Publicly, Morrie Amitay, the old Aipac hand and founder of the pro-Israel right-wing Washington PAC, has had vaguely negative things to say about J Street in the Jewish press. But largely he’s been circumspect in his criticism. Just garden variety sniping around the edges. But now Amitay has circulated a secret memo (no longer secret of course) to Israel lobby organizations in which the gloves are off. Jerome Kaufman, ZOA’s national secretary has reproduced the memo (which I’m displaying here just in case Morrie gets cold feet and tells Kauffman to take it down) on his blog.
Here are some of the most outrageous and scurrilous attacks:
J Street was formed to give a political voice to the more established “blame Israel first” groups, such as – Americans for Peace Now, Brit Tzedek V’Shalom and the somewhat less critical Israel Policy Forum. To no surprise, J Street’s creation was heralded as a “much needed, important new development” by American Arab lobbyist and fanatical Israel critic, James Zogby of the Arab American Institute.
Isn’t it interesting that one of the most respected U.S. political pollsters, Jim Zogby, becomes a “fantatical Israel critic.” Actually, Zogby’s views are fairly centrist especially for an Arab-American.
Notice the lack of documentation in the following passage:
A large number of J Street PAC endorsed members of Congress have some of the poorest Israel/Middle East related voting records in the House. Accordingly, many are also among the 33 House Members in the 110th Congress Pro-Arab “Hall of Fame” as determined by the virulently anti-Israel, “Washington Report on Middle Eastern Affairs.”
“A large number” meaning which ones and how many? “Poorest record” according to whom? Again, “many” are in the Hall of Fame without specifying which ones and how many. While WRMEA is certainly on the left regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict calling it “virulently anti-Israel” speaks volumes about the partisan ideological blinders with which Amitay views this issue. It says very little that is useful or accurate about WRMEA’s views.
Amitay attacks J Street’s “bi-partisan” credentials noting it endorsed only a single Republican candidate. Actually, the Republicans are lucky J Street could find one of their own palatable enough to endorse. The problem isn’t that J Street doesn’t want to endorse Republicans. The problem is that Republican Congress members are so in the pocket of people like Amitay that there are almost none willing to take an independent view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The real stunner in this memo is the following passage revealing that J Street-endorsed candidates will automatically be viewed as treif by Amitay’s well-funded PAC:
As a matter of policy, the Washington PAC has decided not to contribute to Members of Congress and candidates who accept endorsements by J Street PAC. We hope that truly pro-Israel political contributors will do likewise.
I doubt any of J Street’s candidates were ever going to get any Washington PAC money. But the kicker is Amitay’s closing line in which he urges every other “pro-Israel” political donor to boycott these candidates. It isn’t often that the Israel lobby raises the curtain Oz-like to reveal the backroom machinations. Usually they prefer to conceal their power behind the velvet curtain and keep the fist in the velvet glove. But here, Kauffman has done us the favor of lifting the curtain just a bit to see how Jewish pro-Israel politics is played.
Despite the fact that Amitay has stridently right-wing views about Israel and U.S. politics, I don’t imagine he’d want it known that he’s in cahoots with such extremist groups as ZOA. I should think he’d prefer to be seen as more even-handed in his public persona. Or maybe he just doesn’t give a crap if anyone knows about it.
In case you were wondering how much the J Street candidates were missing, Washington PAC claims it has raised $3 million since 1981 which would work out to roughly $260,000 for every two-year election cycle (probably slightly less since that doesn’t account for organizational expenses). Not a large amount, but not inconsiderable either.
Thanks AIPAC, you have just done what you can always be counted on to do, i.e. the absolutely predictable in disregard of rapidly changing circumstances. What a great campaign slogan: “blacklisted by Aipac.” Then I would urge J Street to adopt the following simple policy: Any contributions lost as a result of AIPAC blacklisting WILL BE REPLACED by J Street plus x percent thank you gift. Guaranteed. With an Internet setup like ActBlue I don’t think this would be any problem.
I think it’s good for American democracy that AIPAC’s activities are being publicized for all the world to see. As the late Justice Brandeis famously said, “Sunshine is the best disinfectant.”
Remember the punchline from the the 1980s movie TWILIGHT ZONE –“YOU WANT TO SEE SOMETHING REALLY SCARY”.
Top Obama Adviser Signs on to Roadmap to War with Iran
If you haven’t seen it already, check out the op-ed by former Sens. Daniel Coats and Charles Robb in the Washington Post today, entitled “Stopping a Nuclear Tehran.” It is the summary of a report issued last month by an organization called The Bipartisan Policy Center (at whose website you can find the full report), and it amounts to a roadmap to war with Iran to which a senior Middle East adviser in the Obama campaign — namely, Dennis Ross — has apparently signed on.
[UPDATE: Make sure you also read in this connection today’s New York Times article by David Sanger, particularly the part about the purported e-mail from Obama that was routed through an unidentified “aide,” who I presume to be Ross. The coincidence of the appearance of this article with the Coats-Robb op-ed suggests an effort to box Obama into a pre-election position. The Iran part of the story by Sanger, who considers himself a foreign-policy player, as well as a reporter, tracks the report’s narrative quite nicely.]
While Coats and Robb were the co-chairs of the task force that produced the report, “Meeting the Challenge: U.S. Policy Toward Iranian Nuclear Development,” the main authors appear to have been the Center’s project director, Michael Makovsky, and Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), who listed the report as his work on the AEI website earlier this month. Makovsky, of course, is the younger brother of David Makovsky, the former head and currently senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), which has acted more or less as a “think tank” for the so-called “Israel Lobby” over the 20-some years since it was created as a spin-off of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Michael, who reportedly emigrated to Israel in 1989, served under Doug Feith at the Pentagon where he was part of the team that helped manipulate the intelligence to facilitate the path to war in Iraq. Rubin, of course, also worked in Rumsfeld’s office at the same time.
Now, you would expect a report like this, which is clearly aimed at the transition team of an incoming president, from hard-line neo-cons with a distinctly Likudist bent like Makovsky and Rubin, or, for that matter, task force member Steve Rademaker, the spouse of AEI’s Danielle Pletka, who also worked under John Bolton in the State Department. But what really drew my attention to the report when I first heard about it two or three weeks ago, was the fact that Dennis Ross, who is a senior foreign-policy to Barack Obama, also signed on to the report as a task-force member. Ross, who previously served as the chief Israel-Palestinian negotiator for Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, has been associated with WINEP in various positions since he left public service, although, unlike Makovsky or Rubin, his sympathies have leaned more to Labour than to Likud, at least in the Israeli context.
According to a variety of sources, Ross was the main drafter of Obama’s pander (except on the settlers) to AIPAC’s annual convention here in May and has since raised his hopes for a top post in an Obama administration, possibly even secretary of state. Frankly, I doubt that the latter prospect is realistic, but — and here’s the main point — I have it from several sources close to the campaign that he is more eager to gain control over the Iran portfolio (possibly special envoy) than to work on the problem that he knows best from his long experience, the Israel-Palestinian conflict. If he succeeds in his quest and if this report is any reflection of his views, then the U.S. could very well find itself at war with Iran within a remarkably short period of time.
I leave it to you to read the column or, better, the executive summary of the report. But I would highlight just a few of its major points on which Ross should be closely questioned if Obama should win the election and considers Ross for any post that would have anything to do with Iran policy:
– A strategy of deterrence, if Iran became a “nuclear-capable” state, would not necessarily work because of the “Islamic Republic’s extremist ideology.”
— No agreement can be reached that would permit Iran to enrich uranium on its own territory under any circumstances, including even under the strictest international inspections regime.
— A “grand bargain” with Iran cannot be worked out in the time that remains before Iran builds a stockpile of 20 kgs of highly enriched uranium 6 kgs of plutonium which would make it technically “nuclear weapons-capable” and which thus must be unacceptable to the U.S.
— The U.S. should be willing to suspend all bilateral nuclear co-operation with Russia in order to pressure it to cooperate on Iran; that is, lending Washington full diplomatic support and refusing to provide additional assistance to Tehran’s nuclear and missile programs or to sell it advanced conventional-weapons systems.
— The U.S. should maintain a constant dialogue with Israel because “…(o)nly if Israeli policymakers believe that U.S. and European policymakers will ensure that the Islamic Republic does not gain nuclear weapons will the Israelis be unlikely to strike Iran independently.” In other words, unless the U.S. is prepared to take out Iran’s nuclear facilities, Israel will likely do so without seeking a green light from Washington.
— If the next administration agrees to enter into direct talks with Iran without insisting on its suspension of enrichment, it must set a pre-determined deadline for compliance with its demands, after which it should be prepared to enforce a blockade of Iranian gasoline imports, followed, if Iran still does not agree, by a blockade of its oil exports. If that does not have the desired effect or if Iran retaliated in some way, the U.S. should be prepared to launch a military strike that would “have to target not only Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, but also its conventional military infrastructure in order to suppress an Iranian response.” Such an attack would be followed immediately by “providing food and medical assistance within Iran…” [!!!]
— To convey his seriousness both to Iran and to the international community, the new president should begin building up the U.S. military presence in the region “the first day (he) enters office…” Specifically this would involve “pre-positioning additional U.S. and allied forces, deploying additional aircraft carrier battle groups and minesweepers, emplacing other war material in the region, including additional missile defense batteries, upgrading both regional facilities and allied militaries, and expanding strategic partnerships with countries such as Azerbaijan and Georgia [!!!] in order to maintain operational pressure from all directions.” The report goes on to note that “the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan offers distinct advantages in any possible confrontation with Iran. The United States can bring in troops and material to the region under the cover of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, thus maintaining a degree of strategic and tactical surprise.” [Emphasis added in light of recent concerns raised in Iraq about the Status of Forces Agreement.]
In other words, if Tehran is not eventually prepared to permanently abandon its enrichment of uranium on its own soil — a position that is certain to be rejected by Iran ab initio — then war becomes inevitable, and all intermediate steps, even including direct talks if the new president chooses to pursue them, will amount to going through the motions (presumably to gather international support for when push comes to shove). While I would certainly not be surprised if such an approach were adopted by a McCain administration, what is a top Obama adviser doing signing on to it?
Richard Lobe