forced to cover-special
contracts for Israeli firms, legal and illegal transfers of marketable
U.S. military technology, de facto exemption from U.S. trade protection
provisions, and discounted sales or free transfers of U.S. military
equipment…net purchases by U.S. parties of Israel Bonds, adds at least
$40 billion to the total…U.S. jobs and exports have been affected,
adding to costs and losses…As U.S. relations with Mid East countries
deteriorated, trade was lost. Worsening political relations resulted in
the loss of hundreds of thousands of U.S. jobs…thanks to the Israel
lobby." [5]
Smith's epic public service tome also
illuminates how money laundering of over 50 billion US dollars to
"charitable" organizations and massive covert activities has enabled
the ongoing building of the illegal and apartheid Israeli settlements
which have expropriated legally owned Palestinian land. Today, a
quarter of a million Jewish settlers, most all of which have no
historical tie to the Holy Land, have created facts on the ground to
disable a viable contiguous Palestinian state.
On November
21, 2005, top U.S. law enforcement officials attended a briefing
organized by the Council for the National Interest regarding how
charities "such as B'nai B'rith and Hadassah were in direct control of
the World Zionist Organization and directly linked to a massive
money-laundering operation…[and the settlements are] an indirect
generator of terrorism against the United States…[also] Israel never
signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty [which prohibits] U.S.
assistance to any country trafficking in nuclear enrichments equipment
or technology outside of international safeguards." [6]
Every
American politician is aware of Israel's clandestine nuclear weapons
development, stockpile, and launch capabilities, but due to the
influence of AIPAC "it is business as usual in Washington: criminal
wrongdoing continues to corrupt America's core values, rule of law, and
Middle East policy, as the Israel lobby's cross-hairs shift almost
completely to Iran." [7]
On July 3, 2008, former
Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul stated, "I hear members of
Congress saying 'if we could only nuke them' and that the atmosphere in
Congress indicates that a military strike on Iran has already been
condoned." [8]
Referring to House Congressional Resolution 362
Paul called the 'Virtual Iran War Resolution', "an absolute blockade of
the entire country of Iran, [that will] punish any country or any
business group around the world if they trade with Iran." [9]
In
1976, the Symington Amendment was adopted to fortify and extend the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It prohibited US assistance to any
country trafficking in nuclear enrichment equipment or technology
outside of international safeguards.
The world learned about
Israel's secret underground nuclear weapons facility in 1986 due to
Mordechai Vanunu's photographic evidence, but the American government
ignores this elephant in the world and has refused to insist Israel
allow international inspection of their nuclear weapons facilities.
The
American government's double standards and Israel's negation of
international law, UN resolutions, and denial of equal human rights for
Palestinians have all contributed to the instability in the Middle East.
Beginning
in the 1990's and even more so after 9/11, US politicians blind
allegiance to Israel has been furthered by the claim that both states
are threatened by Arab terrorist groups and rogue states bent on
acquiring weapons of mass destruction.
Many Americans see
Israel as an ally and Iran and Syria as our mutual enemies. The "war on
terror" has become a tactic to infuse fear while it ignores that much
of the anger in the Arab world is in response to Israel's 40+ years of
military occupation of Palestine and the concrete wall and electrified
fence built on legally owned Palestinian property which is "financed
with U.S. aid at a cost of $1.5 million per mile. The Israeli wall
prevents residents from receiving health care and emergency medical
services. In other areas, the barrier separates farmers from their
olive groves which have been their families' sole livelihood for
generations." [10]
William Fulbright warned, "The age of
warrior kings and of warrior presidents has passed. The nuclear age
calls for a different kind of leadership....a leadership of intellect,
judgment, tolerance and rationality, a leadership committed to human
values, to world peace, and to the improvement of the human condition.
The attributes upon which we must draw are the human attributes of
compassion and common sense, of intellect and creative imagination, and
of empathy and understanding between cultures."
Yet,
America's 'leaders' continue to cower and pander to an "illegal foreign
lobby that has long flouted US law and suborned the national interest
as a foreign agent." [11]
Foreign Agents: The American Israel Public Affairs Committee from the 1963 Fulbright Hearings to the 2005 Espionage Scandal could put the starch in their spine to put America first and then these United States would indeed observe good faith and justice towards all nations; [and] cultivate peace and harmony with all.
1. Grant F. Smith, Foreign Agents: The American Israel Public Affairs Committee from the 1963 Fulbright Hearings to the 2005 Espionage Scandal, Page 15. Published 2007 by the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, Washington D.C.
2. IBID
3. Page 20, 22
4. Page 149-150
5. Page 150-151
6. Page 158
7. Page 155
8. http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=62812§ionid=351020104
9. IBID
10. Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Page 43, Jan/Feb. 2007
11. Grant F. Smith, Page 168
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The Paradoxical Commandments
by Dr. Kent M. Keith People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway. If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway. If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway. The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway. Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway. The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway. People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway. What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway. People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
Help people anyway. Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway. © 1968, 2001 Kent M. Keith " In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway."-Mother Teresa
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“You cannot talk like sane men around a peace table while the atomic bomb itself is ticking beneath it. Do not treat the atomic bomb as a weapon of offense; do not treat it as an instrument of the police. Treat the bomb for what it is: the visible insanity of a civilization that has ceased...to obey the laws of life.”- Lewis Mumford, 1946 |
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The age of warrior kings and of warrior presidents has passed. The nuclear age calls for a different kind of leadership....a leadership of intellect, judgment, tolerance and rationality, a leadership committed to human values, to world peace, and to the improvement of the human condition. The attributes upon which we must draw are the human attributes of compassion and common sense, of intellect and creative imagination, and of empathy and understanding between cultures." - William Fulbright |
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“Any nation that year after year continues to raise the Defense budget while cutting social programs to the neediest is a nation approaching spiritual death.” - Rev. MLK |
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Establishment of Israel |
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"On the day of the termination of the British mandate and on the strength of the United Nations General Assembly declare The State of Israel will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel: it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion it will guarantee freedom of religion [and] conscience and will be faithful to the Charter of the United Nations." - May 14, 1948. The Declaration of the Establishment of Israel
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