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12/22/2010
Obama Asked to Delay NUMEC Founder Award over Nuclear Weapons Material Diversions to Israel
The Obama administration has been asked to delay a 2010 National Medal of Technology and Innovation award to Zalman Shapiro over lingering questions about the theft and diversion of US weapons grade uranium to Israel. Shapiro, a talented inventor, was the former president of the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation. Shapiro and NUMEC were investigated over the diversion of weapons grade uranium to Israel from the plant at Apollo, Pennsylvania. A March/April 2010 Bulletin of Atomic Scientists analysis estimates that 741 pounds of highly enriched uranium suitable for weapons production disappeared from NUMEC while Shapiro was president and was likely diverted into the Israeli nuclear weapons program.  More  Israel Lobby Archive documents
12/18/2010
Economic Espionage Haunts AIPAC

...The Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel could declassify the trade document purloined by AIPAC in 1984. This would allow private US corporations and organizations to sue AIPAC for damages incurred when their trade secrets (entrusted to the US government) were used against them. At present, there is no longer any legitimate national security or commercial benefit to be obtained for keeping the document out of public hands. Armed with detailed information about how Israel and its US lobby turned closely held industry trade secrets against their owners, the American private sector could provide the relief that stymied Espionage Act prosecutions and weird defamation suits over illegal activity cannot. More

12/02/2010
Trafficking in Secrets is Normal at AIPAC

....In its latest filing to the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, where Rosen's civil case is to be heard, AIPAC argued that it became aware that Rosen and Weissman had received classified information only after being presented with evidence by the FBI. If Rosen succeeds in proving that AIPAC directors approved of his actions, the entire lobby could be seen as allegedly being engaged in trafficking secret information.

"New information revealed by both sides in the Rosen v. AIPAC lawsuit underscores how AIPAC really operates," said Grant Smith, director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, a small not-for-profit organization that seeks to call the attention of the authorities to AIPAC's activity and demands scrutiny of the group's legal status...And November 22, the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy filed a complaint (PDF) with the IRS, asking to revoke the lobby's tax-exempt status.   More

12/08/2010
US Pardon Attorney Denies Public Release of Pollard Clemency File

On October 15, 2010 Jonathan Pollard applied for commutation of his life sentence for spying for Israel.  In response to a Freedom of Information Act request, the Department of Justice Pardon Attorney released 134 pages (PDF) of clemency files but refused to release Pollard's actual October 15, 2010 appeal, stating, "After reviewing all of these records, I have determined that a discretionary release of the withheld and redacted material would not be appropriate." 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought Pollard's release as part of a US incentive package in return for a temporary freeze on illegal settlement building.  Organizations such as the Zionist Organization of America and B'nai B'rith International have gathered the signatures of 39 members of Congress on a letter to President Obama pressuring for Pollard's release.

Presidential pardons for Americans convicted of crimes committed in the name of Israel are a growth category.  John F. Kennedy pardoned smuggler Herman "Hank" Greenspun of Neutrality Act violations in 1961. In 2008, George W. Bush pardoned Charles Winters for illegally smuggling warplanes to Israel.   In 2000 Bill Clinton pardoned Adloph "Al" Schwimmer of weapons smuggling even though he never expressed remorse or personally applied for a pardon (normally requirements) over violating US arms export controls.     Bill Clinton also pardoned fugitive financier Marc Rich upon leaving office. Clinton's deputy attorney general, Eric Holder (the current Attorney General), advised the Clinton White House counsel that he was "neutral, leaning toward favorable" on pardoning Rich, after being told former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak supported Rich's petition on the basis of Rich's clandestine services to Israel.

The DOJ refusal to release Pollard's pardon means watchdog organizations and the press cannot determine whether the "settlement freeze for Pollard" or some other "quid pro quo" is formalized in the clemency request.

Israel Lobby Archive Document  Radio Interview  Radio Interview Transcript

11/24/2010
Group Asks IRS to Revoke AIPAC's Tax Exemption

A group has sent a nearly 1,400-page filing to the Internal Revenue Service demanding that it �retroactively revoke� the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's tax-exempt status.

The group, known as the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, or IRmep, claims in the filing that AIPAC's original application for tax-exempt status contains "fraudulent representations and omissions."

The group also noted that the pro-Israel lobbying organization has been investigated by the FBI and is currently in a civil suit over the acquisition and movement of classified information. The filing argues that these activities show AIPAC does not qualify as a "social welfare" organization.

IRmep's leader called in to a radio show on NPR in January where IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman was the guest and asked about some of the charges
...The group [AIPAC] has endured its share of controversies over the years, but it nevertheless remains politically influential. However, AIPAC has also seen its influence as a lobbyist in Washington for Israeli causes challenged in recent years by more liberal groups such as J Street, and the IRS filing could further erode its support and imperil its tax status. IRmep is another group that has been battling AIPAC, and the IRS filing is the most recent salvo in that campaign....More  KPFK Radio Interview  

11/22/2010 Center for Policy and Law Enforcement News Release
IRS Asked to Revoke AIPAC's Tax Exemption

WASHINGTON, Nov. 22, 2010 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today the Internal Revenue Service received a 1,389 page filing demanding that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's (AIPAC's) tax exempt status be retroactively revoked. The filing, submitted by the IRmep Center for Policy and Law Enforcement, spans nearly 60 years, from the moment AIPAC's founder left the employment of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the present.

Two core charges are:

1. False Charitable Purpose. AIPAC has been investigated several times by the FBI and is currently in a civil suit over the ongoing acquisition and movement of U.S. government classified information. The filing argues that such activities reveal AIPAC does not function as a bona fide "social welfare" organization.

2. Fraudulent Application for Tax Exempt Status. AIPAC's original application for tax exempt status contains fraudulent representations and omissions. It fails to mention that AIPAC's parent organization, the American Zionist Council (AZC) was shut down by a U.S. Department of Justice Foreign Agents Registration Act order in 1962. AIPAC incorporated six weeks later and applied for tax exempt status, but failed to reveal that the majority of its startup funding came from Israel, funneled through the AZC.

Members of the public, state charity watchdogs and the law enforcement community may download and review the complaint summary at: http://www.IRmep.org/IRSAIPAC.pdf. For a DVD of the full IRS complaint and appendix, send an email and official surface mail address to info@irmep.org .

IRmep director Grant F. Smith and callers grilled IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman on National Public Radio January 11, 2010 over lax IRS enforcement toward some Israel-related nonprofits committing illegal acts overseas and violating U.S. tax laws. Shulman assured America that, "If a charity is breaking the tax law, is engaged in activities that they are not supposed to be engaged in, we certainly will go after them. Every year we pull 501(c)(3) charity status from a number of charities. We've got thousands of audits going on regarding charities, and so we don't hesitate to administer the tax laws and make sure that people are following the rules."

According to Smith, "By publicly filing this 13909 complaint with the IRS, we encourage concerned Americans and misled donors to monitor whether the IRS takes appropriate action. The clock is ticking."

11/15/2010
AIPAC Bares All to Quash Lawsuit

On Nov. 8, 2010, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) filed a massive 260-page motion [.pdf] in the District of Columbia Superior Court. It asks Judge Erik Christian to dismiss former AIPAC employee Steven J. Rosen's $20 million defamation suit. In October the court dismissed all counts of the March 2009 lawsuitexcept for Rosen's claim of harm over AIPAC statements to the press that he did not uphold its standards of conduct. Rosen and AIPAC have—until now—abstained from filing damaging information about the internal workings of AIPAC in court. AIPAC's willingness to publicly air some extremely sordid and revealing content to get the remaining count thrown out before an alternative dispute resolution hearing begins in December is a sign that AIPAC is now fighting for its life, or—as one former AIPAC attorney put it— "reason for being." If Rosen proves in court that AIPAC has long handled classified information while lobbying for Israel, the worn public pretense that AIPAC is anything but a stealth extension of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs—from which it emerged in 1951—will end forever.  More

11/09/2010 News Release
Israeli False Flag Attack On U.S. Motivated 1963 Senate Investigations

Fears of false flag and foreign funded covert operations designed to influence US policy drove the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to launch exhaustive investigations and call for warranted enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).   A newly declassified March 17, 1961 memo unsealed and released by the National Archives and Records Administration on October 21, 2010 outlined the Senate's rational for investigating Israel lobbying groups and other foreign agents active across the United States. 

"In recent years there has been an increasing number of incidents involving attempts by foreign governments, or their agents, to influence the conduct of American foreign policy by techniques outside normal diplomatic channels�..there have been occasions when representatives of other governments have been privately accused of engaging in covert activities within the United States and elsewhere, for the purpose of influencing United States Policy (the Lavon Affair)."

The Lavon Affair refers to a false flag Israeli terrorist bombing plot code named "Operation Susannah" against US targets in Egypt.  More Archive Radio Interview

10/30/2010 Could clemency bid backfire?
Jonathan Pollard's First Freedom Gambit

...Ironically, the latest drive to gain leniency for Pollard may backfire. In February, 1987 Pollard filed his own motion [pdf] seeking "documents relating to the detention and disposition of persons suspected of conducting espionage activities on behalf of the Government of Israel." He attached press clippings of other instances of the US government detaining accused Israeli spies or uncovering illicit transfers of classified information that did not result in prosecution. Pollard's defense brashly stated "it was the established policy of the Department of Justice not to prosecute U.S. citizens for espionage activities on behalf of Israel..." More     Radio Interview (MP3)     Document Archive

10/20/2010
America's Worst Preferential Trade Pact

...Israel officials were found by the FBI to have in their possession a confidential report from the International Trade Commission to the U.S. Trade Representative, which contained classified information about American corporations along with information about how much the U.S. was willing to give up in negotiations. Illegally armed with that information, Israeli officials got a preferable deal.

Now, instead of fixing the trade pact to reflect the fact that the deal was slanted in the favor or Israel, the U.S. is planning to lower trade barriers between the two countries even further....More

10/18/2010 Secretary of Defense Testimony on Jonathan Pollard
An Israeli Pilot Shot Down Behind Enemy Lines?

...It is also relevant that Pollard has recently analogized himself to an Israeli pilot shot down behind enemy lines, and has stated his hope that he will yet be able to immigrate to Israel. Whatever else his analogy suggests, it clearly indicates that his loyalty to Israel transcends his loyalty to the United States. Nor, apparently, does any residual loyalty to the United States persuade him that he should protect U.S. national defense information at all. Only a few days ago, on February 15, 1987, the Washington Post published an article about Pollard. That article contained information purporting to reflect U.S. intelligence efforts. While I do not intend publicly to confirm or deny the accuracy of those statements, it is beyond cavil that, if true, such information should never be made publicly available....More

Washington Report September/October Washington Report on Middle East Affairs
Waging Peace: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal—Espionage, Opacity and Future

The Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRmep) held an informative panel discussion on "Israel's Nuclear Arsenal: Espionage, Opacity and Future" on July 7, at a fitting venue—the International Spy Museum, in Washington, DC. Panelists tackled the vital questions that mainstream American media choose to ignore: What do newly declassified documents about weapons grade uranium and dual-use technology diversions from the U.S. reveal about the role of espionage in building Israel's secret nuclear arsenal? Did Israel's proposed nuclear weapons sales to apartheid South Africa signal the weapons are still for sale if the partner and price are right? Do FBI and CIA cover-ups of investigations into Israeli nuclear espionage indicate official U.S. government approval or political acquiescence? Did cooperating with Israel's policy of "strategic ambiguity" ever make sense for the United States? Is the era of "nuclear opacity" now coming to an end? Are Israel's nuclear weapons of strategic benefit to the U.S.?  More

10/14/2010 Antiwar Radio
Will Obama free Pollard?

Antiwar radio host Scott Horton and Grant F. Smith discuss the Israeli proposal to free spy Jonathan Pollard in exchange for a temporary illegal settlement freeze to save the sputtering "peace process."

00:02:50 Why free Jonathan Pollard for a temporary settlement freeze?
00:04:35 How long has Israel's lobby been trying to free Pollard?
00:05:00 How would Pollard compare to previous Israel lobby pardons?
00:10:41 Did Obama agree to pardon Jonathan Pollard?
00:14:10 What damage did Pollard cause to America?
00:15:25 Who provided Pollard's "safe house" and secret file numbers?
00:16:16 What is the Israel lobby's strategy to avoid warranted prosecution?
00:20:18 Is the US Department of Justice transparent about pardons?
00:21:47 How does DOJ/administration clemency promote Israeli impunity?
00:22:30 What FBI reverse sting and Mossad false flag operations are underway? (MP3 Audio)

10/07/2010 IBH FOCA Report - analysis by Tanya Cariina Hsu

New Side-by-Side Gaza Flotilla Timeline Report Discredits Israeli Version of Events

A comprehensive report examining the minute-by-minute versions of the same events during the Gaza-bound Freedom Flotilla attack by Israel was released by two charity groups today. Contrasting passenger testimonies against official Israeli accounts side-by-side to each other, a complete picture can be seen as to exactly what transpired in the days and hours leading up to the incident as well as its aftermath.

The attack took place in international waters in the early hours of May 31, 2010 as humanitarian aid workers carrying goods and supplies, including medical equipment, attempted to break the Israeli-imposed blockade on Gaza. The attack on the six ships in the flotilla led to the deaths of nine passengers on the Turkish-supported Mavi Marmara ship. The result has been an intense worldwide condemnation of Israeli policies towards the increase in aid missions.

The Timeline and Inconsistencies Report, co-sponsored by the International Bureau of Humanitarian NGOs (IBH) in Geneva and Paris, and the Friends of Charities Association (FOCA) in Washington D.C., takes each individual action as it happened, and aligns the passenger version against the Israeli account. The "conclusions are in sharp contrast to the Israeli official version of events," the report found.

Conclusions show that Israel clearly manipulated evidence to bolster its argument that the attack on the Mavi Marmara was in self-defense against armed violent activists. Using second-by-second analysis, the reports shows how six of the nine passengers killed were victims of execution-style murders by the Israeli soldiers. Report website

WSN 10/05/2010 Washington Square News  - Ishan Talukdar

Israel's right hand on Capitol Hill

AIPAC is a lobbying group dedicated to promoting Israeli interests to the American public as well as within the government. It does this by placing people in government and on congressional staffs. It also galvanizes the Jewish community, by both monetary and political means, into supporting those it deems "pro-Israel" while shunning those it deems "anti-Israel."

The committee definitely has the means to pressure politicians into capitulating to Israeli demands. In fact, AIPAC received funds from the Israeli government itself well into the 1960s. In addition, there have been several incidences and many allegations of espionage perpetrated by AIPAC, or with AIPAC as an intermediary, where information was passed to Israeli officials.

The problem we are faced with is a lobbying group with a substantial amount of power over our politicians. More

09/27/2010 Antiwar

Free Pollard Now; Pay Later

...Ever since it sprang from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs' "Information office" in the early 1950s, AIPAC has engaged in many covert activities designed to serve its foreign principals—all at tremendous moral and financial cost to America. The Pollard-pardon-for-illegal-settlements-freeze proposal should be considered seriously by all Americans and the U.S. government—not as part of any credible peace process, but rather as a signal that it's time to re-register AIPAC as an Israeli foreign agent and implement a new no-tolerance policy toward Israeli espionage within our hobbled Department of Justice...  More

...Israel Lobby Archive The Israel Lobby Archive obtained 405 pages from the FBI under the Freedom of Information Act. The released documents are news clippings maintained by the FBI during its espionage investigation of Department of Defense Colonel Lawrence Franklin and AIPAC staffers Keith Weissman and Steven J. Rosen. More

09/10/2010 KZYX Radio

Declassified: Israel Lobby's 50 Year Campaign to Undermine Free Speech in America

Host Jeffrey Blankfort interviews Grant F. Smith on the public radio program "Takes on the World" about newly unsealed Senate Foreign Relations Committee files investigating the Israel lobby.  The documents reveal quarterly $5,000 payments from the Jewish Agency to AIPAC for the lobbying newsletter "Near East Report" and stealth public relations programs designed to undermine American free speech.  The implications of that fifty year effort are discussed in the radio interview. (MP3 Audio)

08/30/2010 Antiwar

Could Ground-Zero Mosque's Backers be Worse than AIPAC's?

...A recently declassified 1970 file [.pdf] held by the Department of Justice's National Security Division and reluctantly released under Freedom of Information Act appeals about the foreign agent activities Isaiah L. Kenen reveals he may have been an �insider source� for information about the Jewish Defense League. This intel was stove-piped directly to National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Secret Service, and the attorney general. The redacted documents are unclear about whether the JDL's activities targeting the Soviet Union were considered at the time to be those of an ally, target, or dangerous nuisance. The value of AIPAC's role as an FBI source on the JDL seems to have been short-lived, even during the Cold War. By the mid-1980s, as the Jonathan Pollard spy affair was breaking, AIPAC itself was moved back from the "asset" to "liability" column as a domestic espionage target, while a Department of Energy study concluded, "For more than a decade, the Jewish Defense League (JDL) has been one of the most active terrorist groups in the United States. � Since 1968, JDL operations have killed 7 persons and wounded at least 22."  More  Archive

08/26/2010 OpEdNews

The Israel Lobby: Declassified Documents Expose Its Influence

"In the old days, journalists were bought off to ignore them [opposition views on ME policy]. They now do it willingly and reflexively, knowing the consequences otherwise, the Israeli Lobby's power to remove unfriendly voices - from Congress, academia and the media...As a result, it's more virulent and pervasive than ever, what no congressional committee will touch, what no major media report will reveal....It's why Project Censored warns about a "truth emergency," the urgency for media reform, and need for a cadre to do what all responsible journalists should - their job, what's sorely absent in America, especially in reports about Israel.  More

08/23/2010 Antiwar Radio

The Mosque, Iran War Drive and Declassified Documents

IRmep's Grant F. Smith and Scott Horton of ANTIWAR Radio discuss documents released from the Senate investigation of Israel's covert lobbying and PR campaigns, threats to the continued freedom to practice (out of favor) religions in America, how neoconservatives use their unchallenged talking points in mainstream media to push for war with Iran, the Atlantic magazine's history of promoting Israeli policy objectives and how AIPAC wields power by withholding campaign contributions to wayward politicians. (MP3 Audio)

8/23/2010 - Free DvD

"Israel's Nuclear Arsenal: Espionage, Opacity and Future"

08/18/2010 Antiwar

The Israel Lobby Swims the Atlantic

Jeffrey Goldberg's current cover story in The Atlantic, "The Point of No Return," achieved massive distribution across a broad spectrum of old and new media in the United States. Some observers—including Glenn Greenwald—in "How Propagandists Function"—noted how well the methodology and message of Goldberg's piece serves the Israeli government's efforts to push U.S. military action against Iran. Gareth Porter views it as part of an overarching strategy to keep the U.S. from restoring productive relations with Iran. A huge trove of newly declassified documents subpoenaed during a Senate investigation reveals how Israel's lobby pitched, promoted, and paid to have content placed in America's top news magazines with overseas funding. The Atlantic (and others) received hefty rewards for trumpeting Israel's most vital—but damaging—PR initiatives across America.  More

08/19/2010 RT Television Interview - Live from Moscow

Declassified: Massive Israeli manipulation of US media exposed

 

Document Archive

08/18/2010 News Release

Declassified Senate Investigation Files Reveal Clandestine Israeli PR Campaign in America

WASHINGTON, Aug. 18 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Declassified files from a Senate investigation into Israeli-funded covert public relations and lobbying activity in the United States were released by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) on July 23rd, 2010.  The subpoenaed documents reveal Israel's clandestine programs for "cultivation of editors," the "stimulation and placement of suitable articles in the major consumer magazines" as well as U.S. reporting about sensitive subjects such as the Dimona nuclear weapons facility.

Documents are now available for download from http://IRmep.org/ila/azc include:

Dimona (excerpt): "The nuclear reactor story inspired comment from many sources; editorial writers, columnists, science writers and cartoonists.  Most of the press seemed finally to accept the thesis that the reactor was being built for peaceful purposes and not for bombs." http://www.irmep.org/11-121960AZC.pdf

Content placement and promotion (excerpt): "The Atlantic Monthly in its October issue carried the outstanding Martha Gellhorn piece on the Arab refugees, which made quite an impact around the country.  We arranged for the distribution of 10,000 reprints to public opinion molders in all categories. Interested friends are making arrangements with the Atlantic for another reprint of the Gellhorn article to be sent to all 53,000 persons whose names appear in Who's Who in America�Our Committee is now planning articles for the women's magazines for the trade and business publications." http://www.irmep.org/09101961AZC.pdf

Pressure campaigns (excerpt): "It can be said that the press of the nation—has by and large shown sympathy and understanding of Israel's position.  There are, of course, exceptions, notably the Scripps-Howard chain where we still need to achieve a 'break-through,' the Pulliam chain (where some progress has been made) and some locally-owned papers." http://www.irmep.org/11-121960AZC.pdf  

Magazine Committee achievements (excerpt): "We cannot pinpoint all that has already been accomplished by this Committee except to say that it has been responsible for the writing and placement of articles on Israel in some of America's leading magazines...." http://www.IRmep.org/10301962_AZC.pdf  More

08/09/2010 Antiwar

Try Assange Under the Espionage Act:

Gates, Hayden and Harmon should make their case in court

...Since the 1980s, investigative reporters have tried to obtain a trove of still-classified documents about the Iran-Contra affair and DOD/CIA sanctioned drug-running and the sale of taxpayer-funded arms stockpiled in Israel to finance the Nicaraguan Contras in violation of laws passed by Congress. The final report of the independent counsel for Iran-Contra stated that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates "was close to many figures who played significant roles in the Iran/Contra affair and was in a position to have known of their activities," though he was never indicted.

The DOD and CIA responded contemptuously to a 2009 FOIA request for documents, censoring all of the relevant sections grudgingly released in 2010 [.pdf]. The Assange defense team could ask Robert Gates how much actual Nicaraguan blood was spilled by Gates and the CIA in violation of the Boland Amendments. Gates can then explain how his department can be held accountable if it won't even release decades-old documents about criminal activity, much less currently relevant information... Link

8/5/2010

Tel Aviv's worst kept secret: Nuclear arsenal makes it hard for Obama to press for non-proliferation in Middle East

.....Whatever these revelations would precipitate remains to be seen. But it is interesting to note that the focus of US (and international) attention dwarfs another "amazing" but little noticed revelation last May when the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) partially declassified another secret document held behind closed doors for 32 years "in spite of the best efforts of researchers to dislodge it".

Notwithstanding the "tantalising' title of the revealed document 'Nuclear Diversion in the US? 13 Years of Contradiction and Confusion', Grant F. Smith, director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRmep), asserted that the 'quest for more information about the US-Israel nuclear relationship is far from over.'"

IRmep followed up with holding a panel discussion on this sensitive issue publicly and boldly under the heading, 'Israel's Nuclear Arsenal: Espionage, Opacity and Future', at, of all places, the impressive International Spy Museum in Washington.

Smith detailed "how coerced 'ambiguity' about Israel's nuclear weapons undermines accountability here in the United States". Disappointingly, IRmep's panel discussion received little press attention in the US or in the Arab world despite the shocking details which merit full exposure....More

India's National Magazine 7/31/2010

American Dilemma

The U.S. supports a document calling for a nuclear-free West Asia at the NPT Review Conference and then says the decision was a mistake.

U.S. President Barack Obama has been preaching non-proliferation at all his international stops. There was the danger of the NPT conference being derailed if U.S. continued with its old practice of vetoing all documents that compromised Israel's �nuclear ambiguity�. However, despite strenuous opposition from Israel, Obama chose to go along with the final document, which explicitly stated, for the first time, that the West Asian region should be declared nuclear-free.

To add to Israel's discomfiture, the NPT Review Conference called for an international conference in 2012 with the aim of establishing a nuclear-free West Asia. The declaration called on the United Nations Secretary-General and also the U.S., Russia and the United Kingdom to name a facilitator to organise the 2012 conference. Under an NPT Action Plan announced during the conference, the five recognised nuclear powers—the U.S., Russia, the U.K., France and China—committed themselves to speeding up the disarmament process and reporting on the progress in 2014. Ever since the NPT came into force in 1970, the major powers have been paying lip service about reducing their arsenals and establishing nuclear-free zones. More

IRmep 07/07/2010 Panel Discussion Audio

Israel's Nuclear Arsenal--Espionage, Opacity and Future

The following official audio files of "Israel's Nuclear Arsenal" panel presentations are now available for download:

Jeffrey Blankfort reviews US positioning toward the NPT review conference call for a Middle East free of nuclear weapons. He recounts first hand experiences with an ADL/Apartheid South Africa intelligence agent targeting US activists. (MP3 3.6 MB)

Grant F. Smith explores how collaborating in Israeli "strategic ambiguity" undermines rule of law and governance in the United States. He reviews the NUMEC nuclear diversion case and a new Senate attempt to exonerate those involved. (MP3 6.2 MB)

Sasha-Polakow Suransky reviews Apartheid South African sales of yellow-cake uranium to Israel's military establishment and argues that AIPAC positively contributed to US policymaking. (MP3 5.9 MB)

John J. Mearsheimer discusses why Israel acquired a nuclear arsenal and the danger it presents to US interests. (MP3 6.2 MB)

Forbes07/06/2010 via BusinessWire

Senator Pressures NRC to Clear NUMEC President of Illegal Uranium Diversions to Israel
The office of Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania attempted to obtain a statement from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission according to documents newly released under the Freedom of Information Act. On August 27, 2009, Arlen Specter wrote to Rebecca Schmidt asking that the NRC "issue a formal public statement confirming that he [constituent Zalman Shapiro] was not involved in any activities related to the diversion of uranium to Israel."

Zalman Shapiro was formerly president of the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation at Apollo, PA. According to a secret GAO report "Nuclear Diversion in the US?" partially declassified on May 6, 2010 NUMEC received over 22 tons of uranium-235, the key material used to fabricate nuclear weapons.

Israel's top economic espionage case officer Rafael Eitan, who handled spy Jonathan Pollard in the 1980s, infiltrated NUMEC under false pretenses in 1968. According to Anthony Cordesman, "there is no conceivable reason for Eitan to have gone [to the Apollo plant] but for the nuclear material." CIA Tel Aviv station chief John Hadden called NUMEC "an Israeli operation from the beginning." NUMEC's venture capital came from David Lowenthal, who had close ties to Israeli intelligence and David Ben-Gurion, who spearheaded Israel's nuclear weapons program.

A March, 2010 audit by two former NRC officials published in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists confirmed not only that 337 kilograms of NUMEC highly enriched uranium are still unaccounted for but that all circumstantial evidence still points to diversion to Israel.

On November 2, 2009 the NRC denied Specter's request. More

Invitation to IRmep Panel Discussion 07/07/2010

Israel's Nuclear Arsenal Espionage, Opacity and Future

What do newly declassified documents about weapons grade uranium and dual-use technology diversions from the US reveal about the role of espionage in building Israel's secret arsenal?  Did Israel's proposed nuclear weapons sales to apartheid South Africa signal they are still for sale if the partner and price are right?  Do FBI and CIA cover-ups of investigations into Israeli nuclear espionage signal official US government approval or political acquiescence?   Did cooperating with Israel's policy of "strategic ambiguity" ever make sense for the United States? Is the era of "nuclear opacity" now coming to an end?  Are Israel's nuclear weapons of strategic benefit to the US?  Join our panelists for an exciting discussion of these timely questions!  

Sasha Polakow-Suransky is editor of Foreign Affairs magazine at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of the 2010 book "The Unspoken Alliance: Israel's Secret Relationship with Apartheid South Africa."

John J. Mearsheimer is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science and the co-director of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago and author of the book "The Tragedy of Great Power Politics" and coauthor of "The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy"

Grant F. Smith is director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRmep) and author of the books "Spy Trade," "America's Defense Line" and "Foreign Agents".

Moderated by Middle East analyst Jeffrey Blankfort, host of the Northern California public radio station KZYX international affairs program, "Takes on the World". Register

Tribune-Review 06/11/2010
Possible Western Pennsylvania link to Israeli nukes boosted

A recently declassified federal report (PDF, obtained by IRmep) bolsters a long-simmering Cold War theory that uranium was illegally shipped from an Armstrong County plant in 1965 to Israel to support its nuclear arms efforts.

The once-secret report by the General Accounting Office reveals the FBI initially refused to investigate the disappearance of 206 pounds of weapons-grade uranium-235 from the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corp. -- known as NUMEC -- in Apollo.

That refusal led to widespread speculation the uranium, enough to build five nuclear weapons, was diverted to Israel with covert U.S. government assistance, the report states.

For decades, the fate of the missing NUMEC uranium has been the stuff of Western Pennsylvania legend....More

05/24/2010
Vets Deplore Ledeen War Propaganda in VFW Magazine on Memorial Day Eve

WASHINGTON, May 24 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --  U.S. veterans were shocked and dismayed that the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) refused to publish retractions, corrections or responses to an article by Michael Ledeen published in the April, 2010 edition of VFW Magazine.  Three veterans hailing from different parts of America provided timely input, corrections, concerns, and supported multiple letters to the editor which Richard K. Kolb refused to print in the May edition.

According to Dr. Sam K. Abul Haj of Ventura, CA, a highly decorated former chief surgeon and pathology consultant of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Michael Ledeen's "Iran's 'Foreign Legion' Takes on America" was "riddled with serious misrepresentations."  Ledeen stated:  "Although relatively small in numbers total manpower is estimated at less than 150,000 the [Iranian National] Guards control a vast arsenal, ranging from surface to surface missiles to the covert nuclear weapons program.  When and if Iran comes to possess nuclear armed missiles, the Guards will be in charge of them, too."

The April 21, 2010 Department of Defense "Unclassified Report on Military Power of Iran" states that Iran has no nuclear weapons program for Revolutionary Guards to control.  This is also the consensus view of the International Atomic Energy Agency.  According to Abul Haj, "Ledeen relies on dubious and discredited sources, such as Manuchar Ghorbanifar, who the CIA placed on its 'burn list' as a serial fabricator long ago.  In the 1980s Ledeen and his Israeli colleagues' drive to get the U.S. to sell arms to Iran led to a now largely forgotten constitutional crisis known as the Iran Contra Affair.  Today's veterans expect to read the work of experts with honest track records of assessing true threats in America's premier veteran's magazine.  Ledeen is clearly not one of those experts.  Unchallenged, Ledeen's disinformation has the potential for again steering U.S. policy into tragedy."  More

05/10/2010 Antiwar Radio
Israel's Lobby and Nuclear Diversions from the US

Scott Horton interviews Grant F. Smith, director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy in Washington, D.C., about the newly declassified 1978 GAO report released by IRmep on 5/10/2010. They cover the diversion of US nuclear material to Israel, marginal investigations and possible cover-ups by the FBI and CIA, prosecutorial immunity for high-profile Americans who commit crimes for Israel's benefit, and billionaire Haim Saban's considerable influence on the Democratic Party.  They review new information about why LBJ's political debt to fundraiser Abraham Feinberg (designated by David Ben Gurion as the US funding coordinator for Israel's nuclear weapons program in 1958) probably explained his disdain for the NUMEC investigation and applying nuclear nonproliferation to Israel.

Audio (MP3)
05/10/2010
Secret GAO Study Finds Investigations of Israeli Weapons Grade Uranium Diversions "Inadequate"

A declassified Government Accountability Office report entitled "Nuclear Diversion in the U.S.?  13 Years of Contradiction and Confusion" reveals serious flaws hampering investigations into diversions of US weapons grade uranium to Israel.  The report and related correspondence totaling 62 pages released on May 6, 2010 are now publicly available for downloadMore News Release

05/10/2010 Antiwar.com
How US Weapons Grade Uranium was Diverted to Israel

...According to Avner Cohen, in 1958 Israeli Prime Minister David Ben Gurion had arranged with Abraham Feinberg, a "major Democratic fund-raiser," to secretly finance a nuclear weapons program among "benedictors" in America. Abraham Feinberg, who backed Harry S. Truman's successful whistle-stop election campaign, was personally succinct about his role in the U.S. political system: "My path to power was cooperation in terms of what they needed -campaign money." Feinberg opened doors in Congress for up and coming leaders of the Israel lobby, including AIPAC founder Isaiah L. Kenen. According to Seymour Hersh, "there is no question that Feinberg enjoyed the greatest presidential access and influence in his 20 years as a Jewish fund-raiser and lobbyist with Lyndon Johnson. Documents at the Johnson Library show that even the most senior members of the National Security Council understood that any issue raised by Feinberg had to be answered." His power and role in financing Lyndon B. Johnson's election prospects temporarily quashed scrutiny of Israel's nuclear weapons program -in the U.S. and abroad -at a critical moment....More

04/14/2010 Antiwar.com
America's Loose Nukes in Israel

...These unspoken, forced policies directly pit Israeli prerogatives against American national security, governance, and rule of law -they are often only won only through illegal means. As Israel ratchets up its own "project divert" effort to compel others to confront NPT signatory Iran (while derailing meaningful Israeli-Palestinian negotiations), the rest of the world showed true commitment to non-proliferation by sending top diplomats to America's summit. Israel simply sent in another spy.

This is why the U.S. must demand more than Israel's entry into the NPT. Only by recovering all purloined nuclear materials can Obama win confidence in America's own commitment to controlling loose nukes. More  Radio Interview MP3

04/02/2010 Antiwar.com
Obama Can Stop Funding Illegal Settlements

President Obama should revoke the Jewish Agency's 1948 US tax exemption.  This would immediately shut down all US charities acting as feeder funds and throw into question the deductibility of individual US donor contributions.  This strong message would be timely, but generate some political backlash.  Israel lobbyists inside and outside the federal government exploit elected American politicians' own insatiable thirst for campaign contributions from the tributaries of this massive slush fund   politicians know they are only welcome to partake if they unconditionally support Israel and its lobby   no matter the cost to their American constituents. More

P U L SE 3/31/2010

US Owes no Gratitude for Israeli Commercial Espionage

Israel appeared on the US Trade Representative's punitive watch list for almost half a decade for massive copycat and counterfeit drugs production  severe violations of US patents.  On March 13, 2010 the US Justice Department  moved to introduce hard drives brimming with classified national defense information squirreled away by alleged spy Stewart Nozette.  The 2009 Nozette arrest for economic espionage is only the latest in a string of serious US national defense and intellectual property thefts perpetrated to boost the Israeli economy.  The global economic crisis has made such ongoing espionage and economic warfare against America a top Pentagon priority.  More

washingtonpost.com03/25/2010
Israeli Intelligence, our constant Companion
by Jeff Stein

".....But another of Mossad's reason for being, as with all the world's spy services, is to make sure friends are really friends.

And judging by once sensitive FBI documents making the rounds in recent days, the Israelis have been at this task in Washington for a very long time.

The 21 documents, obtained by Grant F. Smith, a Washington, D.C. author who has made a career out of writing critical books on Israeli spying and lobbying, detail the FBI's investigation into the theft of a confidential U.S. document on the Reagan administration's position going into the 1984 U.S.-Israel Free Trade Area Negotiations.

Acting on a complaint that the document was circulating on Capitol Hill, the FBI discovered that an Israeli diplomat had acquired the paper and given it to officials at AIPAC, the lobbying group whose annual convention drew both Netanyahu and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton this week....." More

PR Newswire: news distribution, targeting and monitoring03/17/2010 PRNewswire
US Department of Justice Asked to Regulate AIPAC as a Foreign Agent of the Israeli Government

WASHINGTON, March 17 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The US Department of Justice has been formally asked to begin regulating the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) as the foreign agent of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.  A 392 page legal filing presented by a four person IRmep delegation in a two hour meeting with top officials of the Internal Security Section substantiated the following case for AIPAC's immediate registration: More

03/12/2010 Antiwar.com
Israel's Lobby Imposes Crippling Sactions on America Again

Americans should be outraged that a foreign lobby like AIPAC is actually trying to write the rules   when warranted application of the law would have abolished it years ago. AIPAC and other nodes of Israel's lobby successfully broke important US laws to seize power in America. They now expect US private enterprise and workers   the world's best   to open their own little "offices of special plans" to carefully track company products, profits, and investments in the name of Israel. But this new tax ignores some mighty important facts.  More

Forbes03/10/2010 via BusinessWire
New FBI Files Alleging AIPAC Theft of Government Property and Israeli Espionage Released

WASHINGTON, March 10 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Declassified files detailing an FBI investigation targeting the American Israel Public Affairs Committee are now available on the Internet. AIPAC was investigated after it acquired and circulated classified government information provided in strict confidence by US industry and worker groups opposed to AIPAC sponsored economic legislation.

According to research director Grant F. Smith, the newly released files present startling new insights into AIPAC's activities in the United States. "These files, available on the Internet for the first time, reveal activities that undermined rule of law and governance. They have wrought massive economic harm to American businesses and workers. We urge all concerned Americans to carefully review and ponder the implications of these FBI files and other documents now available from the Israel Lobby Archive." More

02/11/2010 Antiwar.com
Israel violates economic sanctions against Iran

History suggests that Israelis and their US lobby's financial backers will be first in line to violate so-called "crippling sanctions" against Iran, a country over which the US has relatively little direct economic leverage.  This adds insult to injury, since a real US economic sanctions regime   likely to have been highly successful in averting conditions underlying any potential Middle East nuclear arms race   has been suppressed since it was signed into law over three decades ago. More

02/08/2010 PressTV
How Israel's Lobby Challenges Rule of Law in America

Susan ModaressThis week the Iranian satellite television channel PressTV is broadcasting a 25 minute interview with IRmep director Grant F. Smith about the Israel lobby's history of challenges to rule of law and governance in the United States. "Autograph" with Susan Modaress reviews key findings from the book "Spy Trade" and may be streamed online via YouTube:

Segment #1 How did arms smuggling, subverting Justice Department foreign agent registration orders and a string of presidential pardons generate an assumption of criminal immunity within the Israel lobby? How is this evident today?

Segment #2 What new tactics are US law enforcement agencies implementing to stem Israeli commercial espionage operations in the United States? Why, after  decades of challenges to rule of law, are they acting now?

Segment #3 What is the outlook for Freedom of Information Act requests under the Obama administration's new transparency mandate? Why can't President Obama stop illegal settlements as a minor first step toward Middle East peace?

Video Download (WMV) Audio (MP3)
CNBC/BusinessWire 02/04/2010
AIPAC officials duplicated classified policy documents before returning to US government

Washington - Top officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee duplicated a stolen classified US government policy document before returning it under order of the US Trade Representative. The newly released FBI form FD-302 is available for download at http://IsraelLobby.org/ila/economy/FD302.pdf .

Testimony about AIPAC's executive director and top lobbyist reveals AIPAC duplicated the classified report "Probable Economic Effect of Providing Duty Free Treatment for U.S. Imports from Israel" after covertly receiving it from Israeli Minister of Economics Dan Halpern:

"REDACTED immediately called REDACTED at the USTR to make arrangements to return the document. The report was subsequently returned to the USTR by a member of the AIPAC office staff. Prior to returning this document, REDACTED asked to have a duplicate copy made so that the staff of the AIPAC could further examine the report....He stated that REDACTED retained the duplicate copy of the report and that the original report was returned to the USTR."

The classified 300 page report contained business confidential information and trade secrets provided by 76 American industry and worker groups lobbying against a bilateral intergovernmental managed trade pact with Israel. The fight pitted Monsanto, the U.S. Bromine Alliance, Sunkist Growers Inc., the American Farm Bureau and the AFL-CIO against the Israeli government, AIPAC, and the American Israel Chamber of Commerce and Industry. After the trade deal passed, the US cumulative trade deficit with Israel grew to $71 billion; equivalent to 100,000 lost US jobs each year over the past decade. The report is still considered so sensitive neither the USTR nor the International Trade Commission will release it under the Freedom of Information Act.
More

The Diane Rehm Show 1/11/2010
The IRS and Illegal Settlements

IRmep research director Grant F. Smith briefed IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman on National Public Radio about the US Treasury Department's failure to regulate American charities laundering funds into illegal West Bank settlements.

Susan Paige, USA Today: Welcome back, I'm Susan Paige of USA Today sitting in for Diane Rehm. We're talking with Doug Shulman. He's the Commissioner of the IRS--the 47th Commissioner of the IRS--the IRS collects $2.4 trillion dollars in tax revenue every year. It has 100,000 employees.

Grant F. Smith, IRmep: I'd really like to take issue with this idea that IRS goes after powerful violators. In 2005 USA Today quoted vice premier Shimon Peres estimating $50 billion had been raised since 1977--in the US--and used to build illegal settlements in Israeli occupied West Bank territories. And many US charities like the One Israel Fund, American Friends of [the College of] Judea and Samaria, Christian Friends of Israel and even Jack Abramoff openly and illegally raise tax deductible funds in the US for illegal settlements. But while fellow Treasury officials like Stewart Levey and other political appointees supported by AIPAC [the American Israel Public Affairs Committee] aggressively go after many Muslim charities suspected of any criminal ties, none of these charities have ever lost a tax exemption and the IRS just doesn't go after any of these violators in spite of Obama administration policy against settlements.

Susan Paige: Alright Grant, thank you for your call. What about Grant's question in terms of 'does the IRS go after charities that get tax deductible contributions if their actions violate US policy?

Doug Shulman, IRS: One of the interesting things about the agency, Susan, is that we actually reach into every nook and cranny of the country, so we focus on individuals, serving them and have an enforcement program, and have an enforcement program servicing business. We also have a tax exempt and government entities section of the IRS that focuses on charities and other nonprofits. They get the benefit of tax exemption, making sure that they're complying with the tax rules. We've, over the last ten years, beefed up that area, focused on everything from small nonprofits, international charities, hospitals, as well as education institutions, and we run a pretty robust program to make sure people are complying with the tax laws.

Susan Paige, USA Today: Grant said that Muslim charities have been subjected to special scrutiny, is that the case?

Doug Shulman, IRS: Oh, I don't believe so. We are very focused on running a nonpartisan, nonpolitical agency. There are only two people who are political appointments in the IRS, myself and our chief counsel. The rest of the 100,000 you mentioned are career civil servants, all of us are tasked with administering the laws that are on the books in an even handed manner, and I think our track record shows that's what we do.

LATER IN THE INTERVIEW

Susan Paige, USA Today: Now we've also had a caller, Basim from Cincinnati saying that I failed to get an answer to Grant's question about if a charity that accepts tax deductible contributions--is doing something that's illegal--do you go after them? The point that Grant was making was charities that may fund West Bank settlements. What is the case with that? Is that illegal, and would you go after a charity that was helping to fund that activity?

Doug Shulman: I don't know the specifics of the case that they brought up. But if I wasn't clear, if a charity is breaking the tax law, is engaged in activities that they are not supposed to be engaged in, we certainly will go after them. Every year we pull 501(c)(3) charity status from a number of charities. We've got thousands of audits going on regarding charities, and so we don't hesitate to administer the tax laws and make sure that people are following the rules." Interview (MP3) News Release

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