Steve Rosen, Accused Aipac Spy, Joins Jewish Anti-Obama Media

This is for all of you out there who sincerely believe that Aipac is a non-partisan, fair-minded, centrist group.  You’ll recall the story of Steve Rosen (at the time Aipac’s chief political operative) and Keith Weissman, allegedly caught red-handed by the FBI accepting secret U.S. government documents from Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin.  The pre-trial motions have dragged on for a few years.

The indicted Rosen is basically unemployable by any of the pro-Israel political groups, think tanks, PACs or politicians that might hire him.   Apparently tired of stewing in his own juices, he’s affiliated with several far-right Jewish media enterprises.  He’s begun, Obama Mideast Monitor, whose home is at Daniel Pipes’ Middle East Forum.  The blog promises to probe Obama’s Israel policy and foreign policy appointments with a fine tooth comb looking for ‘anti-Israel’ tendencies.  He’s also become a contributor to American Thinker,** home of some of the farthest right anti-Obama smearmongering during the last campaign.  All that remains is for Rosen to publish in American Thinker’s sister publication (ideologically), Frontpagemagazine.  That’ll come I guess.  Rosen has made his hard-right political bed and now he’s happy to lie in it.

But Steve is attempting to take the high road and gamely denying any partisan intent:

“One should not assume that the purpose of this blog is to draw a negative picture of a future Obama administration’s views toward the Middle East,” Rosen told the Forward, adding that he does not necessarily agree with all the views of the Middle East Forum, which is hosting his blog.

I’d like to ask him which specific militantly pro-Israel, anti-Obama, and anti-Arab views of Daniel Pipes does the former “not necessarily agree with?”  Or was Rosen so desperate to “get back in the game” that he took the only offer he could get, from the likes of Pipes.

While I’m not an attorney, I find it astonishing that someone indicted for allegedly passing state secrets to Israel would hitch their wagon to such militantly pro-Israel enterprises.  Doesn’t he thereby reinforce the notion that his original commitment in accepting the documents was to aid Israel’s intelligence capabilities?  And doesn’t that in turn help the government prosecution in making its case against him?  Besides, isn’t throwing in your lot with two harshly anti-Obama Jewish sites basically sticking your finger in the eye of the new president and daring him to redouble the government’s efforts to win a conviction?

I also find it rather astonishing that he’s writing specifically about Bush Administration policy toward Iran, precisely the subject that brought him to the FBI’s attention in the first place.  His motivation, from what I can tell, appears at least partially to embarrass Bush, who he must blame for his legal troubles.  Additionally, his goal seems to be to point out the perfidy and evil represented by the Iranian regime.  It may raise his polemical hackles should an Obama Administration go all soft inside and stoop to negotiating with the Ayatollahs.  All this has me scratching my head saying: “Huh?”  Does this guy know what he’s doing?

Rosen has high-priced and high-profile Washington legal representation in Abbe Lowell.  So I find it hard to believe that his attorney would tell him to plow ahead with these projects.  But I guess I’m wrong.  What do I know?  But then again, I’m not on trial for espionage and Rosen is.

Rosen’s current affiliations also go a long way toward explaining what his views were when he worked for 23 years for the ‘non-partisan, centrist’ Aipac.  And so much for the truth of that claim.  Aipac, like Rosen, has always interpreted pro-Israel as being pro-nationalist and pro-Likud.  They were birds of a feather.

**Rachel Neuwirth, my legal nemesis, has been known to peddle her smearmeistering there too.