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The Israel lobby gone wild:
AIPAC's dirty laundry
Washington D. C. - On March 2, 2009, Steven Rosen (photo)  ,
Foreign Policy Director for 23 years of 'America Israel Public Affairs Committee
[AIPAC]' ,
named 'the Brains Behind AIPAC' and 'the Karl Rove
of Jewish-American politics', filed a civil suit against AIPAC for defamation
. Rosen was sacked by
AIPAC in 2004 several months after he and a fellow staffer were charged with espionage and passing sensitive information to Israeli diplomats and
journalists. AIPAC spent $4.9 million on Rosen's and his staffer's trial. The charges against the
two were dropped before the case reached a courtroom .
In his suit, Rosen demanded damages of $21 million for comments by AIPAC
officials, which Rosen claims they knew to be lies, while criminally disregarding the damage it would do to his
reputation. On Nov. 8, 2010, AIPAC submitted a detailed declaration in
court , requesting the dismissal of Rosen's
lawsuit. A large part of AIPAC's deposition relates to Rosen's 'inappropriate
behavior,' claiming that he experimented with sexual liaisons with other married men
and used his AIPAC office computer to surf pornographic websites. The court documents
reveal that Rosen rejects AIPAC's accusations that his actions should not be considered to be work done for the
organization, claiming that they are considered to be normal behavior for the
AIPAC staff. The court documents also shed light on Rosen’s attempts to support himself and his family after being fired from
AIPAC: Through conduits, bundlers, and payments carefully structured below the gift tax limits, Daniel Abraham, Haim
Saban, Newton Becker, Larry Hochberg, Fred Schwartz, Walter Stern, and others ponied up almost $1 million to Rosen between the moment AIPAC fired him and the day he joined the
'Middle East Forum'
as a visiting fellow . Rosen
asserted that AIPAC promised: 'when this is over we will do right by
Steve.' The next round in this battle is expected with Rosen’s counter filing on December
2 . Rosen said he was not deterred and promised that when he files his own
motion, the information in it will put AIPAC on the hot seat: 'Any embarrassment I suffered as a result of what they filed will be insignificant compared to the embarrassment they’ll suffer after we file our
motion.' Both sides can decide to settle the case outside the court before
that, or at any phase before it reaches a jury trial.
AIPAC is now fighting for its life. If Rosen proves in court that AIPAC has long handled classified information while lobbying for Israel, the worn public pretense that AIPAC is anything but a stealth extension of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs – from which it emerged in 1951 – will end
forever.
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