News Release

AIPAC: Power and Origins

Share

CNN reports: “Rep. Ilhan Omar faces backlash over AIPAC comments.” See commentary by Glenn Greenwald on “Democracy Now!” Monday morning.

GRANT F. SMITH, gsmith at irmep.org, @IRmep
Smith is director of the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy and the author of the 2016 book, Big Israel: How Israel’s Lobby moves America and America’s Defense Line: The Justice Department’s Battle to Register the Israel Lobby as Agents of a Foreign Government.

He tweeted today: “In 1962, @aipac was ordered to register as an Israeli foreign agent. @TheJusticeDept kept this fact secret until 2010. It has never tried to enforce the order.”

Nora Barrows-Friedman tweeted: “AIPAC officials constantly brag about their ability to influence and push lawmakers to sign bills protecting Israel’s interests. But when a congresswoman who they don’t like points that out, they cry bigotry. And @ChelseaClinton and @bungarsargon [opinion editor at the Forward] jump on the bandwagon.”

Background: “Watch the film the Israel lobby didn’t want you to see” — an Al-Jazeera documentary leaked to the website Electronic Intifada.