| Author | Message | | Alpha | | Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2005 8:52 am Post subject: FW:Ask your media why they are silent on the AIPAC espionage |
| Forwarded:
Subject: FW: Ask your media why they are silent on the AIPAC espionage
We appeal to activists everywhere to hold the media in this country
accountable for not reporting what everyone else in the world is
reporting. It's a shame that the following story is headline news in
all of the Israeli media outlets and that not a single American
newspaper finds this news item worthy enough to print. Call the media
in your neighborhood both local and national and ask them why they
have chosen to sweep this story under the rug. It should be headline
news for all Americans that our Congressmen, Senators and Bush cabinet
members were at AIPAC's latest convention to show support for the
strong lobby group which focuses exclusively on Israeli concerns. As
the meeting was taking place, the government was planning to indict
two prominent AIPAC members on charges of espionage. It is of note
that AIPAC is paying to defend these two and denies any wrong doing.
Is this not a story worthy of reporting?
Call the media, ask them why they have not covered this story:
ABC News - 212-456-4040
AP 212-621-1600
CBS News - 212-975-3691
CNN - 404-827-1511
Fox News - 212-301-3300
MSNBC - 201-583-5222
NBC News - 212-664-4971
NPR - 202-414-2200
NY Times - 212-556-1234
PBS - 703-998-2150
USA Today - 703-276-3400
U.S. News - 202-955-2000
WS Journal - 212-416-2000
Wash. Post - 202-334-6000
Time - 212-522-1212
Contact your media via email, for mass email address that you can cut
and paste go here:
http://www.rumormillnews.com/MEDIA_EMAIL_ADDRESSES.htm
Complete media blackout in the U.S.
U.S. to indict two senior AIPAC officials under Espionage Act
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/581788.html
By Nathan Guttman, Haaretz Correspondent
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Justice Department is expected to file
indictments against two former senior staffers at the American Israel
Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) - Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman -
and, according to sources familiar with the affair, the charges will
be subsumed under the Espionage Act.
A Virginia grand jury is now examining the evidence in the case, which
involved receipt of classified defense information from Larry
Franklin, a Pentagon official, and its transfer to the representative
of a foreign country, Naor Gilon, of the Israeli embassy in
Washington.
Sources involved in the case confirmed that the Espionage Act is on
the agenda. But there is also the possibility that the Justice
Department is raising the intention to use that law with the purpose
of reaching a plea bargain concerning a lesser offense, albeit one
that is still covered by anti-espionage legislation in the U.S.
Presumably, if indeed such an indictment is filed against two former
top-level AIPAC staff members, then Gilon's name will come up, even
though he is not a suspect. Israeli officials say he was never
questioned in the affair. Gilon heads the political department at the
embassy.
According to the sources, the grand jury will submit indictments in
the coming weeks against Rosen, the former head of foreign policy for
the lobbying organization, and against Weissman, who was responsible
for the Iranian brief in AIPAC. The grand jury is expected to hand
down its indictment against Franklin this week. He is suspected of
handing over the classified information. That indictment is expected
to be similar to the criminal complaint already filed by the FBI.
The classified material is said to involve information about Iranian
intentions to harm American soldiers in Iraq, and it was supposedly
given to the two former AIPAC staffers during lunch in Virginia on
June 26, 2003.
But suspicions against Rosen and Weissman focus on a meeting a year
later, on July 12, 2004. Franklin was cooperating by then with the
FBI, which had threatened him with an indictment after tracking his
earlier meetings with the AIPAC men, discovering the alleged hand-over
of secret information. He agreed to take part in a sting operation in
which he would give the two information and the investigators would
then follow them.
Franklin called Weissman and asked for a meeting to discuss an
important subject. At the meeting, in a mall near the Pentagon,
Franklin told Weissman that Iranian agents were trying to capture
Israeli civilians working in the Kurdish area in northern Iraq. Around
the same time there had been conflicting reports in Washington about
an Israeli presence in Kurdish Iraq. Journalist Seymour Hersh of The
New Yorker had written that Israelis were operating there, but Israel
- and the Americans -denied it.
At the meeting, Franklin told Weissman that the information was
classified. This is significant in terms of the investigation, since
it prevents the AIPAC men from claiming in their defense that they did
not know they were dealing with state secrets.
Weissman left the meeting and went straight to Rosen's AIPAC office at
Capitol Hill. He said it was a matter of life or death, and that
Israeli lives were in immediate danger. The two made three phone
calls: to an administration official, to Glenn Kessler of The
Washington Post, and to Gilon, at the embassy. Rosen told Gilon about
the information and the Israeli official promised he would look into
it. All of those calls were wiretapped by the FBI and are part of the
case against Rosen and Weissman.
Plato Cacheris, Franklin's lawyer, confirmed to The New York Sun this
weekend that his client indeed took part in the sting operation and
said that the investigators appealed to Franklin's sense of patriotism
to win him over.
The fact that Rosen and Weissman, as American citizens, handed
information to an official representative of a foreign power while
knowing it was classified is incriminating under the 1917 Espionage
Act, which defines as a crime receipt of classified information for
the purpose of helping any foreign entity.
The estimated 500 cases involving prosecution of this crime over the
last 90 years have always focused on the accused party initiating
receipt of the information and on the damage done to the U.S. as a
result. In this case, Franklin initiated the transferal of information
- and there is no clear-cut evidence regarding the damage done to the
U.S.
Rosen, who was under FBI surveillance for at least four years, is now
planning his defense with the help of high-profile attorney Abby
Lowell. He does not want a plea bargain and prefers to fight it out in
court, so he can prove his innocence and go back to work for the
lobby.
A decisive factor regarding the future of the case will be the extent
of the cooperation between Franklin and the investigators. If Franklin
depicts his relationship with Weissman and Rosen as close, and one in
which he was asked to provide information, it will help the
prosecution. Rosen and Weissman claim that the connection with him was
minimal and mostly involved trading professional assessments.
(Franklin met with Rosen three times, and more often with Weissman.)
But Franklin is not believed right now to be cooperating fully and he
faces two charges: one for handing over the information in 2003, and
the other for the illegal possession of 83 classified documents at his
home in West Virginia. The maximum punishment for each of the charges
is 10 years in prison. If he cooperates with the investigation, the
punishment could be significantly reduced.
AIPAC will presumably be discussed in the actual trials. But right
now, at least, it does not appear the organization itself will be
charged. AIPAC leaders have taken a series of steps to cut themselves
off from the two former officials suspected in the case. Sources close
to the case say the prosecution posed four conditions to AIPAC, which
would guarantee that it would not be involved in the indictments: a
change of working methods to ensure that such incidents don't happen
again; the firing of the two officials and public disassociation from
them; no offers of high severance or anything else to make it appear
the two quit of their own volition; and no financing of their legal
defense.
AIPAC has abided by the first three conditions - and the severance pay
offered the two was considered very low, considering the many years
they worked for the lobby. But it is said to be helping with their
legal fees, indirectly, through its own law firm.
AIPAC's decision to cooperate with the investigators' demands and to
fire the two officials was made after it became evident that the FBI
had tape-recordings showing that Franklin explicitly said that the
material was secret. AIPAC's assessment was that it would be difficult
for the organization to continue working on Capitol Hill, and with the
administration, while two of its senior officials are facing such
charges.
Although the inquiry is not focused on AIPAC, it is possible the
organization will be dragged into the affair when the trial begins. If
the two fired staffers are put in the dock, they will try to prove
that they only did what was routine and conventional work for their
organization.
Act now by contacting your local media and asking them why they are
not reporting this story.
Last edited by Alpha on Wed Jun 01, 2005 9:41 am; edited 3 times in total | |  | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2005 9:12 am Post subject: Jeffrey Blankfort v. Prof. Stephen Zunes on pro-Israel lobby |
| Jeffrey Blankfort v. Prof. Stephen Zunes on pro-Israel lobby
Subject: Blankfort-Zunes Debate to Air June 1 and June 8
On the next two Wednesdays, tomorrow June 1 and June 8, Voices of the Middle East on KPFA, in Berkeley will air, in two half-hour segments, a debate recorded last week that I had with Prof. Stephen Zunes regarding the role of the pro-Israel lobby in US politics and related issues. It will be broadcast at 7 PM Pacific Time and can be heard on-line at www.kpfa.org.
It will then be archived at http://www.kpfa.org/archives/archives.php?id=25
Jeff Blankfort | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2005 10:21 pm Post subject: Protest the Role of AIPAC in US Policy toward Palestine/Isra |
| Protest the Role of AIPAC in US Policy toward Palestine/Israel
"Washington Wednesday" Action Alert
Date: June 1, 2005
BACKGROUND
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) held its annual policy conference in Washington, DC on May 22-24. AIPAC is an organization that lobbies on behalf of Israel for US military and economic aid to support Israel's illegal occupation of the Palestinian West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem. AIPAC's one-sided agenda is partly responsible for the highly unbalanced US policy toward Palestine/Israel.
A mid-level Defense Department analyst, Larry Franklin, was arrested recently for allegedly passing US intelligence to two AIPAC officials who were subsequently fired and are also under investigation. It is believed that this information was then passed to Israel. They will shortly be charged with espionage, according to a recent article in Haaretz. Despite the gravity of the charge, Members of Congress and the Bush Administration continued to laud AIPAC and the US-Israel relationship at its annual conference. Among the speakers at the conference were Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY), Bill Frist (R-TN), and Harry Reid (D-NV), Representatives Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Dennis Hastert (R-IL), and Jane Harman (D-CA).
TAKE ACTION
1) Contact your Members of Congress and ask them to have AIPAC register as an agent of a foreign government.
Contact information for your Members of Congress can be found at www.congress.org but for specific addresses of Congressional members who spoke at the conference, see below.
AIPAC describes itself as "America's Pro-Israel Lobby" and closely coordinates policy with the Israeli Embassy in Washington, DC and the Israeli government, making it an agent of a foreign government. AIPAC should not be allowed to keep its 501(c)(3) tax-deductible charitable status, but should be required to register as a lobbyist for a foreign agent.
2) Contact the seven Members of Congress and the Bush Administration who participated in the AIPAC conference and made remarks supporting or ignoring Israel's illegal military occupation:
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (CA-8), Democratic Minority Leader of the House, denied that Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory is the primary reason for the continuation of the conflict. According to Pelosi, "There are those who contend that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is all about Israel?s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. This is absolute nonsense. In truth, the history of the conflict is not over occupation, and never has been: it is over the fundamental right of Israel to exist." Source: http://democraticleader.house.gov/press/releases.cfm?pressReleaseID=999
Contact info for Rep. Pelosi: Phone: (202) 225-4965, Fax: (202) 225-8259, Email: sf.nancy@mail.house.gov
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice apparently believes that military occupations promote "real democracies" in the Middle East. Rice thought it "incredible" that some in the Arab media "have even asked why the only real democracies in the Middle East are found in the 'occupied lands' of Iraq and the Palestinian territories." Source: http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2005/46625.htm
Contact info for Sec. Rice:
Phone: 202-647-5291
Email: http://contact-us.state.gov/ask_form_cat/ask_form_secretary.html
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) ignored Israel's denial of human rights, freedom, and self-determination to the Palestinian people and insisted that what unites Israel and the United States is the promotion of these values. According to Sen. Clinton,
"I want to start by focusing on our deep and lasting bond between the United States and Israel. Now, these are bonds that are more than shared interests. These are bonds forged in a common struggle for human rights, for democracy, for freedom; they are rooted in fundamental beliefs and values about the dignity and rights of men and women to live in freedom, free from fear, free from oppression." Source: http://clinton.senate.gov/~clinton/speeches/2005524910.html
Contact info for Sen. Clinton:
Phone (202) 224-4451
Fax: (202) 228-0282
Email: http://www.clinton.senate.gov/email_form.html
Sen. Bill Frist
Phone: (202) 224-3344
Fax: (202) 228-1264
E-mail form: http://frist.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=AboutSenatorFrist.ContactForm
Rep. Jane Harman
Phone: (202) 225-8220
Fax: (202) 226-7290
E-mail form: http://www.house.gov/harman/emailJane.html
Rep. Dennis Hastert
Phone: (202) 225-2976
Fax: (202) 225-0697
E-Mail form: http://www.house.gov/hastert/write1.shtml
Sen. Harry Reid
Phone: (202) 224-3542
Fax: (202) 224-7327
E-mail form: http://www.reid.senate.gov/email_form.cfm
ABOUT "WASHINGTON WEDNESDAY": The Council for the National Interest collaborates on an action alert the first Wednesday of each month on a topic related to US policy toward Israel and Palestine in association with the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation and its coalition of 200 member organizations, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, Partners for Peace, and the Fellowship of Reconciliation.
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