When former AIPAC director Steven J. Rosen interpreted the contents of stolen classified US national defense information to Washington Post reporter Glenn Kessler in 2004, he peddled it as proof that Iran was engaged in "total war against the United States." Far from an investigative journalism scoop, Rosen’s propaganda was not only false, but another small component of AIPAC’s larger drive to militarily entangle the US with Iran. Mirroring the trajectory of Enron — another secretive corporation that suddenly collapsed — this lobby has racked up such an unbroken string of challenges to US rule of law that concerned Americans are again gathering to confront AIPAC on a massive scale on May 21-24 in Washington.
More than a creative protest during AIPAC’s yearly conference, participants are attending workshops and learning circles to discover how to effectively expose, confront, and roll back AIPAC’s most secretive, dangerous, and costly initiatives. Participants will also network and leverage their contacts with activists from other states working to create lasting peace in the Middle East while reinstituting government accountability at home. But why now?
A few observant Americans looked on in despair as AIPAC’s 1980s election law violations and 2004 employee indictments over classified information trafficking were recently unwound through attrition and curious moves by the courts and Justice Department. The year 2011 is remarkably similar to a tipping point catalyzed by misdeeds that took place a half a century ago, when a coalition of fed-up Americans finally laid down the gauntlet and insisted on rule of law in America — breaking the back of AIPAC’s parent organization.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s Jewish activists were appalled that AIPAC’s parent organization, the American Zionist Council, was illegally laundering funds raised for legitimate overseas charitable relief back into covert US public relations and lobbying activities in secret coordination with the Israeli government. The American Council for Judaism and scores of similarly concerned Americans relentlessly lobbied Congress and the US Department of Justice for relief. Even then-Congressman Donald Rumsfeld took action for his constituents.
