Israel Junkets Pump Disinformation Into Congress

AIPAC’s AIEF Briefing Book Leaked

by Grant Smith Posted on

An American Israel Education Foundation (AIEF) briefing book (PDF) from a December 2014 congressional staff junket to Israel may be the first piece of “educational” information ever to leak out of the captive AIPAC shell organization to the public.

AIEF was incorporated in 1988 to promote a more “balanced and realistic” understanding of American interests in the Near East and within the general public and among policy-makers, academics and journalists. Although it promised the IRS in its application for tax-exempt status that “All research produced and published will be made available to the general public” AIEF has never complied. Its relatively new, single-page website contains no information on education programs.

Only on Legistorm is AIEF’s main accomplishment readily apparent: sending members of Congress and their families on all-expense paid trips to Israel – over 1,000 since the year 2001.

That no AIEF briefing books are publicly available should come as no surprise to the observant. AIEF is not functionally separate from AIPAC, a lobby for the Israeli government ever since it split off from the defunct American Zionist Council in 1962. AIEF is housed in the very same offices as AIPAC , with 66% of its board of directors drawn from AIPAC. (PDF) On annual tax charitable returns, AIEF (which raises $45 million in yearly tax-deductible donations) claims to have no employees. It doesn’t need any since according to materials accompanying the briefing book AIPAC employees like the “Grassroots and Missions Director” and “Israel Seminars Assistant” accompany travelers to Israel.

AIEF, like AIPAC, echoes the rhetoric of the Israeli government. Members of Congress on junkets are told by AIEF that “Jerusalem is Israel’s largest city – not a ‘settlement.’” There are no longer any final status issues to be negotiated – despite UN insistence to the contrary – because according to AIEF “Israel later incorporated the eastern half of the city and declared the unified Jerusalem to be the capital of Israel.” AEIF’s “case closed” approach to what the rest of the world considers to be open issues probably did at least prepare junket-attendees for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s election-time declaration that there would be no Palestinian state on his watch.

The AIEF briefing book is full of flattery to Congress, declaring that “Congress has regularly recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in various resolutions and law.” Yet how representative of America are such “regular” resolutions?

A statistically significant Google Consumer Survey question fielded by IRmep to American adults at the end of March, 2015 stated, “Congress and state legislatures pass scores of resolutions condemning Palestinians and voicing unconditional support for Israel every year.” Responders could choose one of two options, “These resolutions do not represent my views” or “These resolutions represent my views.” The order of the response choices were randomly reversed.

A whopping 68.2 percent of Americans chose, “these resolutions do not represent my views.” Americans also oppose lavish U.S. aid to Israel while the majority (64 percent) also do not take Israelis or Palestinians sides. For Israel front groups like AIPAC and AIEF, it is now becoming an open question whether coordinated campaign contributions, disinformation campaigns and free trips will be enough to fill the widening gulf between the policies enacted by Congress and the American public they claim to represent.

IRmep is a Washington, DC-based nonprofit researching US Middle East policy formulation. Select CIA and DOD lawsuit filings may be viewed at IRmep’s Center for Policy and Law Enforcement web page at: http://irmep.org/CFL.htm.

Grant F. Smith is the author of America’s Defense Line: The Justice Department’s Battle to Register the Israel Lobby as Agents of a Foreign Government. He currently serves as director of research at the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy in Washington (IRmep), D.C. Read other articles by Grant, or visit Grant’s website.

12 thoughts on “Israel Junkets Pump Disinformation Into Congress”

  1. All of this problem is based on religion. Israel is a Jewish state and millions of Christians believe the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament teachings which claim that people who serve Israel will be rewarded by God and people who refuse to serve Israel will be destroyed (Isaiah 60:12). The neocon movement is based on the Hebrew Bible/OT ( http://deism.com/neoconsbible.htm ). I think the best way to correct this deadly problem is to take the advice of the American founder and Deist Thomas Paine who wrote in The Age of Reason, The Complete Edition that we need a revolution in religion based on our innate God-given reason and Deism. This will do a lot to end religious violence.

    Progress! Bob Johnson http://www.deism.com

    1. Religion is pretty much a red herring here. It's little more than an excuse for the usual criminal element to do what they always do.

      Here's a primer on how it works.:

      “ To [my grandfather] Zionism was counterfeit Judaism and the Zionists charlatans. His Orthodox belief held that the re-establishment of Israel was a matter of God in the messianic future. He would have agreed with Yehoshofat Harkabi, a former chief of Israeli military intelligence, who said "The Jews always considered that the land belonged to them, but in fact it belonged to the Arabs. I would go further: I would say the original source of this conflict lies with Israel."
      http://mondoweiss.net/2012/08/my-grandfather-spar…

  2. In 1930s Weimar Germany, Jews controlled 103 of the 109 German banks, all the news media, and nearly all the government representatives. Organized Jewry thrived and flaunted its wealth while the WW1 reparations burdened Goyim Germans were near starvation, angry, and increasingly desperate. By 1933, Jews were being corralled together for their own protection. With the rise of Der Fuhrer, German citizens had their way and some Jews (far fewer than Israel advertises) did not survive.

    Of today's Americans, 2% are Jews. Of today's American millionaires, 50% are Jews. As in Weimar Germany, they are organized and cunningly extract enormous amounts of money from our economy without contributing value. Wall Street has become a Jewish run casino serving itself and Jewry. Our news media is mostly Jewish owned and blatantly Israel/Jew biased. Our electoral process has been corrupted by AIPAC, the Jewish Conference of Presidents and more enormous amounts of Jewish money. Israel has occupied not just Palestine, but America too. The Wall Street felons remaining unpunished, AIPAC actually writing congressional legislation, and lack of treason indictments attest to the depth of the occupation. The Jewish state instigated 9/11, all our Mideast wars, and benefited from all. None were in American interests, yet we did the dying and suffered the Great Recession. Our diminished America is now being quietly overthrown from within and transformed into a world dominating racist ultrapower, the JEWISH STATE OF AMERICA.

  3. If you aware something in core. Human Rights. Jews, Moslems, Christs are pure okay as far as they don't play trick in human right abuses.

  4. Piss on AIPAC, and all the best to Grant Smith. (Read his books, by the way.)

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