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A history of the Zionist lobby in England and the USA

By Bruna Frascolla | Strategic Culture Foundation | June 10, 2025

The voluminous book Lobbying for Zionism on Both Sides of the Atlantic, by the Israeli historian Ilan Pappé, was published in late 2024. He wrote a history of the lobby and traced its beginnings to 19th-century England; more specifically, to Anthony Ashley-Cooper (1801 – 1885), 7th Earl of Shaftesbury. The other side of the Atlantic alluded to in the title is, of course, the USA, and the history continues to the present.

Over the centuries, both the British crown and the US government have had tendencies both in favor of and against the lobby. The latter sought to place an Arab monarch as a preferred ally and to keep the Middle East at peace, without the immense disturbances caused by Zionists. During the Cold War, these internal tensions were quite dramatic, since making the “Free World” an unconditional supporter of Israel meant to push the Arabs, with all their oil, to the side of the Soviets.

Since the book is comprehensive, I have chosen a few points to highlight that are specifically from the history of the lobby.

The origins

Since the idea that the Jews should return to the Holy Land is easily found among Puritans (Pappé shows that even President John Adams believed in this), the choice of the seventh Earl of Shaftesbury is due to the fact that he had worked, within the British Empire, for the creation of “a British and Jewish state in the middle of the Ottoman Empire, Palestine” (p. 4). In the 19th century, the Ottoman Empire was strong and steady. In a way, then, the Zionist lobby began as a British lobby against the integrity of the Ottoman Empire.

In 1838, under the pressure of Shaftesbury and already with such a purpose, the first British consulate was opened in Ottoman Palestine. For Shafstesbury, “the days of the Ottoman Empire were numbered, and the scramble for its spoils had already begun” (p. 6). Both the earl and the first consul had previously been involved in religious projects, which aimed to interpret the Bible and convert the Jews.

In addition to the religious and geopolitical issues, there was the issue of migration. In the 19th century, Western Europe did not know what to do with the multitude of Eastern Jews fleeing pogroms in the Russian Empire. Therefore, in addition to the eschatological and geopolitical purposes, the creation of a Jewish state would serve as a dumping ground to solve Europe’s migration problem. Furthermore, the 19th century was witnessing the rise of scientific racism, so this concern was motivated by anti-Semitism.

The United States also had an early lobby in the 19th century promoted by Puritans. The most notable result is that these Puritans formed Cyrus Scofield, the author of the Scofield Bible. The faithful who study his edition of the Bible will find many explanatory notes in the Old Testament, and will learn that the Bible is a kind of real estate deed, in which the area of ​​the ancient Kingdom of Israel is owned by the Jews per omnia saecula saeculorum, and that it is the duty of Christians to support the chosen people when they blow up the houses of the Gentiles who live there.

The poor Jews and the leftist phase

Normally, the history of Zionism begins with Herzl and the publication of Der Judenstaat in 1896. By then, much water had already flowed under the bridge among the Puritans. And when Herzl entered the scene, he failed to win over the Anglo-Jewish elites. They considered that the creation of a Jewish state would call into question their loyalty to England, and they saw this as a bad deal.

On the other hand, the poor Jews crowded into the outskirts of London saw Zionism as a chance to change their lives. At that time, socialism and communism were spreading among the urban poor in Europe. Zionism then abandoned the colonialist and capitalist vocabulary of Herzl (who wrote Der Judenstaat to convince a Jewish banker to invest in the new movement) and began to present itself as the socialism of the Jews. Thus, the Poale Zion movement, a labor movement, became a craze among poor Jews in England, and would grow greatly within the Labour Party in the 20th century. Since the English Left is of Puritan formation, combining Jewish socialism with Puritan Christian laborism was like combining fire with gasoline. Only in the second half of the 20th century did the greater visibility of Israel’s crimes bring Labour closer to the Palestinian cause. One of the most prominent figures in this movement was George Galloway, a Scotsman of Irish descent and, for that reason, a Catholic.

Furthermore, in both Europe and the Americas, the idea that Bolshevism was a Jewish conspiracy was widespread, so that every Jew was suspected of communism. It was a burden for a Jew to call himself a communist, so Zionism was the politically correct leftism.

The Israeli Lobby’s Takeover of the United States

One of the questions that most intrigues observers of the issue is: Is Israel an extension of American power in the Middle East, or is it a vampire state that uses American resources to maintain its own project? Pappé’s book points to the second answer, although it makes clear that the neocons (who consider Israel an outpost of their civilization) have their own agenda.

The lobby’s takeover of the United States should make political theorists reflect on the flaws of democracy. In the 1950s, there were the “three I”s of identity politics: Italians, Irish and Israel. The three communities originating from minority religions (Catholicism and Judaism) elected their representatives based on their Italian, Irish or Jewish identity. An exemplary case was that of parliamentarian Fiorello La Guardia, the son of an Italian father and a Hungarian Jew (which makes him Jewish according to halacha), fluent in Italian and Yiddish. Thus, by claiming two identities, he achieved electoral success by garnering the votes of the Italian and Jewish communities. American Jews were great enthusiasts of Israel; and, even if they had no intention of moving there, they demanded that their parliamentarians take measures favorable to the foreign state. Furthermore, the puritanical formation of the United States meant that there was widespread sympathy for the idea of ​​sending the Jews “back” to the Holy Land.

Since the majority of Jews were left-wing, it was common sense that the Democrats had to be pro-Israel, since they depended on the Jewish vote. (Although Kennedy frustrated these expectations.) The party most capable of confronting the lobby would, in principle, be the Republicans.

Nevertheless, opposition to the lobby had been concentrated, since the partition of Palestine, among State Department bureaucrats. They were the ones who wanted to make alliances with Arab monarchies, keep the region stable and prevent the Arab world from getting closer to the Soviet Union. However, stopping the pampering of Israel was difficult in American democracy for two reasons: the aforementioned puritanical affection for Israel and the lobby’s role in campaign financing.

The game began to change within the bureaucracy when Nixon hired the diabolical Henry Kissinger as an advisor. Under his influence, the Arabists in the State Department were replaced by pro-Israel people. Furthermore, also during the Nixon administration, Hans Morgenthau’s political philosophy, according to which states should not care about morality in international relations, became the institutional stance of the United States.

Henry Kissinger and Hans Morgenthau were two German Zionist Jews who went to the United States as refugees. Morgenthau was also an advisor to Ben Gurion during the ethnic cleansing of 1948. The realist Morgenthau made a school of thought and was succeeded by the neo-realist Kenneth Waltz. Regarding the latter, Pappé comments: “His work still constitutes the ideological infrastructure of most studies in international relations research centres in America. From these centres graduated the American diplomats who were selected to conduct the peace process in the Middle East, guided to overlook issues such as justice or morality in the process and to take as few risks as possible. This suited Israel very well and disadvantaged the Palestinians considerably.” (p. 325).

By combining the major pro-Israel actors in the United States, Pappé speaks of an unholy trinity: “Christian Zionism, neoconservatism and the American Jewish lobby” (p. 362). The neocons are a school of thought that is notoriously composed of many ex-Trotskyist Jews, but it is worth noting that this is not exclusive (neither Fukuyama nor Huntington are Jewish).

As for the lobby, AIPAC which takes up many, many pages in the book. This is the most famous lobbying organization in the US and its most notorious activity is financing campaigns for politicians at the beginning of their careers. AIPAC was founded in the 1950s from pre-existing organizations and intended to be bipartisan. It takes money from US donors, sends it to Israel, and Israel decides how to spend it. (I will not go into the details of AIPAC here, but I recommend the documentary The Lobby produced by Al-Jazeera, which is a source for Pappé in the book.) Of the unholy trinity, the only thing left to look at is the Christian Zionists.

Radicalization and televangelists

In the 1980s, after a long hegemony of the socialist and labor left, a right-wing, religious and nationalist coalition came to power in Israel. American Jews, who were mostly leftists, began to distance themselves from the Israeli government. Since AIPAC works in the interests of the Israeli government, and not of the American Jewish electorate, AIPAC ceased to be bipartisan and became right-wing. Thus, instead of focusing on the Jewish population to mobilize American public opinion in favor of Israel, the lobby preferred to focus increasingly on fundamentalist Zionist Christians. This strategy was launched by Menachem Begin and his Likud party in 1977, and the idea was conceived by the young Benjamin Netanyahu, who had just returned from the United States.

During the Reagan era, televangelists emerged, and at the same time foreign policy was thought of in Manichaean religious terms (the Christian West was fighting the great Satan in Moscow, etc.). In this context, televangelists took the lead in Zionist propaganda, saying that being against Israel was being against God. Between 1981 and 1989, writes Pappé, “Netanyahu integrated the Christian fundamentalists into Israeli Hasbara (propaganda)” (p. 311). Perhaps the greatest proof of this integration is the fact that, in occupied Lebanon (1982 – 2000), Israel authorized the opening of a Zionist Christian TV channel that broadcasted televangelists. They were probably targeting the Maronites…

Lobby doomed

In addition to telling the story of the lobby, Pappé points out a puzzle: why, decades after the international recognition of the state of Israel, does the Zionist lobby tirelessly repeat that the State of Israel is legitimate? Both in the preface and in the conclusion, he raises his conjectures. He assumes that propaganda is, in principle, a problem of conscience: Zionist Jews know that Israel is illegitimate, and that is why they lie non-stop. But there is a more serious problem: Israel does what it wants, and no longer cares about public opinion. What is the point of spending so much money to suppress student speech on American campuses, if the opinion of those students is irrelevant? For Pappé, the lobby has taken on a life of its own, and power is intoxicating. Why would a lobbyist give up the influence he has over politicians of left-wing and right-wing parties on both sides of the Atlantic?

Nevertheless, the lobby is doomed to failure because Israel has already decided that it does not care about Western opinion. Thus, in its death throes, the lobby will become increasingly ferocious, seeking to hide reality and maintain power.

June 12, 2025 Posted by | Book Review, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | Leave a comment

I used to believe the myth that the US was the most democratic nation

By Dr. Simon Goddek | May 29, 2025

As a European who has lived in America, I used to believe the myth that the United States was the freest and most democratic nation on Earth. That’s what we were all told. But now that I’ve spent time in these political circles and spoken with major right-wing influencers, what I’ve seen and heard has completely shattered that illusion.

Let me tell you the story I’ve heard over and over again, from different voices, in different cities, at different events. Influencers, some of the biggest names on the right, get pulled aside at private gatherings. Someone leans in, starts a casual conversation, and then comes the pitch: “Have you ever thought about going into politics? We can get you into Congress.”

But there’s always a condition. They’re told to go to Jerusalem. Kiss the wall. Symbolically pledge loyalty. Only then does the funding and institutional support start flowing, usually from AIPAC and its donor network. I know how crazy that sounds, but it’s the same story every time.

And once you understand how things actually work, you start to see the pattern everywhere. Nearly every so-called “America First” politician in Congress takes AIPAC money. The few who refuse it—like Thomas Massie—get relentlessly targeted. AIPAC pours money into their opponents’ campaigns. Even Trump openly said they plan to get rid of him. And you still think this is the land of the free?

– How can you be the world’s greatest democracy when you’re not even ruling your own country?

– How can you be sovereign when another nation dictates your foreign policy, controls your lawmakers, and censors your speech through proxies like the ADL?

And let’s talk about the influencers who conveniently never mention any of this. Be they Jewish or Zionist, they’ll rant about Russian bots, Chinese spies, or any other manufactured threat. But not a word about AIPAC. Not a word about how U.S. foreign policy is openly shaped by another country’s interests.

Marco Rubio will get on stage and give passionate speeches about freedom and patriotism, but he won’t touch the topic of AIPAC. And he certainly won’t mention the ADL’s role in silencing anyone who does. Nor will influencers like Mike Benz, Mark Levin, and co.

You want to understand why the Epstein files are still sealed? Why does this Mossad-linked blackmail operation remain untouched? It’s not because the system is slow. It’s because the people in charge of releasing that information were placed there by the same network that wants it buried. They don’t serve your country. They serve another one.

Try doing an early life check on the loudest defenders of the status quo. You’ll start to understand who they serve and why they’ll never say what needs to be said.

So no, America is not the greatest democracy in the world. It’s the most powerful vassal state on Earth. And the truth is, until America frees itself from foreign control, no election, no movement, and no slogan will make it truly free.

Dr. Simon Goddek has a PhD in Biotechnology and is a Senior Researcher at SINTEF.

June 7, 2025 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

Why AIPAC Must Register Under FARA: Exposing Israel’s Influence in Washington

Track AIPAC

For decades, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has served as Israel’s unofficial arm in Washington, shaping U.S. policy to favor Israeli interests while avoiding the transparency required by the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). This evasion hides AIPAC’s role as a foreign proxy and undermines American democracy.

What Is FARA?

Enacted in 1938 to counter Nazi and Soviet influence, FARA mandates that anyone acting as an “agent of a foreign principal”—engaging in political activities in the U.S. at the direction or request of a foreign government—register with the Department of Justice. This means disclosing contacts, activities, and funding. FARA focuses on whose agenda is being pushed, not the source of the money. AIPAC’s mission, to align U.S. policy with Israel’s goals, fits this definition exactly. Yet it cloaks itself as an “American” lobby, a claim that doesn’t withstand scrutiny.

AIPAC: Israel’s Proxy in Washington

AIPAC’s mission is to steer U.S. policy toward Israel, functioning as a coordinated extension of Israeli interests. It invests millions in U.S. elections with its political action committee, AIPAC PAC, and through its super PAC, United Democracy Project, to support Israel First candidates and oppose anyone who speaks out against Israel’s crimes. It pushes anti-BDS laws mirroring Israeli priorities and secures billions in annual aid, often at the expense of U.S. needs. Through its nonprofit arm, the American Israel Education Foundation (AIEF), it funds frequent congressional trips to Israel—the number one destination for privately sponsored foreign travel by members of the House and their aides—where they meet Israeli leaders and adopt their narrative.

The connections are undeniable: AIPAC has operated a Jerusalem office since 1982, a direct link to Israeli leadership. Its leaders frequently visit Israel, host Israeli officials at policy summits, and align U.S. policy with Israel’s agenda. In 2015, AIPAC strongly opposed a UN resolution condemning Israeli settlements, mirroring Israel’s defiance, and launched a significant lobbying effort, spending a reported $30 million, to support Netanyahu’s campaign against the Iran nuclear deal. In 2023, it briefed Congress on Israel’s Gaza operations, echoing military talking points. In 2024, it pushed $14.1 billion in emergency aid for Israel, matching Netanyahu’s demands, and followed through on Foreign Minister Israel Katz’s request to secure congressional sanctions against the International Criminal Court. If a group lobbying for Russia maintained a Moscow office, funded trips there, and parroted Kremlin lines, we’d call it foreign influence. AIPAC’s U.S. funding doesn’t alter its role as Israel’s conduit.

A History of Dodging Accountability

AIPAC’s ties to Israel are deep-rooted. Its predecessor, the American Zionist Council (AZC), was ordered to register under FARA in 1962 after funneling millions from Israel’s Jewish Agency to lobby Congress. Instead, Isaiah Kenen relaunched it as AIPAC in 1963, dodging the law by using U.S. donors. Declassified 1984 FBI files reveal AIPAC’s early collaboration with Israel’s Ministry of Economics, using stolen U.S. trade data to shape the U.S.-Israel Free Trade Agreement; an act of espionage, not advocacy. In 2005, AIPAC staffers Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman passed classified Pentagon data to Israeli officials, though charges were later dropped. Leaked 2018 Israeli Justice Ministry documents show Jerusalem’s worry that AIPAC’s advocacy could trigger FARA scrutiny, prompting plans to conceal ties with a U.S. nonprofit. If AIPAC’s work is truly domestic, why does Israel fear exposure?

Transparency, Not Prohibition

FARA doesn’t prohibit lobbying, it requires openness. Registration would compel AIPAC to reveal its meetings with Israeli officials, spending details, and directives. If it’s merely Americans supporting Israel, why resist this disclosure? Refusing transparency raises questions about whose interests it truly serves.

The Stakes for Democracy

AIPAC’s unchecked influence skews U.S. policy. General David Petraeus warned in 2010 that Israel’s actions, amplified by AIPAC, put U.S. troops in the Middle East at risk. Billions flow to Israel each year, while domestic crises like healthcare languish. Without FARA, we remain blind to how much Israel shapes these decisions or what AIPAC is hiding.

TrackAIPAC demands that lawmakers, regulators, and the public compel AIPAC to register under FARA. Transparency is the first step to dismantling foreign influence in U.S. policy.

April 21, 2025 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

AIPAC leader boasts of special ‘access’ to top Trump natsec officials in leaked audio

By Max Blumenthal | The Grayzone | April 9, 2025

During an off-the-record panel, AIPAC’s CEO detailed his organization’s grooming of Trump’s top national security officials, and how his group’s “access” ensures they continue to follow Israel’s agenda.

The Grayzone has obtained audio of an off-the-record session from the 2025 Congressional Summit of AIPAC, the main US lobbying arm of the state of Israel. Recorded by an attendee of the panel discussion, the audio features AIPAC’s new CEO, Elliott Brandt, describing how his organization has cultivated influence with three top national security officials in the Trump administration – Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Director Mike Waltz, and CIA Director John Ratcliffe – and how it believes it can gain “access” to their internal discussions.

Joining Brandt on the panel was Dana Stroul, formerly the highest ranking civilian overseeing Middle East issues in the Biden administration’s Department of Defense. Stroul made it clear that defending Israel’s strategic imperatives from within the US government was a top priority, arguing that Washington should deepen its “mutually beneficial” special relationship with its “strong partner” in Tel Aviv.

Stroul dismissed the bloodbath in Gaza as the result of supposed Hamas tactics which supposedly aim to maximize the amount of children killed by Israel. At the same time, she and her fellow Israel lobbyists fretted about the impact of the post-October 7 war on public support for the self-proclaimed Jewish state. She was particularly troubled by Sen. Bernie Sanders’ attempts to force votes on military aid packages to Israel which, in her view, should never be debated in the open. Another unidentified AIPAC panelist worried that pro-Palestinian academics could eventually influence AI knowledge systems, leading to a dangerous shift in national security policy unless they were decisively suppressed.

The Congressional Summit was permeated with anxiety, as AIPAC leaders told rank-and-file members to hide their badges when they left the Marriott Hotel for fear they would be confronted by anti-genocide protesters. Other than a handful of sessions, such as a keynote address by Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, the conference was strictly off-the-record.

With the cameras off, AIPAC leadership provided unusually candid details of their activities. In one revealing admission, Brandt explained how he and his lobbying organization groomed the future CIA director and other top Trump officials as pro-Israel assets.

AIPAC’s “lifelines” on the Trump national security team

Elliot Brandt was promoted to Executive Director of AIPAC in 2024, making him one of the most powerful lobbyists in Washington. Though he is largely unknown to the American public, Brandt has spent around three decades building relationships on Capitol Hill. This was the key, he suggested, to cultivating the future leaders of America’s national security state as loyal servants of Israel.

Referring to Trump’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio, his National Security Director Mike Waltz, and Elise Stefanik, whose nomination to serve as the US ambassador to the United Nations was suddenly withdrawn to preserve the GOP’s majority in the House of Representatives, Brandt explained to AIPAC members, “Those three people have something in common: they all served in Congress.”

After relying heavily on pro-Israel donors to fuel their campaigns for office, “they all have relationships with key AIPAC leaders from their communities,” said the AIPAC CEO. “So the lines of communication are good should there be something questionable or curious, and we need access on the conversation.”

Brandt’s comments corroborate Representative Thomas Massie’s claim that each member of Congress is expected to answer to an “AIPAC person.”

The AIPAC director’s reference to his organization’s “access” to presumably internal national security discussions contains ominous echoes of past espionage scandals in which AIPAC employees were accused of forking classified information over to Israeli intelligence. In 2004, for example, the FBI arrested a Pentagon researcher named Larry Franklin, who had provided classified documents related to Iran to two AIPAC staffers, Keith Weissman and Steve Rosen, who then delivered the information to Israeli intelligence. That December, the FBI raided AIPAC’s offices and seized a computer belonging to Brandt’s predecessor, Howard Kohr. (In the end, Franklin received a slap on the wrist from the government while Weissman and Rosen were fired by AIPAC.)

In his remarks to the AIPAC Congressional Summit, Brandt also pointed to CIA Director John Ratcliffe as an important point of contact. “You know that one of the first candidates I ever met with as an AIPAC professional in my job when he was a candidate for Congress was a guy named John Ratcliffe,” he recalled. “He was challenging a long time member of Congress in Dallas. I said, this guy looks like he could win the race, and, we go talk to him. He had a good understanding of issues, and a couple of weeks ago, he took the oath as the CIA director, for crying out loud. This is a guy that we had a chance to speak to, so there are, there are a lot – I wouldn’t call them lifelines, but there are lifelines in there.”

Top Pentagon veteran comes out as Israel lobbyist

Dana Stroul works as director of research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a neoconservative think tank that was originally founded as the research arm of AIPAC. Stroul previously served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East in the Biden administration’s Pentagon, presiding over policy toward Iran, Syria and virtually every other issue of importance to Israel.

In a closed session at the Marriott hotel, seated before an audience of AIPAC members, Stroul sounded more like a veteran Israel lobbyist than a US national security expert, arguing at length that any and all US military aid packages to Israel provided a net benefit to American empire, while dismissing well-documented Israeli atrocities in the besieged Gaza Strip as the result of “clever” Hamas human shield tactics.

According to an attendee of the AIPAC Congressional Summit, Stroul began her remarks by recalling the frantic hours after she received word of the October 7, 2023 attacks. Personally summoned to work by then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Stroul described how she rushed her child to the Pentagon’s in-house daycare center so she could get to the work of surging munitions to the Israeli military. She said she worked continuously for the next 48 hours, helping the Pentagon transfer weapons from its own stockpiles to Israeli bases. (The AIPAC attendee was unable to capture audio of these comments by Stroul).

Even as she worked to ensure that Israel had all it needed to transform Gaza into a moonscape, Stroul privately acknowledged that the Israeli military might be committing war crimes, according to a series of emails leaked to Reuters. On October 13, 2023, Stroul fired off an email to top White House, State Department, and Pentagon officials about a phone call she had just held with the International Red Cross Committee’s (ICRC) Middle East director, Fabrizio Carboni. “ICRC is not ready to say this in public, but is raising private alarm that Israel is close to committing war crimes,” Stroul wrote. “Their main line is that it is impossible for one million civilians to move this fast.”

Since recognizing the likelihood of Israeli atrocities, Stroul has apparently kept her conscience clear by blaming Hamas for the over 50,000 civilians Israel has killed in Gaza. “I think if you’re in Iran, or you are the Houthis or any of these other proxy terrorist groups, and frankly, probably the Russians and the Chinese,” she told AIPAC members at the 2025 congressional summit, “you’re looking at the ways in which the international community so quickly moved on from October 7 and what happened to Israel and why Israel is at war, and you’re probably taking away that a great tactic in wars to put as many civilians on the front lines as possible so that they can just get killed. And so, the Hamas tactic had strategic effects, because Israel finds itself isolated on the international stage. And it’s a tactic by Hamas to both terrorize on the global stage, and number two, [for] propaganda and disinformation.“

Stroul went on to suggest that the Israeli military was superior in ways to the US military. “This is a mutually beneficial relationship. This is not just about what the United States gives Israel,” the former Pentagon official declared. “This is a partner that has flipped the script on what can be accomplished with military force in a way the United States military never conceived of doing against Iran and Iran’s proxies across the Middle East. We get as much intelligence from Israel, as we give to Israel. They are using our F-35 more than we are using it…”

In her view, Israel also served as an important proxy of the US by applying violence and taking casualties against its supposed enemies: “One thing that you hear that I think is common on the far right and the far left is that they don’t want young men, American men and women, service members going to war in the Middle East, or anywhere. So the way to not have young Americans on the line anywhere is to actually invest in strong partners who can defend themselves. That’s Israel.”

One month after Stroul delivered her comments to AIPAC, President Donald Trump restarted the US military assault on Yemen’s Ansarullah movement in order to protect Israeli shipping from its blockade of the Red Sea. The war has by now cost US taxpayers at least one billion dollars, but has failed to achieve freedom of navigation.

Like the other AIPAC panelists, Stroul was consumed with anxiety about Israel’s image among the American public. She singled out Sen. Bernie Sanders’ efforts to suspend military aid to Israel as a particular source of concern, though not necessarily because she believed they would be successful.

“What do I worry about? I think everyone who’s a supporter of this relationship needs to be wary of the manner in which sometimes it’s not going to be about – Israel is going to be about congressional versus legislative tussling, but Israel is going to be caught in the crosshairs. And I’m worried about that with these executive holds,” Stroul proclaimed.

I’m worried about it with things like the [Bernie] Sanders joint resolutions of disapproval, even if he doesn’t force a vote this time, we’re not getting through four years without him forcing a vote. And it is not good for Israel and for this relationship to make members constantly have to vote on it, even if they pass. That’s not the point. The point is to not have to debate every time.”

Fear of a pro-Palestine AI system

Asked about his greatest concern, an AIPAC panelist whom The Grayzone has not been able to identify pointed to academia and social media. According to the clearly seasoned Israel lobbyist, Israel was losing “the war of ideas” to a collection of professors and influencers with outsized influence among the future generation of America’s intelligentsia.

“Imagine five years from now, a staff, a congressional staffer, types into AI Claude, GBT, at that one. GBT, 14, whatever says, ‘Is supporting Israel bad for American national security?’ The answer that they get back is going to be informed by the information that’s on the internet today, which is why punching back in the information sphere becomes so important,” the Israel lobbyist urged.

“When you disengage, you leave an open playing field for precisely that sort of information that’s going to inform national security decisions five years from now. And by the way, Congress is not immune, because if a member of Congress, if his or her elector, is increasingly being read that type of information, it will skew how they pressure him or her to vote, or even to throw him or her out of office and pick somebody else. Right?… I mean, it starts in academia, but it doesn’t end there, right?”

AIPAC did not respond to The Grayzone’s request for comment about statements made during the off-the-record panel.

April 9, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Is AIPAC Getting What They Want in DC?

By Karen Kwiatkowski | LewRockwell | March 29, 2025

Pro-Israel lobbies and organizations got what they paid for in 2024. Hundreds of millions of dollars of pro-Zionist donations to the Trump campaign and Trump-aligned PACs helped elect Trump, and every important appointment, and some less important ones are vocal Israel-firsters. Pre-existing massive military and other aid from the US taxpayer to Israel has been expanded under Trump. Avid Zionists lead the State Department, the Pentagon, and direct national intelligence. Zionist Steve Witkoff serves as the President’s envoy and chief diplomat in the two major wars the US has been supporting for years, wars Trump wants to resolve in the first half of his last term.

Why, it should be almost perfect, from an AIPAC point of view: a completely controlled executive branch, and a 99% controlled US Congress! The only Republican member of Congress without an AIPAC handler is Kentucky’s Thomas Massie, and both parties have seen its Israel-questioning members successfully primaried or otherwise replaced.

We should be seeing celebrations in the lobby headquarters, and a kind of confidence that I saw way back in 2002 when Israeli generals owned the Pentagon, with full and on-demand access to Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz.

But instead of celebrating, the lobby has huddled and mustered. It’s working over the lower level appointee process now, with its Senate investment Tom Cotton leading the charge against those they see as unreliable. Their unhinged reaction to the appointment of realist Ridge Colby as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy is telling.

Stefanik is now out as a potential US Ambassador to the UN – the reason?  Unlike AIPAC which draws mightily from both parties to get their initiatives, Trump needs more reliable Republican votes and a bigger margin. In other words, AIPAC has created a 99% pro-Israel Congress, yet, the Christian Zionist they needed in the UN has to be sent back to Congress because Trump needs her there.

Trump envoy Steve Witkoff is in trouble with the Republican Jewish Coalition now, based on his frank and open conversation with Tucker Carlson last week. Their complaint is addressed by a welcome tweet from JD Vance saying “The people sniping at him are mad that he is succeeding where they failed for 40 years. Turns out a lot of diplomacy boils down to a simple skill: don’t be an idiot.”

Witkoff is getting heat from the Jewish war lobby for being “fooled” by Putin and “fooled” by Hamas, and they want Rubio to conduct all the negotiations. Bless their hearts, of course they do!

The recent Signal chat kerfluffle is interesting. Signal is a commercial, open source, encrypted messenger app, and its security design and record is good. In 2022, there was a hack of an unrelated cloud server that created a short-lived ability to impersonate a Signal user. This particular breach could have been, and is, prevented by use of the Signal registration lock feature. The Pentagon has policies on Signal app usage, and obviously the inclusion of former IDF soldier and neocon journalist Jeffrey Goldberg in the Principals Small Group chat lies outside of those policies, as does the kind of information being chatted about – a Congressionally undeclared war against Yemen, US war-fighting for Israel, and the administration’s raw contempt for peace in the Middle East, and for Europe’s lack of gratitude for “all the US does” to secure Europe’s dwindling trade and security trade interests. Max Blumenthal’s take at The Gray Zone is clear, and he calls out Goldberg correctly, in a way that the bumbling SecDef tried to.

What we do know is that the Signal “leak” wasn’t a whistleblower attempt – Goldberg has few Constitutional principles and only opposes Trump’s foreign policy when it deviates from that of Netanyahu. We also know that a normal journalist who stumbles on government information important for taxpayers to know about, keeps the source open and protects it. He does not quickly remove himself (as Goldberg did) from that unique source of information.  What a goldmine for a Pulitzer, had Goldberg been interested in that kind of reward! We also know that in the time between the leaked chat and the subsequent attack on Yemen, days went by as several normally quiet and unknown Senators on the Intelligence Committee became extraordinarily well-prepared to attack DNI Gabbard and CIA Director Ratcliffe on the topic during the Trump’s first annual threat estimate presentation. Warner nearly flubbed his lines, but it was a remarkably good show from Senators we rarely hear from. It also served to de-emphasize and distract from whatever was in that Estimate – including Iran isn’t making the bomb, and is a NPT signatory, unlike Israel which makes plenty of them and refuses to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Furthermore, Gabbard and Ratcliffe were not the preferred candidates for Israel, so making them look incompetent, rogue, or otherwise needing to be replaced is part of a time- honored agenda for the Israel lobby. Gabbard is honest, and while exceedingly pro-Israel she prefers peace and diplomacy over fighting someone else’s war. Ratcliffe, while “good on Israel” is known as an America Firster, and more interested in a future conflict with China, something that would necessarily detract from fighting and subsidizing Israel’s endless wars.

Where was National Security Director Waltz – who would have thunk he’d miss the presentation of the National Threat Estimate? He had added Jeffrey Goldberg to the chat, he’s not sure how, and he was in Greenland when Gabbard and Ratcliffe were facing the orchestrated wrath of suddenly security-conscious Senators. Not surprisingly, AIPAC was Congressman Waltz’s top contributor between 2017 and 2024.

All is not well in Israel’s western capital.  Increasingly, AIPAC is dependent on Christian Zionists and lying politicians who will take their money but fail to completely deliver (although Waltz clearly did his part lately). Even Huckabee – a rare Christian Ambassador to Israel – is not trusted by the various Israel lobbies for reasons that demonstrate a small but growing schism between American and Israeli jews, and Zionism in general. AIPAC is finding it more difficult to recruit new generations of activists in the US. Increasing calls to publicly identify dual citizens in the US Congress, and to register AIPAC under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) are being heard.

Almost 20 years ago, John Mearshimer and Stephen Walt published a groundbreaking assessment of the influence of the Israeli lobby to jeers, condemnation and threats. Today, everyone in Washington is in general agreement with that paper, casually reveal that influence, occasionally even complaining about it. Today, Israel fights the BDS movement in the US through state and federal legislation. It demands major restrictions on American speech, expression and assembly for those who dare to consider the Zionist state a brutal colonizer, warmongering, genocidal or racist, undeserving of our military or political assistance and support.  Two years before the latest US-funded genocide in Gaza, 37% of American Jews between 18 and 29 believed US is too supportive of Israel, while only 16% of American Jews over age 65 felt that way. Trend lines like these are not good for organizations like AIPAC.

Trump thus far has refused to fire anyone over the Signal fiasco, despite the preparation and preference for this solution from the “lobby.” If Waltz is safe, no doubt Ratcliffe and Gabbard are as well. Trump’s sensitivities to spies in his midst, his concept of personal loyalty, and his simple and blessed inability to be bullied all work against AIPAC. Trump’s ending of war in Ukraine with a settlement and ceding of territory could be applied to Israel. Trump’s demand that Europe pull its own weight financially and defensively could be applied to Israel. His preference to protect America here, via border control, revitalizing US industry, and designing Golden Domes all speak to ideas of America First, a desire to reduce foreign influence/spying and a shift away from American imperialism toward realism. These ideas, if applied to US-Israel policy, would end the current lop-sided relationship, and raise the costs of Zionism far beyond what Israel could afford on its own.

No wonder the Israel lobby is cranky.

March 31, 2025 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , , | Leave a comment

Bankrolling genocide: The biggest donors to AIPAC, America’s leading Zionist lobby group

By Ivan Kesic | Press TV | March 18, 2025

The most recently published list of donors to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the notorious Zionist lobby group in the US, includes some well-known and some lesser-known figures from the American corporate community.

On March 13, the anti-Zionist advocacy group TrackAIPAC published on its X platform the latest list of major donors to AIPAC and its allies through 2023-2024.

The list includes 231 names, mostly billionaires and corporate executives, as well as companies, who donated a total of $75,762,055 to the pro-Israel lobby group, the biggest in the US.

Fifteen of them donated over $1 million, thirteen over half a million, and about two hundred of the remaining over $100,000, which is the lower limit for inclusion on the top donor list.

Million- and multimillion-dollar donors collectively contributed about $35.4 million, or almost half of all those on the list, as examined by the Press TV website.

TrackAIPAC is an anti-Zionist group dedicated to systematically documenting the Israeli lobby, their financial contributions to US federal officials, and their anti-democratic influence on the United States.

We list out the major donors to the AIPAC, who are directly complicit in the Israeli genocide of Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip, which continues to claim innocent lives.

1. Jan Koum

With a total of $7,432,880 in grants, the largest donor to AIPAC and its allies is Jan Koum, a Ukrainian-American entrepreneur and computer programmer best known as the co-founder and former CEO of WhatsApp, a popular messaging app.

Born in Kiev to a Jewish family, he immigrated to the United States with his mother and pursued a career in tech, joining Yahoo as an infrastructure engineer and working there for nearly a decade

After leaving Yahoo, Koum and his former Yahoo colleague Brian Acton founded WhatsApp, which grew rapidly, reaching 400 million active users in five years.

In 2014, Facebook (now Meta) acquired WhatsApp for $19 billion, one of the largest tech acquisitions at the time. Koum stayed on as CEO four more years when he stepped down.

His net worth, largely from the WhatsApp sale, has been estimated at around $15 billion, making him one of the wealthiest tech entrepreneurs in the world.

Despite keeping a low public profile, Koum is known for his intimate ties to the Israeli regime and its lobby groups and shells out generous donations to Zionist causes. Through the Koum Family Foundation, he has contributed tens of millions of dollars to Israel-related organizations.

Between 2019 and 2020, his foundation donated approximately $140 million to around 70 Jewish organizations, many of which operate in the occupied territories or support Israeli causes.

Specific examples include $6 million to Friends of Ir David, the US fundraising arm of Elad, a Neo-Zionist organization focused on expanding illegal settlements in occupied East al-Quds.

Another significant donation was to Friends of the Israeli military (FIDF), a New York-based Zionist lobby group that supports Israeli soldiers and veterans, to which he gave $5.3 million.

He gave $600,000 to the Maccabee Task Force, founded by Sheldon Adelson to promote Zionist advocacy on college campuses, and $175,000 to the Central Fund of Israel, a Neo-Zionist association linked to supporting illegal settler groups in the West Bank.

Jan Koum

Koum has also supported Israeli healthcare, donating over $13 million by 2020, including $7.7 million to Shaare Zedek Hospital in occupied al-Quds, affiliated with Hebrew University.

His ties also intersect with his political engagement. in 2022, he donated $2 million to AIPAC’s United Democracy Project (UDP), a super PAC supporting pro-Israeli candidates in US Democratic primaries, marking him as its largest individual donor at the time.

A year later, he contributed $10 million to a super PAC backing Nikki Haley’s 2023 presidential campaign, influenced by his connection with Miriam Adelson, a major Zionist donor, suggesting a deepening alignment with pro-Israeli political networks.

Beyond donations, Koum has publicly expressed Zionist views. On his Facebook page, which had nearly 90,000 followers before he stopped posting, he shared content celebrating the Israeli regime.

He also shared propaganda content from StandWithUs, a right-wing Zionist organization that works closely with the Israeli foreign ministry and has obtained funding directly from the Israeli Prime Ministers office, directed against the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Koum has no known direct business or residential ties to Israel, however, his financial support and public statements reflect a strong personal affinity and a commitment to Israeli settler-colonialism.

Due to Koum’s and Mark Zuckerberg’s staunch pro-Zionist stance, there continues to be deep collaboration between Meta group and the Israeli occupation regime.

Meta reportedly provides Israeli intelligence services with an unobstructed installation of spyware on WhatsApp, used for monitoring anti-Zionist journalists, pro-Palestinian activists, and prominent Palestinian individuals themselves.

2. Miriam Adelson

Israeli-American Miriam Adelson, widely known as the biggest donor to the Republican Party, comes in second on the list with $5,000,000 donated to AIPAC, all of which went to the affiliated Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC).

According to a report filed with the Federal Election Commission in October last year, Adelson donated $100 million to a campaign committee supporting the candidacy of Donald Trump.

The widow of Sheldon Adelson who was known for his empire of casinos and resort hotels across the US, Miriam is a Zionist settler who was born and raised in the occupied Palestinian territories and has championed the cause of settler-colonialism.

Miriam mostly kept a low profile, leaving Sheldon in the foreground of their political and donor activities, until his death in 2021, when she stepped forward as his successor.

Last year, Forbes estimated her net worth at over $35 billion. She has recently been spending more time in the Zionist entity than in the United States.

Her political views represent the most radical form of Zionism, extreme even concerning the American Jewish mainstream and the Zionist entity itself.

Miriam Adelson

She is associated with the right-wing ideology of Neo-Zionism, which advocates not only the retention of occupied territories but also the further expansion of the occupation and annexation of Palestine and neighboring countries.

Adelson is a major donor to illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, and the couple gave $25 million to the internationally boycotted Ariel University, located in one such Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank.

The Adelson Family Foundation is a large financial contributor to the Taglit-Birthright Foundation, giving more than $500 million to the organization in a 15-year period.

The couple also got heavily involved in the campaign against the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, launching the counter Maccabee Task Force (MTF) in a closed-door meeting.

This $50 million initiative was set to become America’s largest pro-Israeli campus program, and the MTF later expanded its activities to Europe and beyond.

Adelson is also associated with financing various Zionist groups that have played a significant role in the production and dissemination of Islamophobic propaganda in the West.

3. Jonathon Jacobson

Third on the list of major donors to AIPAC with $4,575,000 in donated money is Jim Harris, an American financier and investor, best known as the founder of HighSage Ventures and the co-founder of Highfields Capital Management.

His career began as an options trader, followed by stints at Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers. In 1990, he joined Harvard Management Company, where he managed investments for the university’s endowment.

In 1998, Jacobson co-founded Highfields with Richard Grubman, starting with $1.5 billion in assets, a third of which came from Harvard Management Company.

Highfields grew into a prominent hedge fund, managing over $12 billion at its peak and achieving annualized net returns exceeding 10 percent over two decades.

The fund was notable for its investments in companies like Microsoft, Genworth Financial, and SLM Corporation, as well as a high-profile bet against Enron before its 2001 collapse.

Jacobson led Highfields until 2018, when he announced the fund would return outside capital and transition into a family office, citing a desire for a less demanding lifestyle after 35 years in the industry.

In 2019, he founded HighSage Ventures, a private investment firm managing his family’s assets and those of the One8 Foundation, where he serves as non-executive chairman.

Jacobson has leveraged his wealth and influence to engage with causes tied to the Israeli regime, primarily through his donor activities, political contributions, and leadership roles in organizations supportive of Zionist interests.

One of his most direct connections is his role as Chairman of the International Board of Trustees of the Israeli Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), a think tank based in Tel Aviv focused on strategic, military, and security policy research.

This position reflects a significant commitment to Israeli occupation discourse and aligns him with influential figures in Israeli and global policy circles.

Jonathon Jacobson

Jacobson and his wife Joanna oversee the One8 Foundation (formerly the Jacobson Family Foundation), which explicitly prioritizes “Jewish causes and Israel” among its focus areas.

The foundation aims to promote “a thriving and democratic Jewish state by increasing understanding among Americans and by strengthening a diverse Israeli society,” as stated on the website.

While specific grant details are not fully transparent, past giving has included support for Zionist organizations, alongside education and community initiatives in Massachusetts.

Additionally, Jacobson has served as a trustee of the Birthright Israel Foundation, which facilitates trips for young Jewish Americans to the occupied Palestinian territories to strengthen their cultural and personal ties to the Zionist entity.

Politically, Jacobson has made substantial donations to pro-Israeli advocacy in the US, donating millions in the 2024 election cycle to AIPAC’s UDP, making him one of its largest individual donors at that time.

This funding supports candidates who align with AIPAC’s pro-Israeli agenda, underscoring Jacobson’s influence in shaping US policy toward the Tel Aviv regime.

His political giving also intersects with figures like Miriam Adelson, with whom he shares connections through mutual support for causes like Nikki Haley’s 2023 presidential campaign.

While Jacobson’s professional career in finance does not appear to involve direct business dealings with the Israeli regime, he is one of the leading individuals engaged in Zionist causes through donations and advocacy.

4. Bernard Marcus and family

With $3,000,000 in donated funds, fourth on the list is Bernard Marcus, an American billionaire businessman, best known as the co-founder of The Home Depot, the world’s largest home improvement retailer, who died in November last year.

The first stores opened in Atlanta in 1979, and under Marcus’s leadership as the first CEO (until 1997) and chairman (until his retirement in 2002), the company grew into a retail giant with over 2,300 stores and a market valuation nearing $400 billion by 2024.

His wealth, derived largely from Home Depot stock, was estimated at $11 billion by Forbes at the time of his death in November 2024.

A vocal Republican, Marcus donated millions to conservative candidates, including Donald Trump ($7 million in 2016 and 2020), John McCain, and Ron DeSantis, and was outspoken on political issues, particularly supporting free-market principles.

As a first-generation American born to Russian Jewish immigrants, Marcus maintained a strong connection to Jewish identity and Zionist causes, including those benefiting the Israeli regime.

Bernard Marcus

With his wife, Billi, he founded The Marcus Foundation in 1989, which has donated over $2.7 billion to causes including Jewish and Zionist initiatives, medical research, veterans, and free enterprise.

One of the most notable contributions was a $20 million donation in 2006 to Magen David Adom (MDA), Israeli medical service, which funded the Marcus National Blood Services Center in Ramla.

The $135 million state-of-the-art facility is designed to protect Israeli strategic blood reserves from missile, chemical and biological attacks.

Beyond MDA, The Marcus Foundation supported numerous Israeli-related organizations, including grants to aforementioned FIDF and Birthright.

Marcus also backed the Israel Democracy Institute, a think tank focused on strengthening Israeli occupation and apartheid, donating millions over the years to advance its research and programs.

His giving often aligned with Zionist priorities, such as supporting Israeli settler society, though exact figures for some contributions remain less publicized due to the foundation’s private nature.

The Marcus Foundation continues these pro-Zionist activities even after his death, under the leadership of Billi Marcus and other family members.

5. David Zalik

Fifth on the list is David Zalik, an Israeli-American entrepreneur and financier, who donated $2,000,000, the same amount as the next three donors individually.

Born in the occupied Palestinian territories, Zalik immigrated to the US with his family as a boy, where he launched his entrepreneurial career by founding MicroTech Information Systems, Phoenix, and Outweb.

He is best known as the co-founder and former CEO of GreenSky, a financial technology company which provided a platform for instant point-of-sale loans, primarily for home improvement projects, partnering with banks and merchants.

Under his leadership, GreenSky facilitated over $30 billion in loans, went public in 2018, and was acquired by Goldman Sachs in 2022 for $2.24 billion in an all-stock deal, after which Zalik joined Goldman as a partner.

In 2023, Goldman sold GreenSky for roughly $500 million, ending Zalik’s direct involvement. Zalik’s net worth has been estimated at around $2.3 billion as of 2024, reflecting his stakes in GreenSky and other investments.

Zalik has maintained a relatively low public profile regarding direct involvement with the Zionist entity since emigrating as a child, but his business ventures do appear to have direct operational ties to it.

David Zalik

Through The Zalik Foundation, co-founded with Helen in 2018, he’s donated over $100 million, focusing on education, mental health, and Jewish Zionist initiatives in the US and the Zionist entity.

While specific grants are not always itemized publicly due to the foundation’s private nature, it has funded organizations with ties to the Israeli regime.

The foundation’s emphasis on “Jewish causes” mirrors efforts by other donors, often encompassing support for programs like Birthright Israel, though Zalik’s exact beneficiaries are less publicized.

In Atlanta, where he resides, The Zalik Foundation has supported local Zionist organizations, such as the Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta, which frequently collaborates with Israeli counterparts on education and community-building projects.

A notable donation includes $5 million in 2022 to Technion-Israel Institute of Technology’s American fundraising arm to establish the Zalik Accelerator Hub on its New York campus, aimed at fostering tech entrepreneurship.

Zalik rarely gives interviews or speaks publicly about his ties to the Zionist regime.

6. Paul Singer

Two million dollars were donated to AIPAC by Paul Elliott Singer, an American billionaire hedge fund manager and activist investor, known as the founder, president, and co-CEO of Elliott Management Corporation.

He pioneered “vulture capitalism,” buying distressed sovereign bonds, such as those of Argentina and Peru, at steep discounts and pursuing full repayment through litigation, earning both massive profits and criticism.

Known for his strict approach, Singer built Elliott into one of the world’s most formidable hedge funds, managing $72 billion in assets by 2025. As of 2024, Forbes pegged his net worth at $6.1 billion, though it likely grew with Elliott’s expansion.

Through The Paul E. Singer Foundation, he’s donated roughly $300 million since 2010, with a significant portion supporting Jewish organizations and Israeli regime-related initiatives.

Singer has been a major benefactor of groups like FIDF and Birthright. He has also supported United Hatzalah, an Israeli volunteer EMS organization, and has been linked to donations for Jewish schools and welfare programs that benefit Israeli settlers.

Paul Singer

He co-founded Start-Up Nation Central to connect Israeli tech ecosystem globally, and has personally invested in Israeli tech firms, including cybersecurity company Cybereason, via Elliott Management’s private equity arm, Evergreen Coast Capital.

Singer is a staunch political supporter of the Israeli regime, channeling his influence as a top Republican donor to bolster American-Israeli ties.

With over $40 million donated to political causes since 2010, he backed figures like Marco Rubio, Mitt Romney, and, after initial opposition, Donald Trump.

He has contributed millions to pro-Israel groups like the RJC (where he sits on the board) and AIPAC-aligned efforts, backing candidates who prioritize Zionist policies.

He co-founded the Philos Project to foster Christian support for the Israeli regime.

Singer’s funding of neoconservative think tanks, such as the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), also promotes hawkish policies aligned with Israeli interests, particularly against Iran.

7. Haim Saban

Haim Saban, an Israeli-American media mogul and investor, best known for creating Saban Entertainment, also donated two million dollars to AIPAC.

After partnering with Fox, his company generated over $6 billion in merchandise sales. He later sold Fox Family Worldwide to Disney for $5.3 billion, netting him $1.6 billion personally.

Saban re-entered media, acquiring Univision for $13.7 billion with partners, selling it in 2020. His Saban Capital Group now manages investments in entertainment, real estate, and tech, with his net worth estimated at $2.8 billion by Forbes in 2024.

A major Democratic donor, Saban has given over $30 million to US political causes, backing Bill and Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden, while fiercely advocating for the Israeli regime.

Through the Saban Family Foundation, co-founded with his wife Cheryl in 1999, he’s donated over $500 million to Jewish and Zionist causes.

He’s also given millions to FIDF, including a record-breaking $16.5 million pledge in 2019, to support the Israeli military.

Haim Saban with Barack Obama

One of his flagship contributions is the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, launched in 2002 with a $13 million gift, aimed at shaping US policy toward Palestine and the region.

Saban has funded healthcare and education in the Zionist entity directly, notably donating $50 million in 2018 to the Soroka Medical Center in Be’er Sheva for a new emergency facility, one of the largest private gifts to an Israeli hospital.

His support extends to the American Friends of the Hebrew University and other institutions, bolstering Israeli academic and social infrastructure. His giving often targets the Negev region, reflecting a desire to strengthen Israeli periphery.

Saban has lobbied against policies he sees as threats, like Iran nuclear deal (which he called a “disaster” for the Israeli regime), and has funded efforts to counter the BDS movement, including through the Israel on Campus Coalition.

8. Helaine Lerner

Along with the three listed above, the positions from fifth to eighth are also shared by Helaine Lerner, an American environmental activist and the widow of Sid Lerner who died in 2021.

Her wealth, derived from Sid’s advertising success and their joint investments, remains private, but their combined giving exceeds hundreds of millions.

Helaine Lerner with husband Sid Lerner

Sid, born to Jewish immigrants, was a staunch Zionist and a significant donor to Jewish Zionist organizations, including the American Jewish Committee (AJC).

Helaine shared this Jewish identity, and like her husband and other billionaire donors, she is also prominently documented as having direct, personal involvement with Israeli-centric initiatives.

March 18, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel’s Lobby Launches Preemptive War on Thomas Massie

By James Rushmore | The Libertarian Institute | March 4, 2025

Two weeks ago, Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell announced that he would not seek re-election in 2026. McConnell’s announcement prompted Congressman Thomas Massie to share a poll asking his Twitter followers if he should run for McConnell’s open Senate seat, seek the governorship in 2027, or remain in the House.

Naturally, Massie’s followers were very enthusiastic about the former idea. But the prospect of a Senator Thomas Massie already has the Israel lobby on high alert.

Republican Jewish Coalition CEO Matt Brooks told Jewish Insider, “If Tom Massie chooses to enter the race for US Senate in Kentucky, the RJC campaign budget to ensure he is defeated will be unlimited.” Back in May 2023, Massie accused the RJC of taking “[the] neocon position that US taxpayers should fund the war in Ukraine.” The RJC responded by attacking Massie for, among other things, opposing U.S. funding for the Iron Dome and voting against a resolution condemning the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. Meanwhile, Rabbi Shlomo Litvin of the Kentucky Jewish Council accused Massie of “[going] out of his way to troll Jews,” and Melanie Maron Pell of the American Jewish Committee suggested that Massie demonstrates “outright hostility with the Jewish community.”

It should come as no surprise that the Israel lobby is doing everything in its power to torpedo any talk of a Thomas Massie Senate campaign. Massie is the only member of Congress who consistently opposes the ongoing wars in both Gaza and Ukraine. Shortly after the October 7 terrorist attack, Massie was the sole Republican congressman to vote against House Resolution 771, which “[reaffirmed] the United States’ commitment to Israel’s security,” “[urged] full enforcement of United States sanctions against Iran,” and declared that the U.S. “stands ready to assist Israel with emergency resupply and other security, diplomatic, and intelligence support.”

In November 2023, he voted against House Resolution 6126, which provided Israel with $14.5 billion in military aid. In April 2024, he opposed House Resolutions 8034 and 8035, which allocated $95 billion in foreign aid to Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, and other Indo-Pacific allies. (Donald Trump declined to oppose that package, all but assuring its passage.) In January 2025, Massie voted present on the Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act, which would impose sanctions against any person who aids the International Criminal Court in its efforts to “investigate, arrest, detail, or prosecute” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant.

Massie is keenly aware of the enormous power that the Israel lobby wields on Capitol Hill, and unlike other congressional Republicans, he is willing to publicly acknowledge the extent of its influence. During an interview with Tucker Carlson in June 2024, he noted that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee assigns handlers to every House Republican, dispatching them to influence how lawmakers vote. The previous month, the United Democracy Project, a super PAC affiliated with AIPAC, spent at least $300,000 on TV ads tying Massie to Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah. Their efforts were in vain, as Massie won his primary with three-quarters of the vote.

Whether or not Massie can win a Senate primary remains to be seen. The only Republican candidate to have formally entered the race at this point is former Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, a McConnell protégé who lost the 2023 gubernatorial election. Cameron is already trying to distance himself from McConnell; he recently criticized the former leader of the Senate Republican Conference for opposing the confirmations of Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and he even signaled his opposition to further aid to Ukraine. But in November 2023, shortly after losing his bid for governor, Cameron joined twenty-five other Republicans attorneys general in signing a letter urging Joe Biden and congressional leaders to provide “military resources, intelligence, and humanitarian assistance to Israel as she defends herself against those seeking her destruction.”

Congressman Andy Barr may also launch a bid for McConnell’s Senate seat. Barr believes that “enemies of Israel are enemies of the United States.” Just last month, he declared that he “[stands] fully with Israel in its mission to wipe every last Hamas terrorist off the face of the earth.” Given that AIPAC was the top contributor to his campaign committee in 2024, Barr’s commitment to the Israeli cause is perfectly understandable.

If he runs, Massie would be sure to receive an endorsement from Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, who has unfortunately proven incredibly disappointing on the Gaza front. In November, Paul voted against three resolutions intended to block $20 billion in weapons sales to Israel. In January, he backed the ICC sanctions bill.

But a Donald Trump endorsement will no doubt prove to be the most important variable in shaping the outcome of the race. While Massie’s decision to endorse Ron DeSantis during the 2024 Republican presidential primaries may have hurt his standing with Trump, it is worth remembering that Trump offered former critic and one-time Evan McMullin supporter J.D. Vance his endorsement during the 2022 Ohio Senate primary. And the rest is history.

In December 2023, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer accused Massie of anti-Semitism after he shared a meme correctly noting that Congress is more interested in Zionism than American patriotism. Expect more attacks like those, this time from pro-Israel Republicans, should the seven-term congressman enter the race to succeed McConnell. Despite those challenges, there is no doubt that a Thomas Massie Senate campaign has the potential to steer U.S. foreign policy in a less insane direction.

March 4, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

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.

March 2, 2025 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel and the United States: Who Rules the Roost?

By Dr. M. Reza Behnam | Palestine Chronicle | December 8, 2024 

We had several other people in the country (USA), even among the Jews,the Zionists particularly, who were against anything that has to be done if they couldn’t have the whole of Palestine and everything handed to them on a silver plate so they wouldn’t have to do anything. It couldn’t be done. We had to take it in small doses. You can’t move 5 or 6 million people out of a country and fill it up with 5 or 6 million more and expect both sets of them to be pleased….don’t think that the decision to recognize Israel was an easy one. I had to make a compromise with the Arabs and divide Palestine.”

President Harry S. Truman, 1945-1953

The Palestinian catastrophe in the United States began with the 33rd president and has continued with the 47th.

And then there was one, or two—one country, two systems. The political, economic, military and intelligence “interests” of the United States and Israel have become intertwined and often indistinguishable since President Truman decided to officially recognize Israel in 1948.

President Joe Biden has repeatedly stated, “I am a Zionist.” With that avowal, he placed the government and the American people firmly in the Israeli camp, linking the United States to apartheid, genocide and crimes against humanity.

Fifty-seven years ago, the United States chose to inextricably link its interests with an apartheid entity. And since then, for Biden and many in Washington, Israel has become a religion. Very few American politicians, especially since the 1990s, have had the mettle to challenge Israel’s dominance over US policy in the Middle East.

Israel’s leaders are well-practiced in manipulation. They have a long history of insolence toward their number one patron. Americans and US policy in the Middle East have been seen as naive and easily exploited, said Uri Dromi, who served as spokesman for the regimes of Yitzhak Rabin (1974-77; 1992-95) and Shimon Peres (1984-86).

American presidents engage in public rebukes and short-term responses to Israel’s brutal actions, but rarely, if ever are there consequences. The following encounters are just a limited edition of instances when US politicians have buckled under Israeli pressure.

The interactions, for example, between President Ronald Reagan (1981-89) and Prime Minister Menachem Begin (former Irgun terrorist) were fraught. On June 7, 1981, Israel used US warplanes to destroy Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor without informing President Reagan.

Instead Begin called Jerry Falwell, founder of the Moral Majority, to inform him of the impending attack. Begin and his Likud Party had been cultivating ties to evangelical leaders like Falwell to build the alliance between US evangelical Christians and Israel. Today there are more than 30 million Christian Zionists in the United States.

As a US “ally,” Reagan expected Israel to consult when planning measures that would impact US strategic interests in the region. The administration temporarily suspended the delivery of additional F-16 jets and supported a UN Security Council resolution denouncing the attack on an International Atomic Energy Agency-approved nuclear reactor. Despite Begin’s rejection of US proposals and refusal to apologize, the White House lifted the suspension of the F-16s deliveries in August 1981.

Reagan faced another affront a few months later in December 1981, when again, without informing the president, Begin illegally annexed the captured Syrian Golan Heights. The slight came shortly after the two countries had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on strategic cooperation, written specifically so that Israel would no longer surprise the United States.

In response to the annexation, the United States suspended the MoU and imposed limited economic sanctions on Israel. Begin then accused the United States of anti-Semitism and “pointed out” that the United States had a strong Jewish community and millions of Christians supportive of Israel. The underlying message of electoral consequences was not lost on Reagan. Like measures taken after the Osirak attack, the penalties imposed on Israel were merely temporary window dressings.

George H.W. Bush, who succeeded Reagan in 1989, experienced his measure of clashes with then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir (former Zionist leader of the right-wing Stern Gang) and Benjamin Netanyahu, who was deputy foreign minister at the time.

The Bush administration was the last to “seriously” negotiate peace. Pro-Israel lobbies, both Jewish and Christian, in the United States did their best to sabotage the 1991 comprehensive peace conference in Madrid.

Bush’s secretary of state, James A. Baker, came under fire for negotiating directly and officially with Palestinians. He was also criticized for leveraging US aid to stop Israel’s expanding colonization of the occupied West Bank and for calling on Israel to lay aside its expansionist policies and unrealistic vision of a Greater Israel.

Frustrated by Israeli intransigence, Baker reportedly referred to Tel Aviv’s stalwart supporters in the US Congress as “the little Knesset.”

The Madrid Conference failed to produce results. Although Palestinians were essentially asked to negotiate with their Israeli occupiers, little was asked of Israel. To get Shamir to attend, the United States accepted Israel’s conditions that the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) be excluded, that the Palestinian delegation be subject to Israeli approval, and that Palestinian independence and statehood not be addressed.

The famous confrontation in 1991 over US loan guarantees to Israel was yet another example of its insouciance about bypassing the executive to achieve its aims.

Shortly after America’s war against Iraq in 1991, Israel sought an additional $10 billion in loan guarantees from Washington to help populate Palestinian land with Jewish emigres from the former Soviet Union. The White House wanted assurances that the money would not go toward the building of additional “settlements,” and threatened to withhold funds until it received guarantees.

Recalling the event years later, Baker explained that the clash between the two governments resulted because Prime Minister Shamir had threatened that if the administration did not provide the funds, he would bypass the executive and take his case directly to Congress. Baker said he responded, “you’re damn well not going to do that. You can’t go around the President of the United States.”

The Jewish right to this day views Baker as toxic. The Jewish Press, a religiously conservative pro-Israel newspaper, described him as one of the most “reviled” public figures in Israel and among American Jews.

Although the administration eventually yielded on the loan issue, President Bush remained convinced he lost re-election in 1992 because of the pro-Israel lobby campaign against him.

The willingness to enter into political struggles with Israel’s leaders and their Washington supporters and to seriously ask something of Israel essentially came to an end with the election of President Bill Clinton (1993-2001).

The Madrid Conference paved the way for the Oslo Accords (1993 and 1995) negotiated during the Clinton presidency. For the Palestinians, it was a sham. For Israel, it consolidated domination over Palestinians and their land.

Israel can be more thoroughly understood by observing the conduct of incumbent prime minister and international fugitive, Benjamin Netanyahu. It has been his mission since the early 1990s to expand illegal colonies in occupied Palestine, prevent the creation of a Palestinian state and crush Palestinian resistance.

Netanyahu thinks of the United States as gullible. A former Israeli minister who worked with him remarked that in cabinet discussions whenever someone raises the question of how America would act, Netanyahu says “Leave the Americans to me.”

To show America who’s the boss, Netanyahu has embarrassed presidents Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden.

One of Netanyahu’s first acts as prime minister in 1996 was to sabotage the Oslo Accords, antagonizing President Clinton who had helped negotiate the agreement. After his first meeting with Netanyahu, Clinton let loose, saying “Who the f**k does he think he is? Who’s the f***ing superpower here?”

By the time Netanyahu’s first term ended in 1999, the Oslo agreements had collapsed and Zionist colonies were firmly entrenched.

Netanyahu’s contemptuous approach toward the United States was in full view in a secretly recorded video of a conversation he had with colonists in their house in the occupied West Bank in 2001. In it, he bragged that he had deceived Clinton into believing that he was implementing the agreement, that he knew how to manipulate Americans, and that he had essentially put an end to the Oslo Accords.

The video was taped during the second intifada (Palestinian uprising) when the Israeli military was crushing the resistance. Netanyahu talked about hitting Palestinians “hard” many times so that “the price will be unbearable.”

A skeptical colonist asked him if he worried about what the United States and the world would think and say of Israel “hitting Palestinians hard.” Netanyahu responded:

“The world will say nothing… that we are defending ourselves…  I know what America is. America is a thing that can be easily moved… moved in the right direction. The Americans will not bother us. Let’s suppose that they will say something… So they say it. Eighty percent of Americans support us. It’s absurd. We have such support there!”

Netanyahu’s belligerence intensified during the presidency of Barack Obama. His flippancy toward Obama was unabashed during a tense public meeting in the Oval Office in May 2011.

The meeting took place a day after Obama had attempted to revive the stalled peace process, where he stated that the borders between Israel and Palestine should be based on 1967 lines, with some adjustments for existing Zionist colonies.

Netanyahu bluntly responded, “It’s not going to happen,” Israel would never return to 1967 borders, warning Obama not to chase “illusions” of peace. He then brazenly lectured the president on the history of the region. After the meeting, Obama’s national security adviser, Ben Rhodes, said: “I have never seen a foreign leader speak to the president like that, and certainly not in public… ”

Netanyahu used the Oval Office exchange during his 2019 campaign by releasing a campaign video in which he boasted of how he stood up to Obama and stared him down.

An additional insult came on 3 March 2015. On that date, Netanyahu addressed a joint session of the US Congress (for the third time), excoriating the Obama administration’s signature foreign policy initiative—the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) or Iran nuclear deal. He had come to Washington at the invitation of then-Republican House Speaker John Boehner. The White House was not informed of the arrangements.

Although the relationship between the two leaders was fraught, Obama was one of the most pro-Israel presidents, giving it more money and arms than any of his predecessors. Before leaving office, Obama approved one of the largest military aid packages yet: $38 billion for the next ten years.

Netanyahu repaid President Obama’s favors with a number of slights. During his campaign for re-election in 2012, for example, he endorsed the president’s opponent, Republican Mitt Romney. In addition, Netanyahu also embarked on a very public and intense campaign to sabotage the Iran nuclear agreement. That was finally accomplished in May 2018, when President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the JCPOA.

With the election of Biden in 2021, the pro-Zionist/pro-Israel sentiment of the US regime has become more pronounced.

In service to Israel, the Biden administration has spent more than $22 billion on military aid and made more than 100 military aid transfers and weapons sales to Israel from October 7, 2023, to September 30, 2024. Another $680 million arms sales deal was recently approved. And for the fourth time (November 20, 2024), the administration vetoed UN Security Council resolutions calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

Our history reveals that some American politicians in the past exhibited the ethical and moral courage necessary to speak and write on the pitfalls of following Israel uncritically. There have not been many. Among the few, Arkansas Senator J. William Fulbright stands out. In his 1989 book, The Price of Empire, he wrote:

“The (Israel) lobby can just about tell the president what to do when it comes to Israel. Its influence in Congress is pervasive and, I think, profoundly harmful to us and ultimately to Israel itself… So completely have many of our principal officeholders fallen under Israeli influence that they not only deny today the legitimacy of Palestinian national aspirations, but debate who more passionately opposes a Palestinian state…,” adding,

“AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) and its allied organizations have effective working control of the electoral process. They can elect or defeat nearly any congressman or senator that they wish, with their money and coordinated organizations. They are the really important power to negotiate within the Middle East if you want an agreement.”

Senator Fulbright served for 30 years, 15 of those as Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.

Another critic of Israeli arrogance was Admiral Thomas Moorer. He was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1970 to 1974. Republican Congressman Paul Findley of Illinois recalled Moorer’s comments on page 161 in his book, They Dare to Speak Out:

“I’ve never seen a president… stand up to them (the Israelis)… They always get what they want. The Israelis know what’s going on all the time… If the American people understood what grip those people have on our government, they would rise up in arms. Our citizens don’t have any idea what goes on.”

The political climate in Washington has gone from bad to worse since Findley served in Congress from 1961 to 1983. His recollections on page 84 of his book are noteworthy:

“Today, on Middle East issues at least, independence and courage are almost unknown… Since the establishment of modern Israel in 1948, only a handful of senators have said or done anything in opposition to the policies of the government of Israel. Those who break ranks find themselves in difficulty.”

George Ball, US Under Secretary of State (1961-1966), also spoke frankly when he discussed Israel and its relationship with US politics and American politicians. In a 1988 CBS “60 Minutes” report on AIPAC influence on US politics, he remarked: “Practically every congressman and senator says his prayers to the AIPAC lobby.”

Amnesty International, in December 2024, released its well-documented 293-page report, “You Feel like You Are Subhuman: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza.” In a warning to all, it stated: “Our damning findings must serve as a wake-up call to the international community: “This is genocide. It must stop now.”

The State Department’s response to the report: “What I can say as a spokesperson for the US government and as a spokesperson of this administration is that the findings of the accusations of genocide, we continue to believe those to be unfounded.” The non-response bears witness to America’s complicity in genocide and the continuous catastrophe for Palestinians.

Caveat lector: As long as Israel and its lobbies have ownership over America’s Middle East policy, Palestinians will experience more of the same indifference and injustice, the region will be thrown into more chaos, the American public will continue to be red-pilled and international law will become worthless.

Dr. M. Reza Behnam is a political scientist specializing in the history, politics and governments of the Middle East.

December 31, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

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.

December 13, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Wars for Israel | , , | Leave a comment

Trump’s foreign policy team signals further drift from ‘America First’ to ‘Israel First’

MEMO | November 12, 2024

Illusions harboured by supporters of Donald Trump that his “America First” agenda would prioritise US interests over foreign entanglements have been shattered, as key appointments reveal an “Israel First” policy taking shape. The selection of several key officials, including Michael Waltz as National Security Advisor, whose top campaign donor is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), represents a stark departure from Trump’s previous promises to avoid military interventions in the Middle East.

Trump’s announcement over the weekend that pro-Israel hawks who served under his first cabinet like Mike Pompeo and Nikki Haley would not be reinvited to his cabinet, was greeted with optimism.

“The ‘stop Pompeo’ movement is great but it’s not enough. Right now we need maximum pressure to keep all neocons and war hawks out of the Trump administration” said well-known Trump supporter, Dave Smith on X. “They have had their time at the table and brought nothing but disaster to the world and this country.”

Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr, endorsed Smith’s comment adding, “Agreed💯💯💯!!! I’m on it”

https://twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/1855593982958379321

The appointment of Waltz, a combat-decorated former Green Beret and Florida congressman, has shattered the illusion of an “America First” agenda, signalling a victory for the hawkish neoconservative wing of the Republican Party. A wing that Trump strongly criticised during the campaign trail for starting wars in the Middle East.

Waltz has been an outspoken advocate for aggressive military action in the Middle East, recently criticising the Biden administration’s approach to Gaza and Lebanon. He urged Biden to “let Israel finish the job”, even though the Occupation state is under investigation for genocide.

The shift towards a more aggressive foreign policy is further evidenced by Trump’s selection of Rep Elise Stefanik as his choice for UN Ambassador. Stefanik, also heavily backed by AIPAC, has championed numerous pro-Israel initiatives in Congress, including controversial legislation aimed at curtailing boycotts of Israel. Her bill sought to prevent American citizens and companies from providing information to foreign entities that could support boycotts of Israel.

Adding to this hawkish lineup, Trump is expected to name Senator Marco Rubio of Florida as Secretary of State. Rubio, another significant recipient of AIPAC funding, has consistently pushed for more aggressive US involvement in Middle East affairs.

Waltz’s foreign policy vision, recently outlined in The Economist, advocates for a muscular approach to Middle East policy. He has called for putting “a credible military option on the table” regarding Iran and maintaining significant US military presence in the region, positions that stand in stark contrast to Trump’s previous campaign promises of military disengagement from the Middle East.

The appointments represent a dramatic shift from Trump’s campaign rhetoric, which promised to end “endless wars” and prioritise domestic interests. Instead, his selection of multiple pro-Israel hardliners to key foreign policy positions suggests an administration likely to pursue an aggressive interventionist agenda in the Middle East.

These appointments, along with several other notable Zionist figures selected for cabinet positions, are seen as further indication that Trump’s second term foreign policy team will prioritise strong alignment with Israel’s interests over his “America First” doctrine.

November 12, 2024 Posted by | Corruption, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

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.

August 8, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite, Russophobia | , , , , , | Leave a comment

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