See also:
System Update | December 2023
Pro-Israel Think Tank WINEP Outed as ‘Dark Money’ Operation Driving US Wars
By Robert Inlakesh | MintPress News | February 26, 2025
The AIPAC-aligned Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), which often refers to itself simply as The Washington Institute, was recently outed as a “dark money” think tank for its lack of transparency on donors and is continuing to push the United States to engage in conflicts overseas to Israel’s benefit. Its case raises questions about how the Israel Lobby functions through think tanks across the board, shaping U.S. foreign policy behind closed doors.
WINEP has a long history of shaping U.S. foreign policy. It was deeply involved in the neoconservative push for regime change in Iraq, joining calls for the Clinton administration to topple Saddam Hussein as early as 1998. They also pushed for U.S. military intervention and helped justify the eventual invasion in 2003.
At the beginning of the year, the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft unveiled the “Think Tank Funding Tracker,” a one-of-a-kind project that examined the funding sources of the top 50 U.S. think tanks since 2019 and rated their transparency from 0 to 5. WINEP and 16 others—including the neoconservative Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD)—received a zero transparency rating, exposing its reliance on “dark money” contributions.
While WINEP claims “to be funded exclusively by U.S. citizens” on its website, it does not publicly disclose its donor list. Its AIPAC roots were first exposed in 2006 by Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer in The London Review of Books, where they described WINEP as an AIPAC cutout advancing Israel’s agenda under the guise of independent research. The pair wrote at the time that “The Lobby created its own think tank in 1985, when Martin Indyk helped found WINEP. Although WINEP plays down its links to Israel and claims instead that it provides a “balanced and realistic” perspective on Middle East issues, this is not the case. In fact, WINEP is funded and run by individuals who are deeply committed to advancing Israel’s agenda.”
This claim that AIPAC created WINEP was later corroborated by former AIPAC official MJ Rosenberg, who wrote in HuffPost : “How do I know? I was in the room when AIPAC decided to establish WINEP.” The now-deceased WINEP co-founder, Martin Indyk, was also the head of the Saban Center for Middle East Studies, funded by Israeli-American billionaire Haim Saban.
Recent U.S. foreign policy developments have only strengthened WINEP’s influence. The Biden administration’s unwavering support for Israel’s war on Gaza, including a $14 billion emergency military aid package, aligns with WINEP’s long-standing push to ensure that U.S. military assistance to Israel remains untouchable. WINEP actively shaped public discourse as the war progressed, with Executive Director Robert Satloff praising Biden’s refusal to support an early ceasefire, calling it “correct and courageous.”
When House lawmakers convened hearings in late 2023 to attack the administration’s Iran policy, their rhetoric mirrored WINEP’s narratives, particularly opposition to any sanctions relief. Witnesses from WINEP-adjacent institutions like FDD and JINSA were brought in to reinforce the case for a more aggressive posture toward Iran. Meanwhile, WINEP continues to push for U.S. military leverage in post-Assad Syria, another key policy area where the Biden administration has quietly followed its recommendations by maintaining a military foothold and targeting Iranian assets with airstrikes.
WINEP’s revolving-door relationship with the U.S. government does little to shed its reputation for shaping policy. In May 2023, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan delivered a keynote address at WINEP’s annual Soref Symposium, praising Satloff’s “extraordinary work.” Sullivan’s participation wasn’t just symbolic—it reinforced WINEP’s position as an informal but essential policy hub. This is evident from the administration’s embrace of the Abraham Accords, another WINEP priority.
Former WINEP fellow Dan Shapiro was appointed the State Department’s senior advisor for regional integration, carrying out the think tank’s long-standing vision for Arab normalization with Israel. WINEP is currently led by Michael Singh, Robert Satloff, Dennis Ross, and Dana Stroul. Stroul, who serves as WINEP’s Research Director, returned to the position after serving as the Biden administration’s deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East from 2021 to 2024. During her tenure, she played a central role in Washington’s anti-Iran initiatives, the response to the Gaza war, and shaping U.S. Syria policy.
Beyond WINEP, the broader issue of think tank influence is now facing increasing scrutiny. In 2023, lawmakers introduced the Think Tank Transparency Act, which requires policy organizations to disclose foreign government funding and contractual agreements. While WINEP does not receive direct funding from Israel, watchdogs have highlighted that its pro-Israel agenda is sustained through wealthy American donors closely linked to AIPAC. Using domestic contributions to advance a foreign policy agenda has enabled WINEP to operate without falling under the scrutiny of foreign lobbying laws, even as its “scholars” shape U.S. positions on Iran, Syria, and the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Currently, the two primary issues on WINEP’s agenda are how to best leverage American influence to shape outcomes in post-Assad Syria and how to assure regime change in Iran. Indicative of the think tank’s influence is that not only was its hardline Syria strategy the exact model used by the U.S. to aid regime change in Damascus, but its chief researcher was taken on as a senior official by the previous administration.
As demonstrated by the Quincy Institute’s new report, the lack of transparency over who exactly finances the AIPAC lobby’s “cutout” think tank presents serious questions about who is actually shaping U.S. foreign policy and to whose benefit.
OCCUPIED: Former IDF Volunteer to Chair House Foreign Affairs Committee, Trump Approves
By Frankie Stockes | SPN | December 12, 2024
At the behest of President-elect Donald Trump, GOP House Leadership has named Israeli-funded-and-tied Congressman Brian Mast as the new House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman, marking the first known time in American history that a veteran of a foreign military has led a congressional committee. Last year, Mast also became the first known member of Congress to wear the uniform of a foreign military to work at the U.S. Capitol, when he donned his IDF uniform in support of Israel’s campaign in Gaza, following the outbreak of war.
Assuming he’s confirmed by the GOP House Conference, Rep. Mast (R-FL) will succeed Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) as the Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman, giving the staunchly pro-Israel Mast jurisdiction over ALL of America’s foreign relations that come through Congress, including war powers, treaties, and the deployment of American troops overseas.
These duties are especially relevant to Mast’s background and loyalties, as he is a staunch opponent of a two-state solution in the Middle East, supporting Israel’s continued seizure of Palestinian land and the expansion of Israel’s borders.
Mast has even cheerled the wholesale slaughter of Palestinian civilians, telling the media in 2023 that he “would encourage the other side to not so lightly throw around the idea of innocent Palestinian civilians… I don’t think we would so lightly throw around the term innocent Nazi civilians during World War II.”
The Israeli press has rejoiced in Mast’s installation as chairman, with The Times of Israel calling him a “pugnacious defender of Israel in [America’s] Congress” in an article published this week.
“The US House of Representatives elected Florida Representative Brian Mast, a zealous pro-Israel Republican who has volunteered with a group that assists the Israeli army, to chair the powerful House Foreign Affairs Committee,” The Times of Israel report went on, before revealing that President-elect Trump is behind the pending installation of Brian Mast.
“Insiders say that President-elect Donald Trump lobbied the Republican Steering Committee, which names committee chairs, to choose Mast.”
Mast, a self-proclaimed Christian and a U.S. Army veteran who lost both of his legs in the Middle East, later volunteered to serve the IDF and says on his campaign website that his worldview was shaped at Israeli “Shabbat tables.”
“I worked to strengthen the relationship between our two countries, as both a private citizen and as a soldier, because the national security of the United States is directly tied to the strength of Israel,” says Mast, who also says he will “advance policies” that are favorable to Israel and even use the force of the United States government to ensure that the American People are FORCED to support Israel.
“I will do all I can to put an end to the dangerous Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement,” he says.
Mast’s ties to Israel go well beyond serving the IDF and since his political career began, he’s received more than half a million dollars from the Israel lobby, with AIPAC holding the distinction of being his top donor.
Trump’s foreign policy team signals further drift from ‘America First’ to ‘Israel First’
MEMO | November 12, 2024
https://twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/1855593982958379321
There Is Something Rotten in Washington
Scott Ritter is harassed by FBI for calling for peace while Israel’s Lobby overthrows elections
By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • August 8, 2024
One thing you can say about the Administration of President Joe Biden is that nearly every week there is something new and exciting to discuss. Galloping dementia recently gifted us with Joe’s 11 minute abdication speech in which he announced that he would not be running for another term as president. He babbled about how he was taking the step in spite of his desire to continue. The president, who is 81 and recently best noted for his failing mental state causing him to fall down stairs, felt compelled to say that he believes that his record as president “merited a second term” but that “nothing can come in the way of saving our democracy.” He also claimed that “I’m the first president in this century to report to the American people that the United States is not at war anywhere in the world,” even though it is engaged in a military occupation and combat operations in Syria, bombing Yemen and conducting counterterrorism in Iraq as well as supporting logistically and with intelligence the large and growing conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza. He has pledged to Israel that he will “defend” it if attacked, presumably no matter what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu assassinates or bombs to provoke a war against Lebanon, Syria and Iran. Joe ended up by celebrating the nomination of Kamala Harris as heir-designate to the Oval Office after disposing of the troublesome and assertive Donald Trump, who presumably is the one who will tear up the US Constitution and “destroy democracy” if given the chance to do so.
But that was two weeks ago. More recently the fun fair on the Potomac turned its guns on a major critic of the federal government’s policies, most notably exercising its proclivity to float a lot of lies to turn anyone who exercises his or her first amendment right to free speech into some kind of traitor who has to be silenced. Many would argue that if the Biden Administration has one major failure beyond losing control over the country’s southern border, it is failure to manage US Foreign Policy in such a fashion as to avoid initiating or expanding existing international conflicts so as to turn them into major wars. If one considers Ukraine and Gaza, both conflicts that could have easily been stopped or de-escalated if the State Department had stopped acting as a shill for Volodymyr Zelensky and Benjamin Netanyahu and had instead created disincentives to continuing the fighting, the case for US involvement as an antagonist is non-existent. The American people benefit in no way from either war and opinion polls make clear that there is considerable popular opposition to the carnage taking place along both fronts.
On August 7th, it was reported that Scott Ritter, who I consider a friend, had his house in New York State searched by FBI and police and twenty five boxes containing documents and electronic communications devices were reportedly taken away for examination in an “ongoing investigation.” Scott, a former Marine corps intelligence officer, has anti-war credentials that go way back to before the Iraq War when he, as a United Nations Weapon inspector, declared that Saddam Hussein had no “weapons of mass destruction” (WMD). WMD fear was being promoted in Washington as the reason for attacking and disarming Iraq. Scott was pilloried both by the mainstream media and by the Pentagon’s and White House’s mostly Jewish neocons (Paul Wolfowitz, Doug Feith, Richard Perle and Scooter Libby) who were busy fabricating deliberately misleading information and disseminating it to encourage the George W. Bush administration to start the war, which it obligingly did. Scott nevertheless has continued to be an effective gadfly over war and peace issues ever since that time.
Ritter had earlier had a run-in with the Biden regime in June 2024 when he was at the airport in New York City preparing to fly to Istanbul on his way to St. Petersburg to attend the prestigious international Economic Forum that that city hosts annually. A team of three FBI agents accosted him as he was about to board his plane and they confiscated his passport under orders from the State Department. They would neither give him a receipt for the document nor did they produce a warrant. No reason was given for the action, and Scott has since that time been unable to get his passport back.
The passport confiscation and now the house search appear to be connected with what is referred to as a Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) of 1938 investigation. FARA came into being just before the outbreak of the Second World War, when it was feared that “agents” of the Italian and German governments were all too freely spreading their propaganda in the US. In particular, FARA mandates that the finances and relationships of the foreign affiliated organization be open to Department of the Justice inspection. It states that “any person who acts as an agent, representative, employee, or servant, or otherwise acts at the order, request, or under the direction or control of a foreign principal.” Those who fail to disclose might be penalized by up to five years in prison and fines up to $250,000.
To be sure, the U.S. government has recently been aggressive in demanding FARA registration for other nations as well as for Americans working for foreign powers. There have been several prominent FARA cases in the news. Major Russian news agencies operating in the U.S. were compelled to register in 2017 because they were funded largely or in part by the Kremlin. Also, as part of their plea deals, the former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn both conceded that they had failed to comply with FARA when working as consultants with foreign governments.
While the Department of Justice is now going after Scott Ritter using FARA presumably because he is an effective critic of Joe Biden’s wars, there are some indications that other elements in the US government security apparatus are going after others who have dared to oppose what the White House and Congress have been up to. On August 6th, while Democratic nominee Kamala Harris pledged to defend “freedom, compassion, and the rule of law” to cheers in Philadelphia, Hawaii’s former Congresswoman and National Guard officer Tulsi Gabbard described how she was being tracked by teams of government agents in surveilling her and her husband whenever she travels by air. Whistleblowing Air Marshals leaked how Gabbard had been singled out as a “domestic terror threat” under the so-called “Quiet Skies” program. Her boarding passes bear the SSSS notation which makes her subject to additional security searches and questioning. Her probable crime is opposing the war in Ukraine or, possibly, having recently published a book entitled “For Love of Country: Leave the Democratic Party Behind.”
While Attorney General Merrick Garland is active in pursuing individual Americans for possible FARA and “domestic terrorism” violations, he is strangely but predictably reluctant to go after the most corrupt foreign government’s US-domestic lobby which dwarfs all others in terms of illicit cash flow and political impact. It is a foreign government that receives billions of dollars a year in “aid” and other benefits from the United States taxpayer. Consider beyond that, the possibility that that government might take part of the money it receives and secretly recycle it to groups of American citizens in the United States that exist to maintain and increase that money flow while also otherwise serving other interests of the recipient country. That would mean that the United States is itself subsidizing the lobbies and groups that are inevitably working against its own interests. And it also means that those lobbyists though US citizens are acting as foreign agents, covertly giving priority to their attachment to a foreign country instead of to the nation in which they live.
I am, of course, referring to Israel. It does not require a brilliant observer to note how Israel and its allies inside the U.S. have become very skilled at milking the government in the United States at all levels for every bit of financial aid, trade concessions, military hardware and political cover that is possible to obtain. The flow of dollars, goods, and protection is never actually debated in any serious way and is often, in fact, negotiated directly by Congress or state legislatures directly with the Israeli lobbyists. This corruption and manipulation of the US governmental system by people who are basically foreign agents is something like a criminal enterprise and one can only imagine the screams of outrage coming from the New York Times if there were a similar arrangement with any other country.
Recent revelations suggest that Israel’s cheating involves subsidies that are paid covertly by Israeli government agencies to groups in the United States which in turn took direction from the Jewish state, often inter alia damaging genuine American interests. The Israeli Lobby also has been long noted for its interference in American elections, including spending large sums of money to oust politicians who complain about the Jewish state and its behavior. Progressive Congresswoman Cori Bush, a critic of Israel, was recently ousted after her opponent received $8 million and earlier this year Jamaal Bowman lost after a record $15 million went to support another “friendly to Israel” candidate.
Many of the groups receiving Israeli money failed to disclose the payments, which is a felony. At the same time, even the casual observer of government in Washington would inevitably note how Israel’s various friends and proxies, uniquely, have been de facto exempt from any regulation by the US government. The last serious attempt to register a major lobbying entity was made by John F. Kennedy, who sought to have the predecessor organization to today’s American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) comply with FARA. Kennedy was killed before he could complete the process and some have linked his death to efforts to register the Israel lobby elements while also blocking Israeli attempts to illegally and secretly develop nuclear weapons.
If one is requiring all the Israeli proxies that together make up the Israel Lobby to register under FARA, you might start with AIPAC, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) but there will be many, many more before the work is done. And there is Christians United for Israel (CUFI), which also has received funding and material aid directly from Israel. The fundamentalist Christian head cases that place Israel’s interests ahead of those of their own country finally need to have their bell rung.
One might well suggest that the Biden Administration stop harassing ordinary Americans who are exercising their free speech right to critique unnecessary wars and instead go after the Israel Lobby, which is a major contributing factor to why those wars are taking place at all. It would also be nice to end the hypocrisy that surrounds anything having to do with Israel in Washington. The country is no democracy, no ally, and it is a major league war criminal with possibly hundreds of thousands of dead Palestinians as evidence of its genocidal inclinations. Several hundred Congressmen cheering war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu do not change that. Apart from anything else, that the United States is involved in sustaining and providing cover for the slaughter of thousands of innocents while also pursuing its own citizens who are saying “Thou shalt not!” is an abomination.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.
AIPAC, the leading Israeli lobby group, and its role in subversion of US democracy
By David Miller | Press TV | July 23, 2024
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is the most famous and equally notorious Israeli lobby group in the world. But how important is it really?
Some argue that its influence has been exaggerated and it can at best influence American policies at the margins, while others say it wields considerable clout in US power corridors.
Many of these arguments come from the political left like the one published in Mother Jones, the US leftist magazine, or the one from the former stalwart of the Palestinian cause, Christopher Hitchens, or even the one by Novara Media, a British “leftist” website.
In it, David Wearing presents his argument in these words:
AIPAC may best be seen as performing a disciplinary function within US politics. One can certainly argue that US support for Israel is made somewhat firmer given AIPAC’s role, and these marginal factors matter. But they are still marginal.
Certainly, the Zionist movement is keen to downplay its influence. A report in the Tablet: “How Influential Is AIPAC? Less Than Beer Sellers, Public Accountants, and Toyota” states:
The way AIPAC is talked about, you’d think they’d be a lobbying juggernaut, surely one of the largest in the nation’s capital. Wrong…:
Between 1998 and 2018, AIPAC didn’t make a dent in the Center for Responsive Politics list of the top-spending lobbying groups. In 2018, total pro-Israel lobbying spending was around $5 million, of which AIPAC accounted for $3.5 million.
In contrast, Native American casinos spent around $22 million that year. By Tablet’s count, AIPAC was the 147th highest-ranked entity in terms of lobbying spending in 2018.
This is an attempt to pretend that the influence of the Zionist movement is much less than suggested by observers.
However, based on our findings, we can present these facts:
- Taking the figure disclosed to the lobbying regulator as if that was all AIPAC spends on lobbying is profoundly mistaken. Though it disclosed only $2.7 million lobby expenditure in 2022, its actual total expenditure was £79.1 million.
- In addition, AIPAC controls another nonprofit, the American Israel Education Foundation. It discloses nothing to the regulator, yet had a 2022 expenditure of a further $44.6 million.
- When we add campaign contributions the figures rise significantly. Donations by AIPAC’s Political Action Committee (PAC for short) and its new Super PAC, the United Democracy Project, in the most recent period (2024) total $17.4 million and $31.5 million respectively. It’s worth noting that none of this was donated by AIPAC itself. This adds to donations it has raised from others. The United Democracy Project is the third largest Superpac in the US in terms of 2024 expenditure, according to Open Secrets, the US lobby watchdog. This easily outstrips all corporate-related Superpacs.
- Looking more widely at the Israel lobby in general declared lobbying expenditure by the lobby in 2018 was $7 million not “around $5 million” as stated by the Tablet. The figure for 2022 was $5.4 million, with the following groups making significant declarations: Anti-Defamation League ($340,000), Christians United for Israel ($240,000), Foundation for Defense of Democracies ($180,000), J Street ($640,000), Jewish Federations of North America ($893,000), Republican Jewish Coalition ($320,000), Zionist Organisation of America ($160,000). But of course, their actual budget/expenditure is much higher than the narrow specific lobbying disclosure data.
However, taking figures the lobby narrowly conceives are woefully inadequate as it does not include money spent by Israeli firms or by foreign agents registered with the US Federal government’s Foreign Agents Registration Act office.
- $6.3 million was spent in 2022 by Israeli firms including arms firms Elbit ($770,000), Rafael ($680,000), Israel Aerospace Industries ($446,000), and phone hacking firm Cellebrite ($440,000).
- $16 million in the same year was spent by registered foreign agents of Israel including the regime itself, the World Zionist Organisation ($4.2 million), the Jewish Agency ($9.5 million), and the phone hacking firm NSO Group ($1.5 million).
But even that pales in comparison to data compiled by the Israellobby.org website.
It collates data on Zionist groups providing subsidies to the Zionist entity (including illegal settlements and the occupation forces) and lobbying and education.
It shows a total annual budget of £3.6 billion as long ago as 2012, rising to an estimated £6.3 billion in 2020. These figures do not include the data above on Israeli firms or foreign agents.
However extensive this data is (the best available source on the extent of the economic basis of the Zionist movement), it does not include the following:
- The American Zionist Movement is the official US affiliate of the World Zionist Organisation. It has 46 members. Of these, only 13 are included in the Israellobby.org data.
- The many branches of Chabad-Lubavitch in the US. Chabad is an extreme, genocidal ultra Zionist Hasidic sect. Two Chabad-Lubavitch foundations are included in the data, but according to Lubavitch official figures, which almost certainly underestimate its full reach there are some 1,274 Chabad-Lubavitch groups in the US, (by far the largest number anywhere in the world). Internal Revenue Service data on Chabad-Lubavitch lists 1,313 separate groups in the US.
- Virtually none of the other Hasidic and Haredi groups in the US are included in the data. These groups are overwhelmingly ultra-Zionist, though some refuse to allow their young men to serve in the occupation forces and the Satmar appears to remain anti-Zionist.
- Lastly and perhaps of most significance, the non-profit Foundations which funds many of the groups above, of which there are many hundreds, are excluded. These are Zionist family foundations or Zionist community foundations, including the following well-known examples: Adelson Family Foundation, Allegheny Foundation, Anchorage Charitable Fund, Castle Rock Foundation, Earhart Foundation, John M. Olin Foundation, Klarman Family Foundation, Paul E. Singer Foundation, Smith Richardson Foundation, Sarah Scaife Foundation, Scaife Family Foundation, The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, William Rosenwald Family Fund.
There is hardly any research on the depth and extent of the Zionist penetration of US society which is cognizant of this data.
It’s time to dig deeper and reveal the actual spending power and reach of the lobby.
Turning back to AIPAC, it has a deserved reputation as the most powerful Israeli lobby group in the US. However, a key Zionist talking point is the claim that it is not so powerful.
AIPAC was created by Isiah Kenen a contractor for the Zionist regime in 1963. It was initially called the American Zionist Council. Two months after the American Zionist Council was ordered to register as a foreign agent, Kenen incorporated AIPAC which did not register as a foreign agent, though it is.
One element of AIPAC activities not well understood is its role in spending millions every year ferrying Israeli settlers for eight-day junkets.
The trips are organized through a cutout called the American Israel Education Fund, a charitable organization founded by AIPAC, from which it borrows its offices, board members, and even part of its logo. Like other tax-exempt nonprofits, AIEF must file a Form 990 every year with the Internal Revenue Service, but donors are redacted from the public version.
Recently, an unredacted tax filing for 2019 was obtained by The Intercept. It revealed that the financiers are a clutch of large foundations and nonprofits, some of which are family-run, which also offer funds to other genocidal Zionist groups.
They include foundations associated with the following families, Koret, Swartz, Schusterman and Singer.
The role of AIPAC in campaign contributions is also poorly understood. In November 2023, it was reported that AIPAC was “airing attack ads and beginning to back primary opponents to challenge Congress members who are not voting for or supporting Israel’s war on Gaza.”
According to the report in the Guardian :
Although AIPAC’s roots trace back to the 1950s, the group spent decades focusing most of its attention on lobbying members of Congress – only getting directly involved in races in the past few years. In late 2021, AIPAC announced the formation of a political action committee, known as AIPAC Pac, and a Super Pac, the United Democracy Project, to get more directly involved in congressional campaigns.
The groups hit the ground running in the 2022 midterms, spending nearly $50m across the election cycle. Aipac Pac boasts that it supported 365 pro-Israel candidates from both parties in 2022, while critics condemned the group’s endorsement of dozens of Republicans who voted against certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election.
The Guardian reported that A group of Super Pacs and dark-money non-profits – most notably groups such as the United Democracy Project ($31,679,020) and the Democratic Majority for Israel ($35,000) – as well as other PACs (AIPAC PAC ($1,491,025) tied to Israeli interests contributed about significantly to US campaigns during the last cycle, according to Open Secrets, a campaign finance watchdog.
Open Secrets data show that this amounts to some $58.4 million in the past year.
In the spring of this year, it was revealed that AIPAC had a $100 million war chest for the upcoming election cycle.
AIPAC’s Super Pac is amusingly named the United Democracy Project. It spends targeted funds on lawmakers who challenge any pro-Israel policy including the mildly critical Squad of Democrat representatives and also Libertarian Republicans such as Thomas Massie who has voted against military aid to Israel.
It was Massie who revealed in an interview with Tucker Carlson that AIPAC appoints handlers for each Congress person.
Here is his description: ”It’s like your babysitter. Your AIPAC babysitter who is always talking to you for AIPAC. They’re probably a constituent in your district, but they are, you know, firmly embedded in AIPAC.
In November 2022, AIPAC claimed that “more than 95% of AIPAC-backed candidates won their election last night! Being pro-Israel is good policy and good politics!”
In July 2024, AIPAC claimed “So far this cycle, all 90 AIPAC-endorsed Democrats have won their primary election”
When all of this data and activity is considered we can see that AIPAC is much more of a player than is admitted in those views from the right and left who minimize its importance.
AIPAC is part of a complex network of lobby groups which collectively can be described as the “Israel lobby”. Further, the lobby is itself only a smallish part of the much larger Zionist movement. It is this which needs to be assessed in all its complexity.
When we do that a more rounded and complex account emerges. The role of AIPAC cannot be considered outside its role in the wonder movement because its activities including raising funds and deploying them through other groups and organizations are a core element of its strategy.
Reducing AIPAC to its lobbying disclosure expenditure or its total budget cannot capture its significance in the movement, let alone the significance of the Zionist movement in total.
Hence, AIPAC, and the rest of the Zionist movement, must be stopped.
David Miller is the producer and co-host of Press TV’s weekly Palestine Declassified show. He was sacked from Bristol University in October 2021 over his Palestine advocacy.
Israel Lobby Cash Dominates and Perverts American Elections
Where is the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 when you really need it?
BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • JUNE 28, 2024
Once upon a time the United States of America was a constitutional republic that was by design constructed with checks and balances to limit corruption and constrain the ability of any branch of government to initiate certain potentially harmful actions, like going to war, which required approval by both Congress and the Executive Branch. Of course, that was 261 years ago and things change over time. Today’s America, what claims to be both a democracy and the issuer plus enforcer of international rules and norms, is arguably one of the most corrupt as well as most disliked countries on earth, with a political system that is exceptionally vulnerable to those who have deep pockets and a willingness to spend freely to obtain favors from the professional politicians and bureaucrats who now proliferate throughout the system.
If one measures the consequences arising from all the corruption, there is no better example than the heavily lopsided relationship with Israel, which has been produced through the infusion of hundreds of billions of dollars coming primarily from Jewish billionaire and corporate sources. Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson famously gifted Donald Trump with $100 million and in return received what he demanded, i.e. a United States decision to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and a recognition that Jerusalem would be recognized as the country’s capital, which was illegal under international law. Additionally, Trump’s team headed by Israeli apologist Ambassador David Friedman, brought about the recognition of the Jewish state’s annexation of the occupied formerly Syrian Golan Heights, also an illegal concession, and the de facto granting of a free hand to Israel for dealing with the Palestinians as it sees fit, which is playing out currently. Trump also was in the business of canceling a nuclear monitoring agreement with Iran, which was very much in the US interest, and the assassination senior Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander Qassim Soleimani, a war crime.
The heavily pro-Israel policies have not developed in the US because of some actual affinity between the two nations but rather because of great dollops of Jewish money liberally applied to politicians and journalists to create a myth of an actual beneficial alliance between the two to produce a narrative that the US public would be inclined to accept. In this massive coordinated effort by what is euphemistically referred to as the Israel Lobby there is no more active entity than the basically illegal American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and its conjoined AIPAC-Political Action Committee, which delivers the cash and also the intimidation of political candidates who do not embrace the Jewish state with enthusiasm. Such dissidents are marked for removal through the surfacing of opposing prospective candidates who are particularly well-funded and sure to receive exceptionally favorable press. In the current round of primaries just concluded, AIPAC-Pac has boasted that it has achieved 100% success as “an AIPAC-endorsed candidate has won in every district (224 races) where an endorsee was on the ballot. All 90 AIPAC-backed Democrats who have had their primary races in 2024 have won. These Democrats are strong pro-Israel voices. 134 AIPAC-backed Republicans have [also]won their elections. Being pro-Israel is good policy and good politics.”
How does it work? As international lawyer John Whitbeck has described the process “the primary reasons why virtually all members of the US Congress prioritize the desires of the Israeli government over the interests of the American people are money and fear — and particularly the fear of all the money that Israel-Firsters will devote to ending your political career, most notably through primary elections, if you manifest anything less than unconditional support and/or abject subservience to Israel.” In the most recent primary in New York state, AIPAC boasts over having devoted a record $15 million, a record amount spent on a primary election, to delivering exemplary punishment to end the political career of Representative Jamaal Bowman, a rare progressive in Congress who has been an outspoken critic of Israeli apartheid and genocide. Among other damnation of Bowman’s record, he was inevitably accused of “antisemitism.” Only a single such example every few years has proven to be enough to keep virtually all members of Congress in line. One might ask former Congressmen like Cynthia McKinney and others in a long line who felt the wrath of AIPAC and its sister organizations. That would include now deceased Senators William Fulbright, Charles Percy and James Abourezk and Congressmen Paul Findley, Pete McCloskey and Jim Traficant.
It has recently been revealed that nearly all congressional candidates are routinely and openly approached by AIPAC representatives who ask in advance their views on Israel. If they are cooperative, sometimes requiring a written statement of intent, they are given a pass and can count on financial support and favorable media. If they are not, they are marked for removal. And one can even sympathize with members of Congress who are self-defined careerists in politics, as, again per Whitbeck, “what is the point, when all around you are groveling flat-out- prone in subservience to Israel, in raising your head on a matter of principle? Your head will simply be cut off, and nothing will change for the better as a result of your sacrifice. There is really no rational choice but to faithfully follow the orders of your ‘AIPAC babysitter.’” The “babysitter” is an AIPAC endorsed staffer placed in nearly every congressional office to monitor and report on Israel issues, a development which has recently been revealed by Congressman Tom Massie while being interviewed by Tucker Carlson.
So how do we limit the ability of Israel to corrupt America’s political system to such an extent that many now believe that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu controls US foreign policy while his domestic lobby creatures at the same time influence as well many other aspects of how the government operates at state and national levels? And why do I refer to the actions of AIPAC and other groups as illegal? Israel is able to act with impunity because of the undeniable powerful influence of its domestic US lobby coupled with its skill at being able to hide what it is up to. The Lobby also has a free hand because the federal government does not enforce its own laws when it comes to the illegally nuclear armed Jewish state. AIPAC, not to mention groups like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the American Jewish Committee (AJC), are actually acting as directed agents of the Israeli government and therefore subject to the terms of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) of 1938 which requires organizations that take foreign direction regarding their activities to open up their books and records to scrutiny. It also requires some transparency vis-à-vis their contacts and relationships with the Israeli Embassy and the country’s Foreign Ministry and intelligence and security agencies.
The Act is usually referred to as FARA and was originally intended to monitor groups acting on behalf of the German and Italian governments prior to World War 2. It has since been used to limit the activity of Russian and other entities that have operated in the US but has never been applied against Israel, in itself yet another indication of the power of the Israel Lobby and its ability to suppress any exposure of its activities. Journalist and lawyer Isaiah Kenen had founded the American Zionist Committee for Public Affairs (AZCPA) as a lobbying division of the American Zionist Council in 1953 but it soon separated from AZC and became AIPAC in 1954. Kenen, an actual lobbyist for the Israeli government, had earlier worked for the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. AIPAC is today generally considered the most powerful and wealthiest Israeli lobby in the United States. President John F. Kennedy and his brother Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy understood the threat that it represented and sought to compel both AZC and AIPAC to register under FARA but JFK was assassinated shortly thereafter, which have led many to believe that the killing was a Mossad job. Registration under FARA would have inter alia blocked any funding of US political parties and politicians by those groups acting in support of Israeli interests. It would with one stroke take away much of Israel’s ability to corrupt America’s political system in its favor.
In comments to my articles I am often asked what can we ordinary Americans do to bring the Israeli influencers in this country under control. Well, after recognizing that there is a problem, a partial answer is there by enforcing FARA. One needs to put pressure on individual congressmen and the White House through the media to register AIPAC and other pro-Israel groups. Corrupting money is the key to their power and if the spigot of cash is shut off to the politicians and parties their influence will be greatly diminished. And don’t be surprised if there will be many politicians who are privately ashamed at what has been going on who will suddenly become supporters of control over the Jewish groups. The Lobby has been bad for America and not even particularly good for Israel as “sacrosanct” US support for Israel, as Joe Biden puts it, has freed folks like Netanyahu to engage in very dangerous enterprises for his own country as in Gaza and also against its neighbors and for so-called allies like the US. Time to put an end to the status quo.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.
Massie Taunts AIPAC After Demolishing Primary Challengers
By Tyler Durden | Zerohedge | May 22, 2024
Despite having been targeted by the most powerful, pro-Israel political organization operating in America, libertarian-minded Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie stomped his two Republican primary challengers on Tuesday — and then used social media to mock his Israel-first detractors.
Massie cruised to victory, amassing 76% of the vote, while his two would-be vanquishers roughly split the difference, with Michael McGinnis edging Eric Deters by about 1%. With no Democratic opponent even bothering to take on Massie in November, he’s set up for a sixth term representing Kentucky’s 4th congressional district, which stretches all along the northernmost part of the state.
“Tonight’s victory is a referendum on thousands of independent votes I have cast in Washington DC on behalf of Kentucky’s 4th District,” said Massie.
“I’ve consistently upheld the Constitution by voting for and sponsoring legislation to support the right to keep and bear arms, the right to free speech, freedom of religion and the right to privacy. I’ve also fought against endless foreign wars, foreign aid and inflationary policies, regardless of who is in the White House.
Earlier this month, the independent campaign-spending arm of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) announced that it was pouring $300,000 into advertisements on Fox television affiliates across the Bluegrass State. The over-the-top ads said, “Israel, the Holy Land [are] under attack by Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah… and Congressman Tom Massie.”
Massie has repeatedly stood out as one of the very few Republicans willing to defy the wishes of the potent pro-Israel lobby. In recent months, he voted against the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which would make universities tolerating unacceptable statements about Israel targets of federal civil rights-based punishments. He also voted against the latest, $14.3 billion aid package, noting that “Israel has a lower debt-to-GDP ratio than the United States.”
After Massie’s lopsided win was apparent, AIPAC tried to downplay the outcome, saying that, rather than trying to oust him in the primary, the group wanted to damage him statewide — clearly in anticipation of a possible Massie 2026 Senate run to take the seat of retiring Senate Majority Leader and quintessential establishment swamp creature Mitch McConnell.
Massie said AIPAC was guilty of “election campaign malpractice.” Referring to the $400,000 total that AIPAC had spent against him recently, he told McClatchy DC, “I’m laughing because it has the same effect as lighting it on fire and burning it… What it could do is up my name ID statewide, but two years from now nobody’s going to remember what the ad was about.”
He also deftly turned AIPAC’s announcement of its attack-blitz into a fundraising opportunity. As word of AIPAC’s campaign spread on social media and via ZeroHedge and other outlets, more than 1,200 people contributed $101,000 to his coffers in just four days.
On Tuesday evening, Massie seized on AIPAC’s defensive tweet, drawing attention to the fact that it had been “ratio’d” by the Twitterverse.
Tracing the origins of Zionist lobby’s malign influence on American academia
By Ivan Kesic | Press TV | April 29, 2024
The ruthless police crackdown on pro-Palestinian protests in universities across the United States is a continuation of years of silent repression and malign Zionist influence on American academia.
More than 20 universities in the US are protesting against the genocidal Israeli war on Gaza, where nearly 34,500 people have been killed since October last year, mostly women and children.
According to reports, more than 900 people have been arrested on US campuses since April 18 when a pro-Palestinian encampment at Columbia University in New York was forcefully removed by police.
The police were called by university president Nemat Minouche Shafik to dismantle the tent encampment set up on campus, which triggered a massive outcry from students and faculty members.
The unwarranted police action against students at Columbia University led to the expansion of protests to other university campuses including Yale University in Connecticut, City University in New York, Northeastern University in Boston, Arizona State University in Phoenix, Indiana University in Bloomington, Washington University in St Louis, University of Texas in Texas and University of California in Los Angeles among others.
Like Columbia, the University of Texas president Jay Hartzell also faced a strong backlash from students and faculty members on Friday after he called in police to break up the pro-Palestinian demonstration.
Hundreds of Texas University faculty members signed a letter expressing no confidence in Hartzell for “needlessly putting students, staff and faculty in danger” after riot police moved against protesters.
The protesting students and professors are calling for universities to divest and disassociate themselves from companies that are aiding the occupying regime’s no-holds-barred aggression on Gaza.
The US police, known for its notoriety, has responded with brute violence, drawing anger and outrage.
According to John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, the authors of ‘The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy’, a major monograph on the influence of the Israel lobby in the US, the Zionist influence on academia has faced more problems than politics, media and think tanks.
The origins of Zionist influence on US academia
The origins of the Israeli lobby’s influence can be traced to the late 1970s when the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) monitored campus activities and trained young advocates for Israel.
AIPAC, along with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), also recruited students to help them identify professors and campus organizations with anti-Israel positions, which they would document in dossiers and then systematically slander in their publications.
Toward the end of the 20th century, these lobby groups did not pay much attention to shaping the discussion at universities because the Oslo peace process was underway, with little violence in the occupied territories, and consequently with less criticism of the Israeli regime’s policies.
However, at the beginning of the new century when peace negotiations failed, the extremists led by Ariel Sharon took the helm of the Israeli regime and the Second Intifada ensued, the criticism at higher education institutions in the United States became much stronger and more intense.
The Israeli lobby, exerting considerable influence, responded with an aggressive attempt to “take back the campuses,” and the most important organization in that campaign was once again AIPAC, which more than tripled its spending on pro-Israel college programs.
According to AIPAC leadership at the time, these funds were intended to significantly expand the number of students involved in activities in favor of the Israeli regime on campuses, their competence, and their involvement in the national pro-Israel effort.
Hundreds of students were sent to AIPAC all-expenses-paid courses in Washington DC where they received intensive advocacy training, and they were instructed to concentrate on networking with campus leaders of all kinds and winning them over to promote the regime’s cause.
The multi-year campaign resulted in annual AIPAC Policy Conferences being attended by over 1,200 students from 400 colleges and universities across the US, including 150 student body presidents.
Simultaneously, this campaign to cultivate students has been accompanied by efforts to influence university faculty and hiring practices.
Israel lobby groups involved in US academia
In addition to AIPAC, other pro-Israel lobby groups have also been involved in pro-Israel campaigns at American universities, notably the Israel on Campus Coalition (ICC), an umbrella organization for the coordination of 26 different Zionist groups in US universities.
Although the ICC is not registered under the required Foreign Agent Registration Act, its leadership admitted that they have close ties and coordinate actions with Israel’s ministry of strategic affairs.
The Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA) likewise initiated a series of advocacy training sessions for college students with the aim of defending the Israeli regime on their campuses.
A similar role was played by the David Project (TDP), which partnered with Christians United for Israel (CUFI), organizing training programs for students to agitate for Zionism.
The founder of the David Project was an Islamophobe who advocated banning the construction of mosques on American soil and co-founder of CAMERA, another Zionist group involved in smearing pro-Palestinian students on campuses.
New groups also emerged, such as the Caravan for Democracy (CFD), which brought Israeli settlers to speak at American universities, promoting the farce of Israel as “the only democracy in the region.”
The website Campus Watch, an affiliate of the Middle East Forum (MEF), was also established, whose dossiers continued AIPAC’s tradition of publicly defaming all campus critics of Israeli politics.
Press TV website in July 2023 published an investigation on how the Middle East Forum has shaped into a hardline Zionist and anti-Muslim think tank, founded by Daniel Pipes in 1990.
Its website stated that its mission is to “promote American interests in the Middle East (West Asia) and protect Western values from Middle Eastern threats”, secretly serving the Zionist agenda.
Rodney Martin, a former Congressional staffer, says the AIPAC and other pro-Israel lobby groups in the US have successfully placed a chokehold on the US government.
American-Israeli agendas at work
The ICC and the TDP were actively engaged in pressuring American universities to reject multimillion-dollar donations from Muslim governments to Islamic studies programs, characterizing them as “anti-American.”
On the other hand, under the guise of expanding cultural cooperation and with the true goal of whitewashing the regime, Zionist megadonors launched a series of so-called “Israel studies” programs at American universities.
Fred Lafer and Sheldon Adelson, donors to such programs at New York University and Georgetown University, respectively, admitted that their motivation was to counter the Arab viewpoint at those institutions, referring to the pro-Palestine position.
After the pro-Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) spread across American colleges and universities, Adelson raised an additional 50 million in a secret summit in 2015 to fight the movement.
According to him, the funds raised were to go to operations on US campuses to fight the BDS movement and to “researchers” who would supply information about groups on campuses critical of Israel and recommend possible legal avenues to block their activities.
The precise amount of donations to American universities is difficult to determine because dozens of donors and Zionist charities regularly pay millions and some are given anonymously.
In the case of the University of Pennsylvania alone, pro-Israel lobbyists Marc Rowan and Ross Stevens are known to have donated 50 million and 100 million respectively.
AIPAC, the group that enjoys maximum influence on American academia, received about 12 million monthly donations before the start of the war in Gaza, and the receipts have multiplied since then.
Last month, prominent progressive organizations in the US formed a coalition to defend lawmakers targeted by the powerful AIPAC and counter its sway in US Congress.
Pertinently, one of the key but underreported factors of the unwavering US support for the Israeli genocidal war on Gaza is the overwhelming presence of Zionist Jews in the Biden administration.
The Zionist Jewishness of Biden’s cabinet was pointed out recently by The Forward, a progressive media for a Jewish American audience, as well as the Israeli right-wing newspaper Times of Israel.
Scott Ritter: Ukraine ‘Owned’ by US, While With Israel It’s the Other Way Around
By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – April 15, 2024
Senior Ukrainian officials couldn’t help but feel sidelined by the outpouring of US attention and support for Israel as Tel Aviv sought to fend off an unprecedented Iranian missile and drone attack over the weekend. There’s a good reason for that, says former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter.
President Zelensky took to X on Sunday to plead with US lawmakers not to forget about Ukraine, saying “it is critical that the United States Congress make the necessary decisions to strengthen America’s allies in this critical time” by delivering on the aid package promised by President Biden six months ago.
Zelensky’s comments were echoed by Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, who told reporters on Monday that Ukraine also needs help from its Western partners, even if it’s not in the form of direct military help – like Israel got. “All we ask our partners is, even if you cannot act the way you act in Israel, give us what is needed, and we will do the rest ourselves,” Kuleba urged.
“Let me make this very clear to the Ukrainian crowd. You see, the difference between Israel and Ukraine is that, whether you like it or not, Israel has bought and paid for the United States’ support,” while Ukraine hasn’t, Scott Ritter told Sputnik.
“Israel, through its political action committee, AIPAC, in the United States, has pretty much bought the United States Congress. They’ve bought the United States presidency. They control American media. And as a result, America comes to the defense of Israel because we’ve been paid to do so,” Ritter said.
With Ukraine, it’s the other way around, the observer said.
“America, on the other hand, has bought and paid for Ukraine. You’re not a friend. You’re not an ally. You’re a tool being used by the United States for its larger foreign policy and national security objectives vis-à-vis Russia. We provide you weapons only so far as it facilitates our objective of creating a problem for Russia. We don’t want you to win. We don’t care about you. We give you just enough to keep you going. And then we stand by and watch you bury your dead. Because we don’t care,” Ritter said, channeling the sentiments of the American establishment.
“You’ve done your ‘duty’. You created a problem for the Russians. But now you’ve become inconvenient. And we’re going to stand by and let the Russians finish the job without spending any more money or providing you with much more assistance. You don’t matter to us. You’re not Israel. You don’t own us. We’re not going to fight and die for you. I hope I made that clear,” Ritter summed up.
Israel received unprecedented military support from the US, the UK, France and Jordan on Saturday night, with the countries scrambling fighter jets and deploying ground and sea-based air and missile defense systems to shoot down a barrage of Iranian drones and missiles fired in response to Israel’s April 1 attack on the Iranian Embassy compound in Damascus, Syria. Despite foreign assistance and its own sophisticated air and missile defense network, some of the Iranian projectiles nevertheless managed to make it through, striking two vital Israeli airbases.
“You got a win. Take the win,” President Biden reportedly told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, warning that the US wouldn’t support any Israeli aggression against Iran.
Top Democrat-linked PR firm tapped by pro-Israel groups to control Gaza war narrative
By Kit Klarenberg | MintPress News | December 29, 2023
On December 6, it was announced with much fanfare that the 10/7 Project, a new “centralized communications operation to promote continued US bipartisan support for Israel; push for accurate, complete coverage of the Israel-Hamas war,” and achieve a “stronger” media “focus” on the victims of October 7’s Al-Aqsa Flood would be launched, by a quintet of the largest Israeli lobby groups on U.S. soil.
Who and what is funding the 10/7 Project isn’t at all clear. Publicity material spoke vaguely of an unnamed “coterie of philanthropists” and the organization’s interest in sourcing “more philanthropic support” moving forward. Future formal financial disclosures may make for fascinating reading, but its founders offer some clues.
The five comprise the American Jewish Committee (AJC), the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA), the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. This is quite the rogue’s gallery of Zionist entities, several of which have deplorable track records of actively whitewashing, if not outright facilitating, Israeli apartheid propaganda activities that have become turbocharged since October 7.
As such, the 10/7 Project’s professed mission of countering “disinformation” about October 7 and “Israel’s response” to the events can only be considered highly disquieting, especially given its target audience is “key media and government influencers.” In reality, of course, the organization is just the latest salvo in the Zionist state’s long-running information war against Palestinians and the Western world. This pitched battle has recently become ever more treacherous, specifically due to Tel Aviv’s genocidal “response” to Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.
One could be forgiven for thinking the 10/7 Project had already floundered in its objectives. After an initial ripple of mainstream interest, primarily from Israeli outlets and Zionist news platforms, the organization has seemingly vanished without a trace from the media landscape – or at least, its name has. As we shall see, though, it’s evident that in the manner of an iceberg, the 10/7 Project’s public footprint represents but the visible tip of something far larger and considerably more destructive.
‘STRANGLEHOLD ON CONGRESS’
While the 10/7 Project may not be directly making headlines daily, its parent organizations certainly are. The ADL has since October 7 published a steady stream of reports, lapped up by the media largely without question, testifying to an explosion of “anti-Semitic incidents” across the Western world in the wake of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.
Shocking stuff, one might think. Yet, as an investigation by MintPress News Senior Staff Writer Alan MacLeod revealed, the ADL is producing such staggering figures by categorizing anti-Israel and pro-Palestine rallies and corresponding chants at both as individual “anti-Semitic incidents.” Despite the exposure of its embarrassing, Enron-style accounting, the League continues to pump out the same bogus “research” at regular intervals. On December 12, it claimed “anti-Semitism” in the US was now up 337% in the wake of October 7, “an all-time record.”
It is far from the first time ADL definitions of anti-Semitism have failed to pass muster. For example, in December 2022, The Grayzone’s Alex Rubinstein revealed that the League did not categorize Ukraine’s openly Neo-Nazi paramilitary Azov Battalion to be the “far right group it once was.” This, despite the fact that Azov’s mission to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade… against Semite-led Untermenschen,” as articulated by founder Andriy Biletsky, remains unchanged.
Meanwhile, the infamous AIPAC – accurately described by U.S. political scientist John Mearsheimer as “a de facto agent for a foreign government, [with] a stranglehold on Congress” – has made clear its significantly intensified mission to rid Washington DC of any elected official possessed of even vaguely anti-war, pro-Palestinian views, by declaring war on lawmakers such as Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar.
When AIPAC moves against, or in favor, of particular politicians, they mean business – and depressingly, the organization usually wins. Annually, the organization publishes a report on its “policy and political achievements” that year. Its 2022 installment boasts, among other things, of bagging $3.3 billion “for security assistance to Israel, with no added conditions” and having gifted $17.5 million – the most of any U.S. PAC – to “pro-Israel candidates,” 98% of whom won their elections, in the process defeating 13 anti-Israel challengers.
CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
The official website of the 10/7 Project is spartan in the extreme. Visitors are offered a “contact us” form, a link to subscribe to its regular newsletter, and a “what we do” section listing purported activities. This includes informing the public “with credible, real-time information about events in Israel and Gaza,” highlighting “excellent reporting,” calling out “biased coverage,” holding “biased media accountable,” and offering “expert spokespeople for press and broadcast outlets.”
Unmentioned anywhere is that the 10/7 Project is represented by a trio of notorious PR and political consultancies – CKR Solutions, OnMessage Public Strategies, and SKDK. Together, they move in the shadows to advance the organization’s interests and messaging publicly and on Capitol Hill. SKDK’s contribution will inevitably be the most insidious and impactful.
Since its founding in 2004, the company has careened from damaging scandal to damaging scandal yet consistently secures major, big-ticket clients. The reason for this is clear. SKDK was founded by and employs a retinue of high-ranking, well-connected Democratic operatives. Among them is Anita Dunn, Barack Obama’s White House Communications Director, credited as the “mastermind” of Joe Biden’s 2020 election win and widely regarded as a key member of the President’s “inner circle.”
Joe Biden speaks with SKDK’s Anita Dunn ahead of his State of the Union address in February 2023. Adam Schultz | White House
Ever since Obama’s 2008 election win, SKDK has been plausibly accused of selling privileged access to the White House to clients despite failing to register as a lobbying firm. This means major corporations have a direct means of encouraging – and bribing – the Oval Office to offer tax breaks, shred regulations, dump legislation, smash unions, and generally harm the U.S. public interest with total impunity and in absolute secrecy.
SKDK’s expansive Rolodex also helps politicians get out of serious trouble. In 2018-2019, Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan paid the company $200,000 for “crisis communications” assistance after one of his campaign workers sued him for harming her professionally when she complained of sexual harassment by one of his top aides. Meanwhile, in August 2021, it was revealed a senior SKDK staffer personally intervened to suppress negative media coverage of sexual harassment allegations against New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.
Even more perversely, it’s since been revealed that at the same time, SKDK was advising Madigan on how to navigate his public controversy, the company was also helping his former campaign worker bring a lawsuit against the aide who’d sexually harassed her. A more perfect demonstration of the DC blob’s incestuous nature and SKDK’s total lack of ethical and professional scruples one would be hard-pressed to find. And both are highly competitive categories.
SKDK played a pivotal role in Biden’s 2020 presidential bid, decisively reversing his fortunes after abysmal performances in various caucuses. While the mainstream media primarily praised the miraculous work of the company and Dunn – his de facto campaign director – there has also been fierce controversy surrounding its electioneering activities. For example, SKDK fired off daily “Misinformation Briefings” to major tech and social media firms, including Google, Meta and Twitter, requesting that specific content be suppressed or removed.
In most cases, the recipients complied, meaning SKDK exerted extraordinary influence over what voters did and did not know and could and could not see during the controversial 2020 Presidential election. Which surely at least partially accounts for Biden’s victory. To make matters even worse, the company was simultaneously. reaping a $35 million windfall from the government of California by running the state’s supposedly bipartisan “get-out-the-vote” campaign. The contract, originally to be financed by local taxpayers, was mysteriously awarded to SKDK on a “no-bid” basis.
‘DICTATE TERMS’
Clearly, the 10/7 Project was intended to be a very public affair. In an early promotional interview, executive director Josh Isay – perhaps unsurprisingly, until August 2022 SKDK’s longtime CEO – boasted about the “widespread enthusiasm” with which the organization’s “efforts to set the record straight and combat misinformation spouted by Hamas terrorists and their anti-Israel allies” had so far been received:
We look forward to continuing to do the critically important work of providing policymakers and the American public with reliable information about Israel and Hamas, and uplifting the stories of the innocent victims of the October 7th massacre.”
Yet, there is no obvious sign of those ambitions bearing fruit to date. A partial explanation for this failure may lie in the 10/7 Project’s wish to transform the “innocent victims” of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood into human interest stories and atrocity propaganda while elevating the organization’s eponymous date to the position of 9/11 in the American public’s mind.
In the weeks since the 10/7 Project’s inception, it has become ever-increasingly clear the Zionist narrative of what unfolded when Hamas breached Gaza’s armored concentration camp walls – unquestioningly regurgitated over and again for weeks after that by the Western media – is completely and grotesquely fraudulent.
For example, on December 15, it was reported based on social security data that Tel Aviv’s claim that 1,200 civilians died in the initial assault was greatly exaggerated. In reality, just 695 lost their lives. The previous figure was itself a revision from an initial civilian casualty “estimate” of 1,400.
Every civilian death in a warzone is an extremely grave crime. It is surely for this reason that Tel Aviv on December 12 desperately argued “it would not be morally sound” to investigate “friendly fire” incidents in “kibbutzim and southern Israeli communities” during Operation Al Aqsa Flood – civilians killed by Israeli Occupation Forces. Nonetheless, the numbers involved are avowedly “immense.”
Among the “stories of the innocent victims of the October 7th massacre” selected by the 10/7 Project for public “uplifting” in service of whitewashing and justifying the Gaza genocide will have been a great many individuals slaughtered in cold blood by indiscriminate, excessively violent IDF actions. This is all but inevitable. Urgently casting those victims into obscurity while ensuring the entire issue of Zionist “friendly fire” is not examined is now of paramount importance.
More significantly, though, the exposure – and occasional admission – of Tel Aviv’s brazen lies has fundamentally shifted mainstream narratives and sympathies away from Israel and towards the Palestinians. Audiences of every extraction globally can witness the monstrous reality of the genocide in Gaza and learn of Zionist abuse of the Palestinians even before the colonial entity’s founding in 1948 with their own eyes and ears.
Israeli deceit has been so relentless and so readily exposed that even typically subservient Western news networks and their featured pundits are treating official claims with enormous skepticism. Similarly, Zionist violence is so constantly unremitting and wantonly sadistic that graphic reports of carpet bombs maiming and slaughtering every generation of Palestinians are now commonplace.
Meanwhile, developments such as the revelation that IDF soldiers killed three shirtless Israelis waving a white flag, speaking Hebrew and seeking their assistance have traveled widely, in turn highlighting prior examples of identical “peacetime” atrocities inflicted upon Palestinians. By contrast, there has to date been no “misinformation spouted by Hamas terrorists and their anti-Israel allies” to combat at all.
A LOSING BATTLE
As a result, the 10/7 Project and its founders are placed in the invidious position of having to publicly defend the indefensible – namely, a modern-day genocide unfolding on television screens and front page headlines the world over. In such circumstances, overt and unashamed advocacy work is best conducted behind the scenes. Yet, it is precisely in this context that the 10/7 Project may be most dangerous and potent due to its open-door Oval Office access.
Tireless solidarity efforts by European activists, protesters, citizen journalists, and civil society organizations have produced significant results. Paris went from mulling legislation criminalizing anti-Zionism in November to now leading global pressure for a ceasefire. Multiple governments and opposition leaders are likewise changing their tune. Senior British officials openly warn Netanyahu to drastically rein in his unquenchable bloodlust if he wishes to retain any international support.
Stateside, however, while the crusading work of grassroots pro-Palestine voices and groups has been redoubtable, the Biden administration’s commitment to facilitating, encouraging, and exacerbating the Gaza genocide, however it can, remains undimmed. While the President has demanded Netanyahu’s slaughter be wrapped up by the new year, there is no indication material, financial, and diplomatic support upon which the new Nakba depends is being curtailed. On December 18, during an official visit to Tel Aviv, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin issued a bloodcurdling oath:
This is Israel’s operation, and I’m not here to dictate timelines or terms. Our support [for] Israel’s right to defend itself is ironclad, as you’ve heard me say a number of times, and that’s not going to change.”
One way greater pressure could be brought to bear against the Biden administration might be for citizens to demand their elected representatives in Washington to disclose what dealings they may have had with the 10/7 Project or its representatives since its launch.
To ascertain whether and how White House policy and public pronouncements are being directly informed, if not explicitly dictated, by the wishes and wills of a shadowy and unaccountable lobbying coalition with indeterminate but no doubt intimate political and financial connections to the perpetrators of a 21st century Holocaust.
Kit Klarenberg is an investigative journalist and MintPress News contributor exploring the role of intelligence services in shaping politics and perceptions. His work has previously appeared in The Cradle, Declassified UK, and Grayzone. Follow him on Twitter @KitKlarenberg.
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From the Archives
The lies about the 1967 war are still more powerful than the truth
By Alan Hart | June 4, 2012
In retrospect it can be seen that the 1967 war, the Six Days War, was the turning point in the relationship between the Zionist state of Israel and the Jews of the world (the majority of Jews who prefer to live not in Israel but as citizens of many other nations). Until the 1967 war, and with the exception of a minority of who were politically active, most non-Israeli Jews did not have – how can I put it? – a great empathy with Zionism’s child. Israel was there and, in the sub-consciousness, a refuge of last resort; but the Jewish nationalism it represented had not generated the overtly enthusiastic support of the Jews of the world. The Jews of Israel were in their chosen place and the Jews of the world were in their chosen places. There was not, so to speak, a great feeling of togetherness. At a point David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s founding father and first prime minister, was so disillusioned by the indifference of world Jewry that he went public with his criticism – not enough Jews were coming to live in Israel.
So how and why did the 1967 war transform the relationship between the Jews of the world and Israel? … continue
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