| Author | Message | | Alpha | |  | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2005 8:29 pm Post subject: Pro-Israel (AIPAC) Lobby in USA Fires Staff |
| Pro-Israel (AIPAC) Lobby in USA Fires Staff
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4468585.stm
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http://www.jta.org/page_view_story.asp?intarticleid=15314&intcategoryid=3
AIPAC: Staffers fired because of revelations from FBI probe
By Ron Kampeas and Matthew E. Berger
WASHINGTON April 20 (JTA) -
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee has fired two top employees because of revelations arising from an FBI investigation into their alleged mishandling of classified information, JTA has learned.
After months of standing behind Steve Rosen, AIPACīs policy director, and Keith Weissman, the groups senior Iran analyst, AIPACs recent shift suggests that the pro-Israel lobbying powerhouse wants to distance itself from the men before its May 22 policy conference and Israelīs historic pullout from the Gaza Strip this summer.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice are scheduled to address the conference.
Hours after JTA reported a claim from lawyers for Rosen and Weissman that the staffers had "not violated any U.S. law or AIPAC policy," a source close to AIPAC said: "The statement made by Rosen and Weissman represents solely their view of the facts."
"The action that AIPAC has taken was done in consultation with counsel after careful consideration of recently learned information and the conduct AIPAC expects of its employees."
The source would not detail the new information.
JTA reached Rosen, but he would not immediately respond to the sources claim.
The departure of Rosen, who has shaped AIPAC policy for more than 20 years, would be a significant blow for the pro-Israel lobby.
Two sources close to Rosen and Weissman said the staffers have been negotiating severance packages at least since last week. They have been on paid leave since January.
The statements suggest AIPAC has lost the initial confidence it showed in the two men after the FBI raided AIPAC offices in August 2004 and then again in December. The searches came after the alleged leaking of classified documents by a Pentagon Iran specialist.
Since then, senior AIPAC staffers have testified before a federal grand jury convened by the office of Paul McNulty, the U.S. attorney for northern Virginia.
Pressed by JTA, lawyers for Rosen and Weissman issued the following statement Wednesday: "Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman have not violated any U.S. law or AIPAC policy. Contrary to press accounts, they have never solicited, received or passed on any classified documents. They carried out their job responsibilities solely to serve AIPACīs goal of strengthening the U.S.-Israel relationship."
It was the first on-the-record statement to come from the pairīs lawyers, Abbe Lowell and John Nassikas; in the past, all such statements have come from AIPAC and its lawyers. It also was the first statement to suggest that Weissman and Rosen had been accused of violating AIPAC policy.
Nothing in the statements from either side suggested that action by McNulty was imminent.
Weissman was not available immediately for comment. Rosen was reached but had no comment.
Patrick Dorton, a spokesman for AIPAC, would only repeat the "no comment" AIPAC has made since several staffers went before a grand jury in January: "AIPAC does not comment on personnel matters."
Weissman has worked at AIPAC for 12 years, but Rosen, 62, has been with the organization since 1982, when he was hired from the Rand Corporation, a think tank that often consults with the Pentagon.
He was hired after AIPACīs lobbying efforts failed to stop the U.S. from selling spy planes to Saudi Arabia; the opposition to the sale that AIPAC amassed on Capitol Hill dissipated once President Reagan launched his own lobbying effort in its favor.
The lesson, Rosen suggested time and again, was that the organization had to lobby the executive branch as well. That made some traditionalists nervous. Lobbying Congress was a time-honored practice in Washington, but lobbying other branches of government seemed unseemly.
Yet Rosenīs model soon was replicated throughout Washington, and now itīs routine for lobbyists of all stripes to target both the legislative and executive branches.
But it was Rosenīs relationship with a nonlegislative branch of government that precipitated the current crisis.
Sources say the FBI moved against AIPAC after FBI agents observed Larry Franklin, a midlevel Iran analyst at the Pentagon, exchanging information with Rosen and Weissman at a restaurant in Arlington, Va., in 2003. Itīs not clear whether the FBI observers at the time were targeting Franklin or the AIPAC staffers.
However, several reports subsequently said that the FBI threatened Franklin with prosecution unless he mounted a sting against the two AIPAC staffers, giving them false information about an imminent threat to Israeli agents in Kurdistan.
Once Rosen and Weissman relayed that information to Israel, according to those accounts, the FBI moved in, confiscating files from their offices in August and December. Franklin reportedly since has returned to work for the Pentagon, albeit in a nonsensitive post.
In December, several AIPAC officials received subpoenas: Howard Kohr, AIPACīs executive director; Richard Fishman, its managing director; Renee Rothstein, the communications director; and Raphael Danziger, the research director.
At first, AIPAC stood steadfastly behind Rosen and Weissman, saying that "neither AIPAC nor any member of our staff has broken any law, nor has AIPAC or its employees ever received information they believed was secret or classified."
By February, when at least a few of the subpoenaed officials had given grand jury testimony, AIPAC had moved to terse "no comments."
Rosen arrived at AIPAC before many of his superiors. He was the consummate insider; in 1991 The Washington Post quoted AIPACīs then-executive director, Tom Dine, as describing Rosen "as the best bureaucratic infighter I ever met."
Rosen was a fierce, demanding boss, but one who earned steadfast loyalty from some staffers, even long after they left the organization.
"I still canīt believe it," said one former staffer who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Understanding the kind of loyalty and respect people inside and outside the organization had for Steve, I canīt believe it wouldnīt be a mutually agreed-upon decision."
At AIPACīs staff briefings each Friday, no one commanded more attention than Rosen, who would confidently prognosticate developments in the Middle East, down to the minutest of details - and who often was proved right within weeks.
Sometimes that confidence grated. Yitzhak Rabin especially disliked Rosen, according to some who knew them both, which helped precipitate Rabinīs stunning public break with AIPAC in 1993, when the Israeli prime minister said he preferred that Israel handle relations with the United States on its own.
Especially confounding to Israeli leaders was Rosenīs persistence in proposing a formal U.S.-Israel defense pact. Israeli officials were raised on an ethos of Jewish independence; such a pact, even with Israelīs best friend, struck them as too close to the traditional Diaspora Jewish relationship with power.
Rabin eventually reconciled with AIPAC by proposing that it take a central role in raising awareness of what he believed to be Israelīs most dangerous foe, the Iranian theocracy. Rosen dove into the task with fervor, and his mark is left in the no-nonsense sanctions policy the United States now has toward Iranīs efforts to make a nuclear bomb.
That remains a central AIPAC plank. The Iranian threat is to star at AIPACīs policy forum in May, including a "walking tour" exhibit on how close Iran is to creating the bomb. | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2005 7:10 pm Post subject: Subject: AIPAC institutes its own `disengagement plan' |
| Subject: AIPAC institutes its own `disengagement plan'
Hebrew translations by Shraga Elam
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/568195.html
w w w . h a a r e t z . c o m
Last update - 01:48 22/04/2005
Analysis / AIPAC institutes its own `disengagement plan'
By Nathan Guttman
WASHINGTON - In exactly a month's time, the annual AIPAC Policy Conference will take place in the American capital. The keynote speakers will be U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
AIPAC officials would like to see the event as an unreserved show of support for the lobby and an indication that the crisis over the organization is now over. To this end, AIPAC had to institute its own kind of "disengagement plan" this week. AIPAC realized that it was too heavy a burden to keep policy director Steve Rosen and Iran expert Keith Weissman on its staff. By the time Rice steps onto the podium, they hope, AIPAC will have distanced itself from the affair.
The two senior officials directly concerned with the Franklin affair - Rosen and Weissman - will have to pay the price by facing legal charges, possibly even indictments, analysts in Washington said yesterday, while the organization will emerge almost unscathed. But the price will be a heavy one. Rosen is not merely another AIPAC official; in the eyes of many, he is AIPAC itself. He joined the lobby after the struggle over the sale of AWACS surveillance equipment to Saudi Arabia, a struggle that AIPAC lost but that put it on the map [as a powerful factor Hebrew original version] at Capitol Hill.
Rosen pushed not only for lobbying with Congressmen but also directly with the executive branch. His executive lobbying proved a success [and became a central component of AIPACs work Hebrew original] and Rosen was seen coming and going at the White House, State Department and Pentagon, advocating Israel's case [mainly in the fields of foreign aid, arms sales and legislation Hebrew version ].
While very little is being said by the sides, it is clear that Rosen and AIPAC are not parting as friends. The fact that the announcement about Rosen and Weissman was portrayed differently by each side indicates that they are not leaving of their own free will. One surmise is that AIPAC insisted on presenting their departure as a dismissal in order to convey the message that it takes resolute action against officials who do not abide by regulations and that the lobby itself is not a problematic body.
The AIPAC-Franklin affair has now reached a decisive point. As an organization, AIPAC hopes it has cut out the cancer and can now recover and rebuild its connections that were prejudiced. For the two senior officials, the legal process is just beginning. For the federal prosecutor, Attorney Paul McNulty, the time is approaching when the veil of secrecy over the affair must be lifted and its full scope made public.
Was this a case of an Israeli mole in the Pentagon, a lobby that overstepped its authority, or a one-time act in which the lobby's officials transferred forbidden information to Israeli representatives? | | | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
