five contributor to a campaign, if him $3804. individuals associated with that than $58,000.more 904, so0 ived pac contributions are just a tip of the iceberg. what is most striking about pattern ofis the giving. once you have read the filings it is completely predictable who the other ones will beginning to, and i can attest to this because i've gone through these pages of fec reports. locksteps operate in to such an extent that some of them who represent a certain

state do not give to a single candidate to that state. report'she washington list of the top 10 recipients in 2012. you can see steny hoyer was num ber four in the house and ben cardin was number four in the senate. neither faced a tight reelection campaign. one would assume some of the thousands of dollars these men got came from the maryland association of concerned citizens. here the house candidates that pac gave to in 2012. hoyer is nowhere to be found. similarly, one searches for ben cardin. instead, the maryland

association for concerned citizens gave to candidates as far away as nevada, north dakota, california, but not a single candidate in maryland. a memo leaked reveals that aipac exercises and high degree of coordination over the smaller pacs. instructs a subordinate topressure several to donate specific candidates. the first item is hard to read. has done nothing , louisiana, and missouri race. they have given $500. they had $11,048.

try four 1000 bond more. this memo makes clear that the recipients are not necessarily selected by the individual pacs making this contributions. despite this smoking gun memo, the federal election commission classifies aipac has a membership organization rather than a political committee. what this means is that aipac does not have to reveal its sources of income or expenditures. 30 pro israel pacs must adhere to regulations among which limit campaign contributions from pacs to $10,000 per candidate per election. are 30 unaffiliated pacs altered into the same candidate, that is a potential hall of $300,000 per candidate.

for his first senate race in 1998, tom daschle received more 260,000 in pro-israel contributions. as we have seen, that does not include contributions from pro-israel individuals. not only does the favored candidate benefit, because it is broken up into smaller components, the extent of the lobby's influence on american elections is hidden. this is no pro-israel pac it as being among the 2010 top 10 contributors by the center for responsible politics. -- responsive politics, i am sorry. that year pro-israel pacs contribute nearly $3 million to congressional candidates, making largestixth

contributor. by comparison, in 2012, the two gave a total pacs of $20,000 in campaign contributions, less than 1% of the total amount contributed by pro-israel pacs. pacs gavero-israel nearly 150 times more in campaign contributions. there's no question that aipac and the israel laterally -- bobby baskin the repetition, but that may be more shallow than it appears. in 2010, it was clear that the last person to lobby wanted as senator from kentucky was rand paul. we know that because pro israel $32,500, his opponent and 16,250 to the democratic candidate for senate for a total

of just under $50,000. rand paul got just $2000, but he went on to win the election. even the candidate who got the most pro-israel contributions in 2010, mark kirk, barelyw won his election, despite massive pro-israel pac contributions and that he raised more than $4 million from his components. easter barely made it. his history approach israel contributions is instructive. he started getting $7,000 for race and it went up dramatically each race thereafter. when he got $91,200 for a house race in 2008, it was clear they were setting him up to run for the senate. until recently i never heard kirk described as anything but a moderate republican. his unwavering support of israel

was never a campaign issue. the mainstream media did not raise it. the evidence was there for all to see on his senate campaign website. not only does mark kirk write his name in hebrew, but is not in the stars and stripe, but the blue of the israeli flag. mainstream media do not talk, campaign contributions do. i hope and urge you to take this information and make it public by attending campaign events and directly asking the candidates what they have done to deserve this money, by writing letters to the eiditor. that your constituents know that they're represented in congress is too often putting their interest of their foreign government ahead of their own. thank you very much. now i would like introduced

cynthia mckinney of georgia he knows what it is like to be a target of the israel lobby. she was disappointed that she cannot be with us in person today, but she had a prior commitment out of the country. to videotapeenough a message for all of us. [video clip] this is cynthia mckinney, and i am pleased to be able to make this video presentation for the washington report on the middle east. the way in which one can best is totand the terrain do the research. one can go to the congressional record and read laying out the facts.

earl hilliard was a member of congress who served along with me. he was from alabama. i was from georgia. he was the first african-american to be elected sincegress reconstruction, and i was the first african-american woman to be elected to congress from the state of georgia. so earl and i together went to and we bothd.c., served on the international relations committee, and we both ended up being targeted by the pro-israel lobby merely because we attempted to do our job and to represent our constituents and represent the good people of the united states. i have written a book, "ain't

nothing like freedom," and it explains my experiences with the pro-israel lobby from candidate a redistricting case go all the way up to the supreme anti-defamation league becoming a party to that lawsuit, joining in with five whites who did not want black representation for them and their community in .eorgia in the congress the next part of the comments i would like to make our around this issue -- our around this issue of being caught in the eye of the storm, and a political aign, the idea put

forward if you want to prevail, if you want to win, money, message, and media are ways in theh you can direct torrents of the storm rather than become a victim of the storm. the program israel lobby usually has a whole lot of money, and those of us who act of conscience generally do not. you do not have to equal the dollars in the bank. but you do have to do is have enough money in order to do the things that are necessary in order to have a successful campaign. enough does not necessarily mean the same as our equal to. -- are equal to. i ended up being extremely embarrassed for no fault of my own, and then only to be told

and i challenged andy, said, what happened, why did you do this? did not wantd he to make them upset. him not making them upset and that i became expendable to him and i was his friend, my very first chief of staff was his daughter, and that was the way i was treated, because he did not want to make them upset. that i just jotted needin my notes was the for critical discernment. knowing who is who. media of thead the other side. so i make sure that i read i read i read forward,

the jewish telegraphic agency. zooing who is who in the will also lead you to my next topic, which is the 99% club. we have members of congress who are wonderful on 99% of the issues of 99% of the votes. when its the one issue comes to israel and the united states' relationship with israel and holding israel breaches offor international law, breaches of of. law, and our just sense human rights and dignity, they are not good on this issues. we have lots of members of congress who are in the 99% club about 99% unfortunately is not going to get that 99% club are

not going to be the members who will stop us from being involved in these wars. they are not going to be the members who will speak up when the united states is violating human rights and just a sick dignity of other people's. want to discuss is why this is important. it is important, one, because there is a group of us, we care about the dignity of the earth. we care about human dignity. we care about liberty. and we also know that you cannot warmongers, those who are ready to kill in an instant, those who hold cabinet meetings and decide that they are going to assassinate people, those who are willing to support a president who by an executive order, by writing an executive

order, will condemned to death who willdual, or those not stand in the way of the machine, the war machine, when it decides that an entire country has to be destroyed. who in to know who is the zoo, and 99%, that 99% club is not good enough. it has not been good enough for the people of palestine. it has not been good enough for the people of libya. it has not been good enough for the people of syria. it will not be good enough for the people of ukraine. that 99% club is a club, that at the end of the day, is at the cutting edge of .verything that we are against and so the, therefore, it is time for us to decide that we are going to win. it is time that we become the candidates who will say no to

this awful agenda that oppresses, and represses. i hope that you have received my message and that you understand that we have to utilize the schools that are there before us, the writings of others, the floor statements like gus savage's laying out the facts, that we have to understand who is our friend and who is in opposition to us. sometimes our friends come from places where we least expect it. and those who are opposed to us come from places where we least expect it. we have to understand that we have to remain open, our senses attuned to something new to this new paradigm that has been thrust upon us.

but if we want peace and not war, if we want dignity and not repression and oppression, if we division and not hate, then we are going to have to adjust to this new political paradigm and find friends and places that we did not find them .efore we're going to have to do things that we did nothing he could do before, and we're going to have to step outside of our level of comfort. so for our sake, and for our , let's do what we have to do to become winners. thank you. ♪ you from afar, cynthia

mckinney. i would like to introduce the ives editor and executo director of the washington report on middle east affairs and will give us a more complete picture on what congress has rwrought. >> thank you. you heard about the high cost of israel to our political process. you will hear touch more about what americans have paid for the u.s.-israel relationship. i will focus on the dollar and good sense. americans are concerned about nationc issues, as our emerges from the 2008 financial crisis. we are worried about forployment, rising food fuel, affordable housing, and health care costs. we are concerned about our aging infrastructure, crumbling roads, bridges, and decaying schools. it's your eating water systems and electrical power grids. despite our economic fears,

americans are a generous people. many of us believed we should help support not just here at home, where we had nearly 50 million americans living in poverty. we also want to give food and medical assistance to help the hungry and foldable, especially children, survive conflicts and crises in the developing world. most americans would be surprised to see how little foreign aid our country actually gives as a percentage of our gross thomistic product when compared with other nations. foreign aid is only one percent of our federal budget. but in tough economic times like those we are facing today, foreign aid is sometimes considered to be low hanging fruit coming easy to cut, because it does not directly benefit americans. eight are cutting back on compared to previous decades. i challenge american taxpayers to look a lot more closely at 3.1 billion u.s. eight

dollars every year. you know that more than 5% of our foreign aid is subsidizing one of the top 10 most powerful nations in the world? ofael, with a population nearly 8 million people, about the same number of people who live in hong kong or new jersey is the largest recipient of u.s. foreign aid, and that has been the case for more than a generation. wrote anago my dad article called true lies about u.s. aid to israel. it could have been written today. most aid recipients he said arturo developing nations, which either make their military bases available to the u.s. or have suffered some crippling blow to their abilities to feed their people, he said. israel, whose troubles arise

solely from its unwillingness to give back land it seized in the 1967 war in terms -- in return with peace for its neighbors, does not those criteria. israel tries to give americans the impressions that they are in grave danger. they face annihilation. their urgent appeals ring insignificant charitable kind of visions, was from well-meaning evangelical christians and american jews. u.s.hearted americans and todeductible to nations help the needy, including jewish immigrants and israeli soldiers. who knew we could get a tax write-off by sending pizzas and so does two israeli soldiers and tanks in checkpoints? birthright israel sent 37,000 young people on free trips to israel each year. 660lthy americans donate $

million a year for these trips, and students are not permitted to travel to the west bank or east jerusalem. does israel need our handout? let's compare their country to other countries'. gdp put it below britain and france, and just 34,000 500. at according to the national power index, israel's army ranks sixth in the world. israel has nuclear weapons, unlike any of its neighbors rate is your ranks fourth in technological capacity and is among the world's leaders in science. israel plus unemployment rate is is% among while america's seven percent, and europe's

average is 12%. is your ranks 15th on the you and development index. illustrating the high quality of life for jews living in israel. israelis can expect to live until they are 81.8 m and americans, 78.6. state-funded health care is ranked fourth in the world and the u.s. is in the bottom of bloomberg's list of 48 countries. israel receives more than $3.1 billion in direct foreign assistance each year, which is entirey 1/5 of americans' foreign agent budget. chuck hagel recently promised that this aid would not be reduced even while he listed significant cuts to america's defense budget. the house armed services committee voted to give 00 million fora $5

missile interception systems. president obama boasts the u.s. has never given so much military aid to israel as under his presidency. macarthur tallies up u.s. aid to israel for our magazine. defensiblevative accounting of u.s. direct aid to --ael, macarthur estimates her estimate does not include the occupation of iraq. hundreds of billions of dollars which many believe to have been undertaken for the benefit of israel. 2014, israel has billion from the foreign aid budget and $2 in federal loan guarantees. per day. million --

365 days year come if you add grants and loans. israel has received since 1949, a grand total of $134.21 billion, excluding the 10 billion in u.s. government loan guarantees it has drawn today. cheryl macarthur's calculations are modest. the economist estimated that 1.6ael costs the u.s. about $ trillion between 1973 and 2003 alone, more than twice the cost of the vietnam war. that is not all. some unique benefits. washington has granted israel 19 billion dollars in loan guarantees to make it easier to borrow each year. this means israel can start earning interest on the money

right away, and the u.s. government, which operates at a deficit, must ro the money to pay israel and then pay interest on the interest all year long. is your can use 25% of u.s. aid to buy arms from israeli companies. congressional legislation requires us to maintain israel's qualitative military edge. that means anytime another u.s.ry in the east buys arms, we have to make sure israel gets better weapons. we regularly transfer surplus military equipment to israel. israel is now storing equipment worth more than $1.2 billion. america also gives $1.5 billion to egypt's people. egypt's military, mostly.

gets $660 million a year. themo israel is a subject rarely makes it into the mainstream media. we were stunned when walter normallyckle this .nmentionable subject'to a out if israel can reduce it defense spending because of domestic economic problems, should not the united states, which must cut costs because of its deficit, consider reducing its aid to israel? i would like to conclude by stating the obvious. the u.s. president and congress give aid to israel for domestic reasons. jewish and please

evangelical christian voters who are often more pro-israeli man is really's. it is mind-boggling that when it comes to israel, u.s. taxpayer largess has no preconditions. israel has a green light to use tax revenue for military options, which destroyed palestinian or lebanese roads, water, electrical power plants, and please stations, not to mention shops, homes, schools, orchards. and sometimes israel demolishes ports, andgrounds, other vital infrastructure paid for by american taxpayers and donors. u.s. aidt time to halt until israel complies with you and resolutions, withdrawals from the occupied territories, and aches peace. according to surveys, a growing number of americans want israeli

aid levels the same, reduced, or canceled. with the prospect of prolonged in the unitedty states, overall, american public support for foreign aid nato mission in the years ahead. economic conditions in the united states should affect future aid to israel. cutting off aid to israel is the logical and economical and ethical thing for americans to do. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, delinda. that was very sobering. are there any questions? take them now, including questions for congressman findley.

we can get the microphone over to him if you would like to ask him something. do we have someone with a microphone here? ok, so we will start with you? yeah. my name is -- from virginia. i am 72 years old. i learned so many things in my life, especially living in the united states for 40-plus years. was gawas a boy, i ssed. the time came to eat lunch, a person made bread come and rubbed butter on top of the

bread for me and gave the bread to her son, has no bread on top of it, and i said, why? then i find out one day that she put a big chunk of butter inside the pocket of the bread. are treatinge the world and israel. >> thank you very much. [indiscernible] i guess we will alternate site here. >> why hasn't not been possible to designate aipac as a foreign lobby? has classified it as a membership organization, and we actually, the washington report and other is the worst other -- and distinguished people, brought a suit asking that it classify it as a political action committee. we did not win that suit. it was thrown out because the fec changed its rules and

aipac all of a sudden fit to he rules. that is part of the justice department, and the justice department has not enforced -- they have let it slide. they have not insisted that aipac be a foreign lobby. i should not talk about this butuse others are experts, when it started out it was a foreign lobby but it kept morphing into different forms, and the people who represent aipac did not have to register as agents of a foreign government. the rules that are there are not enforced, and other rules make it possible for aipac to slide under the radar. sir? haifa,s born in

palestine, in 1935. i became a refugee on my firbirthday. i plan to be a candidate for the u.s. senator from michigan. thank you. thank you. and allo thank alison the group that has brought this to light. it is really phenomenal now that israel is being exposed for what it really is. findleyar congressman talk about the two-state solution, and i want to tell you, congressman, it is totally unacceptable for us. it is only 28% of the land, and we will always be refugees. i think we should open up the borders and make palestine and peopleone nation and all live there. thank you. >> i would just like to say in

birk,se that besides mark bete noir is carl levin, and he has received more pro-israel pac money than any number in congress. his total is more than $3 million. >> hi. my question is regarding what you meant, what you said about the number of pro-israeli pacs has been trekking over the years, from over 100 to now there are about 30. i was wondering if there is a trend with regard to private individuals donating, because we saw that sheldon adelson donating $10 million to mitt romney, and someone on the democratic side donating all

these millions. do you have any opinion on whether the this is purposeful or whether it is just -- they just have to be seeing more private donations? >> the landscape is changing. it is making it possible for new categories of contributors to enter the arena. changed, andaw has that has enabled these other large pacs to come into existence. i think a lot of them do not have to report their donors. the small pacs do have to report their donors. it is less visibility, less transparent than the small pacs are required to be. ok, yheaheah. >> i'm from connecticut. i used to read a report that comes from aipac.

years ago i read in their that they ask each and every incoming congressman to sign a pledge of loyalty to israel. and i would like to ask paul finley if he knows about that him and i would like to ask anyone else if they can respond to that. does each and every congressman have to sign a pledge of loyalty to another country? there is no requirement, but many of them do, and those who do not are headed for trouble because the lobby for israel support, your level of support in both houses of congress. they do not always give it. this past year, we have seen two occasions where the lobby did not prevail. one had to do with obama's desire to fire a warning shot

yria, and the people back home made it plain to their representatives that they did not want that to happen and it died. there was another occasion in which israel did not get its way, and that had to do with the preliminary agreement on the go she nations with iran -- preliminary negotiations with iran. it may be they are on the downward side. i surely hope that is true. but maybe the american people are being better informed about the othere iran and issues that come before congress. i know that a lot of members of and paidare bought

for. you might as well face it. and they are not going to change. no resolutions that we have passed here will deter them. my book had two impacts, one very desirable, the other, not. one impact was to alert many people to the menace posed by the lobby to our country. signal toher was a the new members of congress, if you do not want to have the fate that came to paul findley and others, you better go along with israel. it has been a two edged sword. i am deeply grateful for what the washington report does on awakening the american people to the facts of life.

a reach a big audience, i think about 25,000 readers of the magazine, but it is only beginning, and one thing we all could do is to encourage other people to read that magazine. i have a number of friends who everyo its arrival other month, and they consider it the best in the world. thank you. >> thank you very much. here, the gentleman here in the second row. i just would like to ask, you suggested that aid should be cut off until israel accepts peace or just peace. but in the sense of values of fairness and assist, right and that, what do you think

the arab world should do in order to convince the united states that their national interest also is with the arab world? >> would you like to start that, paul? thank you for your question, ambassador. perhapsomments i made were not well understood. meritk it has unique because it appeals to the israelis who are troubled about the future of a jewish majority state. arabemographic tide of worth rates -- birthrates in another generation is going to result in more people of arab ancestry than jewish people in the areas that israel controls.

now, how are they going to do with that when the crisis comes? will they abide by what a rabbi called for in a book that he wrote some years ago -- arabs go, or they have to as their own survival say they have to drive the arabs out of the territory they are now in? that is hardly a prospect that appeals to anyone, i do not believe. and that is why i am very pleased with the proposal that i have made, which guarantees that israel will continue to be a jewish majority state for a long proposal,use under my the entirety of palestine will be outside the perimeter of

israel and not counted. in -- the arabe people in east sure some -- in east jerusalem would be outside. it will increase the lifespan in three or four interactions to a jewish majority state. but at the same time, it brings palestine,a state of and that i think is highly to the advantage of every party in the middle east and every party worldwide. so i hope you will give serious thought the choices, because we are headed for a dismal period in the middle east the way things are going. majority occurs,

there will be constant pressure to change the name of the state to the old name, palestine. that will cause a terrible backlash by the jewish people in palestine. it is far better to make a compromise that brings about an independent palestine right now and also brings about the assurance of a jewish majority israel for some time to come. thing?i add one i would like to add one more thing to the arab laeague ambassador's question, what the arab countries should do, and they are starting to buy weapons from other nations. they are starting to look to china and other countries to buy

things. they can use their economic power and they are already. i think americans, you have been friends with us for a long time, and maybe it is time for us to show tough love. i will be a little bit of a hog are and ask paul findley question. what the congress people say in the locker rooms about being cold and all the time to israel? what did they talk among themselves? >> a few of them will say, paul, i agree with you, i admire what you're doing, but i cannot do it, you understand? their attitude. most of them are good citizens or want to be. israel asfluence of of today is so great on capitol see dangers of

rviving the next election. most people in congress like to get reelected. that is number one. we can take a couple more questions. add what thed to arab american is doing here in the united states, please, can you answer me? b americanra are doing here in the united states, but what about us here? >> you mean why do not you have pacs? >> right. >> i think arab americans are from many different countries and they are trying to make a living in a very potentially hostile environment. there's definitely a change after 9/11. i think people were very fearful so they areout, and

newer to this country, they are not coalesced around a single issue, and the jewish lobby has been in development for 100 years. it is an uphill battle, but i think you have to just start participating and just keep at it and hope that as that is happening, other americans are getting more informed about what their money is doing and what the government is doing. i do not think it is only up to arab americans, by any means at all. >> [indiscernible] >> ok, i

>> we're reaknees -- reassessing the relationship, and thank you, all, for still being here, and with this first next panel, we'll be addressing specifically how the special relationship with israel came about. i'm honored to introduce the first speaker, dr. steven walt, professor of international affairs at harvard university and editor of cornell university and author of the israel lobby, thank you. [applause]

>> in 2006, we published an article in the london review of books entitle the israel lobby. by that summer, it had been down loaded about 300,000 times, generated a fire storm of criticism including some intense personal attacks on john and myself. although most of the criticisms were without foundation and personal smears were predictable, by mid summer, the tide had begun to turn. the journal's foreign policy organized a symposium on the article, and by fall, there was a book contract. we wrote the article, and we wrote the subs kept book because the israel lobby was a taboo subject people knew about, but hardly anybody talked about openly, and we wanted to challenge that and open up a broader discussion. again, i take the opportunity to look back and reflect on what's

changed since 2006. to do that, we summarize briefly what was said in the book and what we did not say. second, i want to consider what changed since 2006, but also what has not changed, and, lastly, i want to offer some recommendations based on our experience at this point what course of action would i prescribe going forward? so what we said, core organizations are very straightforward and not especially surprising. first, we argue there was a special relationship between the united states and israel that was unlike any other bilateral relationship in american history. we gave it enormous economic military and diplomatic support and did so almost unconditionally. moreover, israel was largely immune from criticism by american politicians. in fact, american politicians routinely expressed a level of devotion they would never utter towards any other foreign

country. second, we argued you couldn't explain this on either strategic or moral grounds. israel knife been a strategic asset in the cold war, but the cold war was over, increasingly a liability, and the miranda rule case gushed undermind by the treatment of the palestinians and especially by the occupation. yet the special relationship kept getting deeper and deeper and the question was why? third, the answer was the political influence of the loin. we define lobby as a loose coalition of individuals and organizations that work to promote the special relationship, and the groups did not agree on every issue, but all of them work to convince american politicians to support israel no matter what. we emphasized that these activities were, in most respects, no different than other interest groups like the nra, farm lobby, other ethnic lobbies, they were just particularly good at it. we showed in considerable detail

how groups in the lobby worked within the political system to get sympathetic people elected or appointed to keep positions to keep those with different views out of power and pressure politicians to embrace policy preferences. we documented how individuals and groups in the lobby try to control discourse on this subject by writing books and articles themselves, by funding think tanks like the washington institute by putting pressure on other media organizations whenever they publish or broadcast things critical of israel or the lobby. some members tried to speer opponents usually by accusing them of being antisemitic even as completely false. we argue the special relationship and the other policies pushedded by the lobby were not in the american national interest or in israel's

interest either. this makes it impossible for the united states to be an honest broker, which is why american efforts to solve the conflict had failed. they had grown steadily for more than 40 years. the lobby and neoconservatives within it played a key role in the bush administration to invade iraq in 2003 and the lobby work to thwart iran, a policy, by the way, that failed to halt iran's nuclear program and increase the risk of war. we argued the united states should have a normal relationship with israel, not a special relationship. we said the united states should come to israel's aid if survival at risk, but use american leverage to get a two-state solution, and we suggest a powerful proisrael lobby would be a good thing if it's supporting smarter policies that were in america's and israel's

interest. we were not saying anything other countrier had not said before. people like george ball, michael, and what we wrote was also exon knowledge inside the beltway. bill clinton said a-pack was, quote, better than anyone else lobbying in this town. politicians as diverse as lee hamilton, chris clollings, barry goldwater, and newt gingrich had written or spoken about the power in the past. even passionate defenders of israel like jeffrey goldberg had written proudly about clout. we provoked an extreme reaction, partly because we provided more depails about the lobby's influence, and partly because we were both rather middle of the road boring figures from well-known universities, partly because we were not left wing, we were not muslim, not arab,

not married to palestinians, and partly because it was obvious in the wake of 9/11 and the iraq war that something had gone badly awry in u.s. middle east policy. now issue turning to what we didn't say. the rather hysterical reaction to the work confirmed our point. it was difficult to have a calm reasoned fact based discussion on the topic because most of our critics could not fine fault with our logic or fault with our elfed. they accused us of saying things we have not said, and in most cases, things that were the exact opposite of what we had written. i'm not going to bore you with false accusations, but just for the record, here's what we did not say. we did not say that the israel lobby was a conspiracy part of a deep plot to control the world, and, informs, we said over and over it was nothing of the sort, but an interest group like so

many others here. we did not question the legit legitimacy or right to exist, but defended it. we didn't blame israel for all the problems that troubled the middle east, and with didn't say that a northerly relationship with israel and a two-state solution would immediately solve all of them. we said it would help, but it was not a magic bullet or anything like that. we did not say the lobby controlled every aspect of u.s. middle east policy or argued that it was the only reason the united states invaded iraq or has a bad relationship with iran. we did not accuse members of the lobby of disloyalty or either argued or hinted that some students should be done to limit the lobby's political power or marginalize supporters. finally, we did not connect israel or the lobby to the 9/11 attacks themselves. we didn't say these things because we didn't think they

were true; right? that's important. we were accused of saying all of the things, of course, and people in the lobby made repeated and sometimes successful efforts to silence us, virtually every plaices we were invited to speak said they were pressuredded to cancel appearances, and a number of places, the chicago counsel on global affairs, google headqawrpts, the city university of new york, succumbed to the pressure, and campaign to silence us fail, book sold well, translated to over 20 languages, and john and i remained active participants in the debate on this and other foreign policy issues. the real question is what impact did this have? that whainged? what hasn't? i think the most dray maltic and obvious change since 2006 has been an opening up of discourse on the general topic. discussions of middle east policy and u.s.-israeli relations are open, wider range

of views expressed. some evidence behind the claim. tom friedman, roger cohen, and andrew sullivan write openly, and at times, critically about israeli policy, about american support for that policy, and the lobby's role in promoting it. there's pieces that sound like us, although i doubt he'd admit it. articles about america's middle east policy in general mention a-pack's influence, it's just no longer a big secret or stuck in the background of the peace. john stuart, you watch comedy central, he's done a number of segments that is making fun of a-pack as well. looks like peter binehart's crisis of zionism, transforming the israel lobby, the recent genesis followed in our footsteps documented the role of

the lobby in u.s. policy. other people like mj rosenberg emerged as articulate critics, and max bloomenthal published,s of israel *eu9s. websites now provide alternative per perspectives, and groups like jewish for peace and peace now and many others have become more visible and effective in presenting a view to the traditional lobby organization. now, note, these groups are not homogeneous, they do in the all agree on every single issue. my point is simply there's a much wider range of views out there now, and they are getting notice. this development is, of course, not entirely our doing because a number of events in the real worlds have made the lobby's power hard to miss. the complete failure of barack

obama's push for the two half state solution in the first term, crazen american response to operation led including the american trashing of the goldstone report. the spectacle of the 2012 # election when the g.o.p. candidates looked like fools trying to out pander each other in the g.o.p. primary season and where adelson spent a hundred million dollars trying to buy the election, first for newt gingrich and then mitt romney. because discourse was open and people were not aware of the lobby, people noticed them and put two an two together. the accusation of semitism is losing power to intimidate, and let me be clear about this, like all forms of bigotry, anti-semitism is a dispickble practice, and everyone of us should condemn it when it appears. at the same time, using false

charges of anti-semitism to stifle debate and destroy reputations is a tactic that has no place in the democracy and people who use it in that way should be called into account. i think -- [applause] fortunately, this tactic has been so overused and used against so many people who are obviously not anti-semitism, it's no longer able to stifle discussion, and that's going to make it easier to have an honest conversation going forwards. the third change is that some of the policies, the lobby promoted, are increasingly hard to defend. instead of a weak israeli surrounded by hostile arab goliath, there's a powerful israel maintaining a brutal occupation for more than four decades using its military power to dominate the palestinian population denied political rights.

apac and other groups lost several important fights in recent years. they could not convince the bush administration to use force against iran or support on israeli attack on iran. they could not derail the nomination of chuck hagel to be secretary of defense, yet groups tried to do so in ugly ways. earlier this year, they could not convince obama to bomb syria, and more recently, apac could not get the senate to pass a resolution threatening greater economic sanctions on iran because it was widely recognized this would immediately derail possibility of a diplomatic deal. these episodes remind us that the lobby does not control u.s. middle east policy, does not get every single thing it wants, especially when what it wants might push the united states closer to war. that's a lot for any lobby to ask for, and it takes very special circumstances to hold

something like that off. the events, i think, tell us that apac and company are not invincible. now, those setbacks have let a number of observers to conclude apac in deep trouble, lobby influence broken, and let me say why it's premature because there's a number of things that have not changed. first of all, special relationship is still in tact. we still give generous assistance even though israel's a wealthy country and has clear military superiority over the neighbors, and we give aid unconditionally, there's no hint we might reduce our existence to get israel to stop building settlements to a viable state. second, that's, of course, why the peace process continues to go nowhere. remember, obama came into office promising a two-state solution in his first term and called for a settlement freeze in his famous cairo speech in june

2009. he's been in steadfast retreat ever since, and he basically gave up on this in the first term handing the problem over to john kerry. but there's little evidence that kerry's efforts succeed,s settlements expanding all the while. it was noticed, by the way, a two-state solution may well be impossible at this point, but politicians in the district of columbia tonight to pretend it is the only american goal. i'm a two-state person nyce, but i'm also a realist, and at some appointment, when one acknowledges the possibility we're not going to gets a solution. third, the lobby still gets enormous deference from american politicians. a few weeks ago, the left wing progressive mayor of new york city, bill deblasio was recorded telling an apac group that defending israel was part of the job description as mayor

of new york city. if you were paying attention, earlier this week, a number of prominent american politicians, incoming secretary of state kerry, they gave usual flower speeches at the apac policy conference, and even today, there's no other groups to get to this kind of deference and attention here in washington. discourse is more open now, it is still, i think, extremely risky for young, ambitious, foreign policy want-to-bees to question key elements of middle east policy and especially the special relationships. you can did you have tenure at university. if you don't have your heart set on working in the u.s. government, or if you are retired, but it's hazard hard to find people inside the foreign policy establishment willing to say what you say on the issue out loud, and look at how chuck infamous power contorts

themselves during the con confirmation hearing, and you see lobbies continued influence. we're a long way from a deal with iran or a two-state solution, and the lobby is working 24/7 to make sure that the united states doesn't do anything israel doesn't want. in short, reports smiezed reports were exaggerated, and given the fact and what to do about it. let's give you four basic lessons here. there's all the features that make an interest group powerful, and it yewses all the tools availability in a democracy, direct lobbying, financial contributions, grassroots organizing, pressure oned media, ect.. there is nothing magical, nothing conspirator yal about this. they are all too influn enissue

because they have not faced strong and well organized oppositions, and if they face greater head winds today, say on iran, it's because others are starting to play that political game more effectively. lesson two, it's going to get worse before it gets better. the lobby's main goal is protecting the special relationship, and that's going to be harder to do as israel moves right where and as it becomes obvious is this is not a two-state solution. the control over the west bank is recognized more and more as a par tide, and pressure to give the palestinians political rights is going to grow, and one person, one vote is easy for americans to understand, and if you saw the poll, they favor a two state solution no longer favorable, and they favor one-state democracy. getting the united states to back up states privileges one

ethnic or religious group over others is a hard sell over time, and to try to make that sell, groups like apac have to do more to try to influence discourse, discredit critics, but the more strient, the more turned off over time. lesson three, be realistic and build a big tempt. reversing policies that have been in place for decades does not happen overnight, and you don't do it by writing a single article or book. what one needs is a big tent for people who want a normal relationship with israel and a middle east policy that conforms to a broad conception of the american national interests. that does not mine that every in the room has to agree on everything. israel lobby is a loose coalition united by a couple shared goals, and we should take a page from their play book

while making sure our ranks are not filled with those who sow hatred or discredited conspiracy theories. if we write the book today, how might it be different? well, it would have to be a lot longer. [laughter] a lot of information came to light since 2007 and argue the entire obama administration is case study of the lobby's continued influence, so, you know, we have to do volume ii, just as long as the first edition was. to be honest, john or i would not change our central arguments at all because events since 2006-2007 have vindicated almost all of what we wrote. to repeat, we wrote the book to encourage an open discussion of the issues because we thought a more open debate brings a lot of additional truth to light and would be better for everybody in

the ends. i think so that's precisely what has happened we do not take credit for it. i want to close thanks those of you who worked for many years long before we got into this to counter the lobby's argument and hasten the day when the relationship is guided primarily by interests and moral principles and not by domestic politics. when that day arrives, it's better for us, but also better for israel and also neighbors as well. thank you very much. [applause]

>> wars, terrorism, oil, and with regards to the u.s.-israeli relationship, i charted the process using british and u.s. archives becoming engaged and alive with israel from the declaration until the obama presidency. the book was published in 2010. well, in the beginning, there was woodrow wilson. he had the declaration under political pressure from supreme court justice who was the american born son of chuck jews and president of the american committee for zionist affairs. wilson initially opposed the declaration because it contravenedded his own 14 points, particularly his emphasis on national self-determination, and, of course, roving around the middle east in the crane commission

surveying 260 communities in palestine, none of whichmented jewish settlers or european powers defining their affairs, but be an american mandate because the u.s. would never let anybody else run our affairs, but just let the majority rule. they showed wilson he gained politically supporting a jewish state. between 1900 and 1914, a hundred thousand european jewish immigrants came into the u.s. every year, settled in compacts and in crucial cities like new york, chicago, cleveland, st. louis, and senatety, and anyone who wanted to dominate the electoral college needed these places. as the second world war wound down, fdr struggle with the question of palestine. there's the jewish settlers, refugees, and increasing the jewish population from a small

amount to 30 #% of the total by 1945. now, fdr did not worry about palestine that much because he had bigger things to worry about at the time, but he worry the about palestine because the king of saudi arabia worried and planned to make the oil reserve after the war, and he met with the king on the u.s. and the s org ez canal, attorney, one of the things that fdr said afterwards, i can't understand why he keeps going back to the subject of pal palestine. at the same time, reminded by a new york paper in 1945, and they would be in the review, and entitled to votes while only 266 elected for president. whether it's one party or the

other will make a difference in 94 votes. now, the same dynamic provailed in the other key battleground states of the time which were new york, ohio, new jersey, and massachusetts. they may swing to one party or another by a few thousand votes, and they are concentrated in doubtful states, end quote. they got the message loud and clear. secretary of state, burns and marshall, and secretary of state, monitored and chabled by jacobson and max who they called the back room boys in the white house, and george marshall trying to build a big cold war coalition around the world saying this would weaken the coalition, rude, as he put it, the political purposes of the back room, and for their part, niles scorned the stripe participant boys in the state department and the defense

department and showed them the mess. there are 5 million jews in america, 20-fold increase since the 1880s and organized in pressure groups like the pressure groups of american zionist and jewish committee and vote. the back room boys demanded a house cleaning and an appointment of somebody trustworthy on palestine matters. people at state are really pitching things up. he agreed saying critics, i'm sorry, gentlemen, but i have to answer to the hundreds of thousands anxious for zionism, and i don't have hundreds of thousands arabs amongst my con stitch wents, take k the portfolio away, and gave it to clark clifford, and niles, and it would be managed for domestic, political dividend strategy be damned. lloyd henderson dismissed two arabists by the zionist lobby and sent off to be the am ambassador to india.

marshall told the president he was weakening the u.s. globally by the support for zionist and marshall and he understanderson were for arab states in palestine. truman in the back room boys wanted partition with the best areas, 55% of the total plan that to the jews. which would, of course, explain arabs in any cold car coalition against the soviets. u.s. policy marshall scolded the president, has to be based on u.s. national interest and not on your considerations. three days before the british scud l in 48, marshall spoke the sharpest rebuke delivered to the president in the oval office when he told truman he was putting the great office of the president at risk by supporting the zionist against the arab majority of palestine. the president, marshall said, so boar nateing a crisis to a transparent dodge to win a few votes. they called # the emerging state

of israel a pig and a poke, a state with high strategic costs and few apparent benefits. on the 1948 presidential election, tom, projected to be the winner right up until election day, had a stout pro-israel plank and says he could do no less, pledging full recognition to the jewish state despite the small numbers, half as many jews and palestine as arabs, and tolerated the brutal assault of the palestine's inhas been taints in the 1948 war, creating the palestinian refugees number growing to 5 million today. in 1948 war, lick dation of the assassination internationalled the question to america's great disadvantage. now all arabs in the region took the question as their touch stone and made it sort of the

focus of all the relations with america. president eisenhower, who vowed to downgrade israel to improve america's total situation in the middle east, keeled over the pressure at home. there are 5 million jewish voters in the u.s., and very few arabs, and before the 1956suez war, secretary of state dulles warned the israelis to make concessions to improve security and comet the existence of the free world. after the war when ike forced israel to discourt gaza, the israelis used concessions to fore close, forever, apparently, all talk of widdling down the 1949 borders for compensating refugees, a situation that prevails to this day. senators of both parties, piled on for short term political advantage in 1956 decrying the policy of squeezing israel, the

saim senseless rite rick of today. the british am base ambassador in washington was astonished by this, writing americans crave oil and space in the cold war, but refuse to coax confessions from the zionist realmlies loming them for efficiently, and meanwhile, the american security guarantee without any sacrifice at all, unquote. that ambassador advised this for a usable price, land or refugee, but saying he couldn't saying with pressure and elections coming on, i can't any longer refrain from they started political factors as well as, quote, the terrific control the jew has over the american media, end quote. reporting the americans guarantee israeli frontiers without sacrifice at all on

israel's part as we still do today. it made and makes no strategic sense whatsoever. in 1962, jfk had his own stab at a peace process, trying to pressure israel into accepting the carnegie endowment johnson plan, resettling in israel or cash compensate palestine arab refugees, number growing to 1.3 million. kennedy dissuaded by the white house desk officer for israel, a man named meyer feldman, reflecting immense growing power of israel and u.s. decision making. he said disengage, mr. president, or there's a violence eruption domestically and in the relations with israel. jfk not only disengaged, but rewarded israel will aid dollars, early warning radars, and punching a hole in the u.s. em embargo on the sale of the weapon systems in the middle east maintained until that time. characteristic fearlessness,

israelis deployed hawks around the nuclear weapons facility as if to mock kennedy's efforts to shut it down. sky hawk in 56 # and 68 set precedent of creating the relationship, and cutting edge weaponry, and joining exercising, and that multibillion dollar business has engaged the defense industry and dpecht congressman in the already robust lobby. it was shortly before his death, president in meetings in palm beach, characterized the u.s.-israeli alliance as noless i want mat than our relationship with great britain. privately, however, he deplored the policy which disrespond, a palestinian liberation movement, and clo, this was now become the rallying cry of every arab

government in the region, vastly complicating u.s. initiatives and strategy in the middle east. lbj, of course, paid little attention in the middle east, everything to do with the middle east must be subject to events in southeast asia. when he did pay tension a, he viewed the region like truman, a place to win jewish votes and u.s. elections. i've got three cones in the cabinet, lbj said, no one does more for zionist rail than i will. in 1965, u.s. ambassador to israel wally brasher warned the idea which now towers over the arab rivals, must be presented for making any new annexations. such argue in 1965 do damage to u.s. interests. if israel attacks, u.s. imposes merciless sanctions. not enough to contain the arabs, but we have to contain both

sides. well, in the 1967, six-day war, israel launched the surprise attack on egypt, jordan, and syria, quadrupling territory and creating 3,000 new refugees alongside the old ones. far from sanctions israel for the attack on the uss liberty, johnson sat on hands entrenching the forest fire -- forever war still sputtering in the territory. instead l rolling back as ike had done in 1956, johnson approved them as well as the sale of sales to israel comments american jews want lbj to spend the six weeks, but do not send a jew driver to vote thawm. under attack by rfk and mccarthy for the 68 nomination, lbj did not dare, so alienate the lobby. from lbj on, they tolerated illegal israeli settlements in the occupied territory, a process called redeeming

israel's narrow hip, and were narrow, of course, because despite this, palestinians of the 1967, most stayed put in connection withing population from 2 # 00,000 to a million. u.s. pressure on moscow in the 70s, i just have a little bit more to get through here, and i hope you indulge me, aimed with pro-israel hawks like jackson, filling up the west bank, gaza sets lament with russian jews. 40,000 imgrants a year, 35 million a year in expenditures enabled by u.s. aid dollars created new facts on the ground we deal with today. we disagree with the policy he wrote in 1971, but we say nothing to the israelis who assume acquiescence. the first secretary of state, william rogers, the first dip mat to use the term

"palestinian" rather than refugees, tried to roll back refugees, but was stymieded drying a wedge between the u.s. friendly government of nixon and that much rogers, another tried and true israeli gamet. kissinger pa faired no better, throwing away the best opportunity to rain major game changing confessions in the yom yom kippur war. nixon and kissinger had an air lift to tel-aviv. rather than trading weapons for concessions, the courts advised by secretary of defense tee assume that israeli gratitude results in concession after the war. there would not be any concession. before the war ended, nixon realized the error, making the israelis as he put it, quote, more difficult to deal with than ever before, unquote. during the crisis, he asked principles meeting the following

question. is there a difference between the defending israel and defending israel's conquest? everyone in the room said, yes. well, then, he said, we should only ship the israelis' soupbles, fuel and ammunition and hold back planes and tanks until after the war to use as leverage to pry israelis out of the occupied territories. kiss l jeer assumed he was smarter. he said, no, if we kick israelis in the teeth, notice the language, over this, they never listen to us again. makes no sense. kiss l jeer, clearly, a smart guy, i don't know what was ailing him at the time, kissinger said he could manage the israelis. across the suez canal, a cold war crisis. they can't do this to us again, nixon wailed. they did it to us for four years, but no more, as if. nixon push pushed by key

senators like jackson, church, and some of whom planning to run for president in 76, rewarded israeli intransigents after the war with 2.2 billion in new military aid. nix yon and kissing gore reenforce the kennedy policy. we have to let israel use weapons to possess security. the only way that made real goax or sanctions possible was to give them more stuff, harms and money, and merely hope they give a little to get more. points made very well by steve wall and john in the books. well, nixon followed this to the present day. the u.s.-israeli relationship continues with the same tail wag dog quality description, and obama administration has burnt its fingers approaching the issue of the peace settlement. it's been transferred to john kerry with tremendous ambition and energy, i suspect,

insufficient to arrange a settlement that israel is so proficient at resisting. if there is to be a final settlement hinted rearlier this week, it's less from an american diplomatic pressure, which the israelis routinely ignore and more from fears of the cds movement and from the calculation that with the middle east splinter the, they could join a sunni coalition against iran and clients. a palestinian state is the precondition for such a revolution, and, yet, in view of the history described, i'm not holding my breath. thank you very much. [applause] knicks is professor of law at ohio state university, and author of a number of excellent books on the issue, and i believe he'll be signing some books afterwards as will some of

the others. >> thank you. special relationship has a very significant impact in terms of the position of the united states takes on the key legal issues involve the in the conflict, and, in general, they say our positions are out of step with the positionings of most of the world community, and that it's one of the major reasons for the negative perception of the united states in the region. that you've heard about this morning. i want to go through a number of key legal issues. the first, on this one, i think the administration is not quite as negative as you'll find me saying than the others. relating to the status of jerusalem, the congress passed a law a couple years ago to move

the u.s. embassy to jerusalem, and success of prosecute now resisted. doing that, we have a general in jerusalem which reports directly to the state department. it has not been put under the embassy tel-aviv, and so as a technical matter, the executive branch has preserved positions that the status of jerusalem is not determined, and we've not given into the israeli's position on that. similarly, with respect to as passports, congress passed a law in two saying a person born in jerusalem who would be a u.s. stts has the right being issued a u.s. passport that israel placed in the little box as to place of birth.

the administration has resisted that, and has refused to comply with that. this went to court, decide the quite recently here in the court of appeals for the dc circuit that it's within the power of the president to decide on issues of diplomatic recognition, and, therefore, it was within the power of the president to refuse to apply that act. okay. so that's the good news. that took about 35 seconds. [laughter] the question of territory is a bit bleaker. you heard this morning references to the 1967 war, and this is one on which the united states, you know, should have been taking the view that president eisenhower took in 1956 when the war broke out in 1967, but it didn't, and i think

we're living with the consequences of that to this day. the bkdz of the war and as mentioned briefly by general david this morning, that it was an attack by israel. it's commonly sought that israel justified the attack as self-defense, that is egypt was going to attack. in fact, that's not what it said in security counsel. what it said in the security counsel was that egypt, had, in fact, attacked israel on the morning of june 5th, and the israeli military action was a response to that. that was the position of them all through the discussions in the security counsel in june of 1967. it was, of course, a story that had been invented because at a certain point, the israeli high command realized that the egyptian army was over extended

in the troops brought up to the border, and that they had a pretty good chance of destroying the egyptian army if they attacked, and that essentially is what they did. they were in discussion with the johnson administration for about two weeks prior june 5th, 1967. they repeated communications and in treaties to the johnson administration saying, you know, we think that the egyptians are going to attack, and johnson administration kept responding by saying, no, it's not true. the cia was analyzing on a daily basis and kept telling the administration i think accurately that there was no indication that egypt was about to attack. egypt was concerned that israel was written to syria and wanted to detour attacks from israeli syria, okay, but that discussion

came to a standoff, but johnson was fairly trong in telling israel not to attack egypt anytimely, israelis impave up and told him to come to washington to put to the administration a different way. he did not say please support us if we attack. he said, you know, we're going to attack. what are you going to do? the sponsz he got from a number of of the officials that the u.s. government keeps quiet, that is it would not do a repeat in 1956, and that it would let israel get away with it if it were able to be done relatively quickly. went back, had a meeting on the

night of 1967, and what he told as to the impression of the johnson administration and what it would do if israel went ahead and attackedded, he said, they will not shiver. meaning they will not move. they will not be unhappy if we do it. he was right. when it happened, the administration immediately knew the stories that would be told were false, but they decided to keep quiet about it. we are living with that ever since, and after about early july, the israeli government stopped saying that egypt attacks, and there was a press conference, asked about the war, and he said, well, egypt was going to attack us, and that's why we had to attack. they implicitly, you know,

acknowledged the story as it had been false, but this story about their having been under threat took hold, and that's the dominant version of the war. if you look at justifications given in a decade ago now for the bush document, when that was discussed, the policy about preemptive use of wars with the united states, those who trieded to write theoretical justification for the doctrines fished around to find presidents for it, and the only one they found was the 1967 war, which, of course, a false precedent, but that was the only precedent they could find in recent state practices for the proposition that it's okay to invade in substantial anticipation of an attack, against an attack that anticipated that's not close to being immediate.

so on this issue, i think the administration is quite efficient, and ask the administration now, who was responsible for the 1967 war? you know, they are not going to give you a straight story on it. the other major issue is a question of palestine's status and whether palestine is a state so an issue that's come up before the general assembly as the u.n. and in the security counsel, and in particular, with the application for admission to the u.n. that was filed in 201 by the government of palestine, and as you are aware, the security counsel, kept it from coming to a vote and the palestine government subsequently applied for admission which is u.n. specialize the agency and member

is open only to a state, and there, there was no veto possibility, and it passed, so palestine was admitted adds a state, and then more recently went in 2012 to the general assembly of the u.n. for a statement, essentially that pal stein is a state, and other states that have have that resolution, but have diplomatic relations with palestine, and if you had that number to the number that voted in favor of the resolution, you get somewhere around 158 states that have accepted palestine as a state. the united states resist that saying, realm, palestine can't be a state until it geshts that

with israel, which, you know, does not make a great deal of sense to me, and suspect an accurate reflection of international practice about statehood, i mean, when you dwet 158 states saying another entity is a state, that's pretty strong. when this resolution was adopted in the general assembly, and this is november of 20 # # 12, susan rice spoke in explanation of votes for the united states, the united states voted -- didn't motion -- voted against the resolution, and she said today's voting should not be misconstrued by any as constituting eligibility for united nations membership. it does not, the resolution does not establish that palestine is a state. well, the resolution says palestine is a state, technical matter, may be true that the resolutions are not in

character, and what's critical is acceptance by other parts of the world, and you have it. goes back, in fact, to the treaty that set up iraq and palestine and syria as states. if you look at that treaty, it refers to those three entities as being state detached from the empire, and the international community accepted those as the state's going back that far. the issue of settlements, another one on which the united states' position has been very uncertain was you had analysis of this during the carter administration where the legal adviser came out very strongly saying that this settlement is illegal under the geneva geneva convention of 1949, and then you

had president reagan coming in and saying something, realm, we're not sure about that. there's obstacle, but from that time, there was not much discussion of the legality of settlements, and when the bilateral process started in the mid-90s, the united states' position in the security counsel that it was not support any security counsel resolutions critical of israel and on settlements, and as a result, it began vetoing resolutions critical of israel and settlements, constructions in particular, around jerusalem. more recently secretary of state, she began referring to new settlements as being illegal, which implies that the prior settlements were okay. now, we get a statement, this is now november of last year from secretary kerry who says,

settlements are illegitimate. they backed off the word "illegal," and i don't know what distinction they see between "illegal "and "illegitimate." he was not that clear. he made a statement in a way it could have applied to priority settlements, but, still, it's very ambiguous. this is, of course, to get the strong opinion of the world community on the question of settlements a enat united states is also pressured the palestine government not to go to the international criminal court. which would be a way of dealing with the settlements, and to my mind, the only way within legal principle that the settlements can presently be dealt with because the negotiation and pressure from the united states doesn't seem to be very eskive. the interinarm criminal court statute defines war crimes, one of the war crimes with others

defined as war crimes, one is transferring civilians into territory under belligerent occupation. it's a slam dunk with respect to the settlements in the west bank, and that, i think, actually should be pursueded by the international criminal court even without any further action on the part of the government of palestine, but on the basis of the conferment jurisdiction that palestine did to in 2009 after the gaza war when it filed a statement with the international criminal court saying that it conferred jurisdiction for any war crimes or genocide, crime against humanity, committed in the territory of palestine. the prosecutors should work on that basis, and go ahead and

investigate it. fortunately, the prosecutors first said, well, i'm not sure whether palestine is a state, and so i was mystified by that. i sent him an e-mail in mash much of 2009 saying, by the way, palestine is a state, and you have every basis for this, and eventually other people started sending memos and the other direction, and so eventually, invited us to come to the hague and argue it out, and we went, and geld came and argued against jury diction, and eventually, unfortunately, the prosecutor's office decided it was not yet positioned to make a determination as to whether palestine was a state. this is after three years of saying it was struggling with the issue that decided that it was not in a position, and that, in fact, led to palestine governments to go to the general asemibly and get the resolution adopted in november of 2012. there's also the question of repatriation of refugees from 19

# 48. i'll finish with that. here, the united states' position used to be very strong. if you look at the proceedings of the u.n. general assembly in december of 1948, when the resolution was being adopted, calling on israel to repatriate. they shamed not be pawned of the a political settlement. the position was we will deal with the refugee issue when, and if we get recognition from the arab states, and, indeed, he was saying, no, this is humanitarian issue to be dealt with. the united states voted in favor of general assembly resolution 194 that was adopted then, and every year thereafter when it was reiterated by the general assembly up until the mid-90s, the united states voted in favor of those reiterations of general assembly resolution 194, and that, then, we stopped.

now, of course, israel has a peace agreement with egypt, with jordan, and it negotiates an agreement with israel, and the rationale, if that was the real rationale, they should be prepare to accept the refugees. this not pressed by the united states in the negotiation at all. it couldn't save it in the year 2000, and he did not take the question very seriously. mr. kerry, apparently suggested that maybe 80,000 should be taken back, that the rumor, but r clearly, we are not taking a strong position. thank you. [applause] president of the counsel for national interest and executive director.

thank you. [applause] thank you. thanks. thank you. [applause] there are 12 citations in the book for everything i say, and some will be quite surprising, so i want you to look at the citations if you'd like. for most of my life, i knew very little about israel-palestine. i was deeply aware of the nazi holocaust, sympathetic to ids real, and saw the movie, "exodus," but in the fall of 2000, the departure of my youngest child coincided with images of children throwing stones against tanks. i finally began to pay attention it a distance part of the world that i had thought had little to do with me and my family. when i paid attention, i noticed how one side of the news coverage seemed to be, providing far more information about

israelis than palestinians. i looked what the internet had to offer with a wealth of information directly from the region from palestinians, israelis, and others that revealed a far darker reality than our media was reporting, a reality in which israel's massively powerful military, it appeared, was using extreme vines against the population largely unarmed, killing them and injurying most of these. the strategy i read in a report by israeli academic was to keep death below the world that triggers world outrage while maiming as many as possible. a common practice was for israeli snipers to target. in the first month alone, over 7,000 palestinians were injured incoming numerous children. i know little of this was reported by one of the main news

souses, npr, and i began to know the pattern of media filtration that comets through today in which some facts are repeated and some never reported. while we repeatedly are told that rockets fired from gaza into israel, we are never told that in the over ten years of home made rocket fires killed a total of 29 israelis, and nor do we learn that during the same period israeli forces have killed 4,000. we tend to hear detail about israeli children who have been tragically killed. we hear far less often about the palestinian children who are killed first and in far greater numbers. it is my view that all of these deaths are tragic. after several months of researching the information, i

finally decided i needed to go and see for myself. if things were truly as bad as i was beginning to believe. i quick my job as a small town weekly newspaper editor and traveled over to the region as a freelance reporter traveling throughout the west bank and gaza in february and march of 2001 long before rocket fire from gay gaza and took photographs of what i saw. when i returned, i began an organization to tell americans the facts on this issue. i also began to study it intensely. i was especially curious about the u.s. connection, reading book after book by republicked authors and scholars. i was completely unprepared for what i found. i discovered an extraordinarily powerful and pervasive special interest lobby of which i previously had been almost entirely unaware. even more surprising, i

discovered that this was just the latest incarnation of a movement that had been active in the united states for over a century. a movement called political zionism, zionists, that have profoundly impacted my nation and others. yes, many americans do not know exist. i discovered that political zionism, a movement to create a jew irk state in palestine had begun in the late 1800s, and that by the early 1890s, there were organizations promoting the ideology in new york, chicago, baltimore, milwaukee, boston, philadelphia, and by the 1910s, the number of zionist in the u.s. approached 20,000 and including lawyers, professors, and businessmen, and was becoming a movement to which, as one historian put it, congressmen, particularly in the eastern began to listen. that was the 1910. by 1918, there were 200,000

zionists in the u.s., and in 1948, nearly a million. they placated, the u.s. state department opposed zionism, believing it was coventer to both u.s. interests and others. ..

>> the zionist strategy will seek to involve the united states in a continuously widening deepening series of operations. such members and reports go on and on from the state department and the pentagon and others. during this time, however, they were working strenuously and ultimately successfully to combat such wide recommendations. implementing a wide range of strategies from open public advocacy to various covert activities.

[inaudible] the majority of whom for many decades were either nonviolent are active zionists and who still today most likely are misinformed on what is being done at legibly in their name. in 1974 he zionist launch a political and public relations defense to capture congressmen, clergy, business and labor's support. a directive order in every community, it an american cream untrained committee must be organized. and we reach into every department of an american flight. when britain failed to exceed two zionist demand at one point come in american rabbi implemented a plan to drop bombs

on london and devoted to the paris police. twenty-five years later with his terrorist past expunged from the public's memory from he became close to richard nixon and nixon jocularly called him i rabbi. perhaps my most surprising discovery of so many surprising findings involved an extremely well-known and highly regarded supreme court justice. according to a 1970 article in the respected scholarly journal by doctor sarah schmidt commence really professor of jewish history at hebrew university of jerusalem and israel. former editor of foreign affairs

and "the new york times" an associate of the jfk school of government at harvard, according to the sources and some others lewis was a leader of an elitist secret society. the society promoted zionism brought the united states. initiatives underwent an induction ceremony much and he was told that we are about to take a step that will bounce you to a single cause for all your life. until our purpose shall be accomplished, you will be a fellow of a brotherhood whose body will regard his greater than any others in your life. including a family and a nation. the supreme court justice brandeis was the leader of that.

the numbers -- we on a friendly basis, including action to further the zionist cause. as early as 1915, a leader went around suggesting that the british might have benefit on a formal declaration in support of the rich national homeland in palestine. that sounds very much like the balfour declaration. brandeis elected to use activities secretly through his lawyer lieutenants, another especially influential supreme court justice. below you report that brandeis was someone who used his access to a advocate for the zionist cause serving with british zionists and the president.

in fact some zionist leaders brag and other officials rightly or wrongly believed that they have played a significant role in the u.s. decision to enter world war i. both jewish and vigils and others attempted to oppose the zionist endeavors. one was ricky thompson. according to this, thompson was one of the most famous journalist of the 20th century. she had graced the cover of time magazine and has been profiled by america's top magazines and was so well known that a hollywood movie featuring catherine had hepburn were basen dorothy thompson. she had been the first

journalist to be expelled by adolf hitler and raised this ahead of journalists. she had originally supported zionism, but then had visited the region in person and she began to speak about the hundreds of thousands of palestinians that israel had finally forced out to create a jewish state in the land that was already inhabited. thompson was viciously attacked in an orchestrated campaign of what she termed prerecession asian and character assassination. she wrote that it has been boundless going into my personal life. before long her column and radio programs and her speaking engagements and her family and her fame were gone. she has largely today been erased from history. in the coming decades other

americans were similarly written out of history. forced out of office, their lives and careers destroyed and history was distorted in the race than bigotry promoted and supremacy disguised. very few people know this history. excellent book that documented are out of print. the facts virtually unknown to the vast majority of americans. instead, false theories have been promulgated with mendacious analogies and chosen author celebrated and others assigned to oblivion. george orwell once wrote who controls the past is the future. controls the present controls the past. perhaps by rediscovering the past we will gain control of the

president and make a better future for all of our children. they do. [applause] [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> i believe that scott is supposed to monitor the next session and i can introduce the first speaker. >> are supposed to do question. please tell me when this question. much of them. i think we have people with microphones. again, just a reminder that we need to question two