Harman, AIPAC, and the spy case
by Justin Raimondo
Quite aside from the wonderful irony of http://wvwnews.net/story.php?id=4274’s transformation from prominent Democratic defender of the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping into a civil libertarian par excellence – which has been definitively celebrated by Glenn Greenwald over at Salon – the story of how this leading “national security Democrat” sold out her nation’s security on behalf of a foreign power underscores the all-pervasive and corrupting influence of Israel’s lobby on the U.S. Harman was caught on tape with a “suspected Israeli agent,” according to Congressional Quarterly, agreeing to intervene with the U.S. Justice Department and the White House to get the espionage charges against two AIPAC employees reduced. In return, the Israeli agent promised AIPAC would put pressure on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to get Harman appointed head of the House intelligence committee. This pressure included having Haim Saban – whose largesse underwrites the Saban Center at Brookings, as well as a number of Democratic Party organizations – threatening to cut off the funding unless Pelosi caved.
AIPAC, of course, is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the largest and most effective of the country-based Washington lobbies, generally rated as one of the lobbying behemoths. Like many other commentators, I have often noted the distorting effect the Lobby has had on policymaking decisions and pointed out its deleterious effect on our national interests. However, Antiwar.com, and this columnist in particular, have gone where others have feared to tread, shining a spotlight on the dim area where lobbying activities overlap with espionage.It should be noted that this was not a warrantless wiretap, of the sort Harman championed, but one approved by a special FISA court. Naturally, Harman issued a statement immediately denying the charges, averring that this “canard” is nothing new. It’s true that some of this story leaked out in 2006, but, as CQ reporter Jeff Stein put it in his piece, “What is new is that Harman is said to have been picked up on a court-approved NSA tap directed at alleged Israel covert action operations in Washington.”
This is very similar to what happened to Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, the two AIPAC officials (since unceremoniously dumped by their employer), and their fellow conspirator, former Pentagon Iran desk chief Larry Franklin. There they were, Rosen and Weissman, sitting with Naor Gilon in a restaurant in Arlington, Va., shooting the breeze, when in walks Franklin with an offer to unload classified material. Was it just serendipitous that the FBI’s counterintelligence unit had the place bugged and was listening in as Franklin volunteered to engage in espionage on behalf of Israel?
Gilon, chief of political affairs at the Israeli embassy, had been under surveillance at least since 2001, when, as Richard Sale reported, “the FBI discovered new, ‘massive’ Israeli spying operations in the East Coast, including New York and New Jersey,” according to “one former senior U.S. government official.” ( I reported on some of the activities of these operations in my short book, The Terror Enigma.)
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/