AIPAC trial: 'First They Came for the Jews'

From the Wall Street Journal lead editorial:

A prosecution under the Espionage Act threatens the First Amendment.

Early in June 2004, an employee of the American Israel Pubic Affairs Committee, AIPAC--better known by its media tag, "the powerful Israeli lobby"--received an urgent phone call. Pentagon analyst Lawrence Franklin, a specialist on Iran, informed AIPAC lobbyist Keith Weissman that they had better meet because he had news of the most important kind to disclose. Mr. Weissman not surprisingly agreed to the rendezvous, held in Pentagon City, Va., where he was told about an imminent, Iran-directed assault on American troops and Israeli agents in Iraq. First, though, Mr. Franklin delivered a warning whose purpose would be clear only later. What he was about to tell him was highly classified, "Agency stuff," and having it could get him into trouble, he informed Mr. Weissman.

Mr. Weissman didn't know for some time that his trusted Pentagon informant--a man he and his AIPAC colleague had met with several times before--had, at this particular meeting, been wearing a wire for the FBI. Or that his warning that he was sharing highly classified stuff had been spelled out for the purpose of evidence gathering. Neither of the AIPAC lobbyists knew, then, that they had been entrapped in a sting, to lead ultimately to a remarkable legal show.

Read the rest.

AIPAC

Israel: 'This Place Called Hope' (insert sigh here)

Dry Bones, once again, nails it

Daniel Gordon, in pondering the hellish moods, exposes' and general crap writhing through Israeli society over the aftermath of investigations into the government and IDF's conduct of the war against Hizbullah; a slew of investigations of the (take a deep breath and try not to spew...) Government, Justice Minister, Knesset parliament, Tax Authority, both chief rabbis, and now, presidency in Israel's (modern) history, quoting an IDF general he recently interviewed, writes,

“'In any normal country, people would be in the streets, burning tires, protesting by the thousands. But here, nothing happens. People are going on as if there’s nothing to get worked up about.'”

I’m not so sure that it’s terrible that people aren’t burning tires. Burning tires would suggest that a change in the government would be enough. But that would be delusional. The reason Israelis aren’t protesting, I think, is that deep down, they understand that this problem is much deeper than the government, or the corruption, or the war. It’s Zionism. No one frames it that way, but that’s the real issue. One hundred and ten years after the First Zionist Congress, people are beginning to wonder if Zionism hasn’t begun to fail.

Very worthwhile reading about the malaise engulfing Israel.

(H-T: The Muqata)