Foundation for Defense of
Democracies vice president Jonathan Schanzer testifies at a
hearing in Congress. (CSPAN)
The leading neoconservative think tank
Foundation for Defense of Democracies is functioning as an agent
of the Israeli government, Al Jazeera’s forthcoming investigation on
the US Israel lobby will reveal.
According to a source who has seen the undercover documentary, it
contains footage of a powerful Israeli official claiming that “We
have FDD. We have others working on this.”
Sima Vaknin-Gil, a
former Israeli military intelligence officer, is said to state
that the foundation is “working on” projects for Israel including
“data gathering, information analysis, working on activist
organizations, money trail. This is something that only a country,
with its resources, can do the best.”
Under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, commonly known as
FARA, US organizations and individuals who work on behalf of foreign
governments are required to register with the counterintelligence
section of the Department of Justice.
A search on the FARA website
shows that the Foundation for Defense of Democracies is not
registered.
Al Jazeera’s film reportedly identifies a number of lobby groups
as working with Israel to spy on American citizens using
sophisticated data gathering techniques. The documentary is also
said to cast light on covert efforts to smear and intimidate
Americans seen as too critical of Israel.
Israel lobby groups have placed intense pressure on Qatar, which
funds Al Jazeera, to shelve the film, fueling speculation it may
never be aired.
The ministry is in charge of running a
covert campaign of
sabotage against BDS, the boycott, divestment and sanctions
movement in support of Palestinian human rights.
Vaknin-Gil’s ministerial boss is
Gilad
Erdan, a close ally of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu.
Soon after she was appointed to lead the ministry at the start of
2016, Vaknin-Gil
promised to “create a community of fighters” who would “flood
the internet” with Israeli propaganda that would be publicly
distanced from the government.
As well as getting
funding from
Sheldon Adelson, the anti-Palestinian billionaire and
number one donor to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, the
Foundation for Defense of Democracies has close ties to the United
Arab Emirates.
In
hacked emails last year the Emirati ambassador in Washington
encouraged the foundation to push for moving a US military base from
Qatar to his own country.
The film will also reportedly show undercover footage of a junior
Israel lobbyist boasting of how close Israel’s ties are with the
United Arab Emirates and other Gulf regimes.
UAE, Israel deepening ties
Information removed from Max Adelstein’s Facebook page.
Max Adelstein is said to be seen in the film stating that the
lobby has helped Israel and the United Arab Emirates develop
security links “all under the table.”
Adelstein was an intern at Washington lobbying firm the Harbour
Group. The firm’s clients
include the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
It received $2.2 million from the UAE and more than $300,000 from
Saudi Arabia during the six months ending 30 September 2017.
Adelstein now says he works for AIPAC, Washington’s most powerful
Israel lobby group whose annual conference began Sunday. (Shortly
after this article was published, Adelstein switched on
his Facebook
privacy settings and removed mention of his AIPAC role. Screenshots
of his profile have been added.)
The film is said to show Adelstein boasting that ties between the
United Arab Emirates and Israel are “getting so much better, and
nobody knows it.”
He told an undercover Al Jazeera reporter that “The governments
have to coordinate on security. It’s all under the table. But on
trade, security, tech, medicine, there’s a lot of cooperation.”
According to The Electronic Intifada’s source, Adelstein is seen
in the undercover footage explaining that an American Jewish
Committee “study tour” of the United Arab Emirates focusing on
“mutual cooperation” was planned.
In January, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish
Organizations, a forum of Israel lobby groups whose membership
includes the American Jewish Committee,
announced it had sent a “large delegation” of leaders to the
United Arab Emirates, where it “met with everybody at the highest
levels.”
The additional insight into the United Arab Emirates’ cozying up
to Israel lobby groups comes as the wealthy monarchy’s activities in
Washington are facing renewed scrutiny.
A photo from AIPAC staffer Max Adelstein’s Facebook profile,
which has now been made private.
On Saturday, The New York Times
reported that special counsel Robert Mueller is expanding his
investigation from alleged Russian meddling in the US presidential
election to “include Emirati influence on the Trump administration”
through the president’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner.
“Anti-Semitism as a smear is not what it used to be”
Jonathan Schanzer, senior vice president of the Foundation for
Defense of Democracies, is said to be seen in the undercover footage
briefing recruits on how to smear Palestine solidarity groups in the
US who support the BDS movement.
According to the source, Schanzer admits to the undercover
reporter that “BDS has taken everybody by surprise.”
He calls the response by Israel lobby groups “a complete mess,”
adding, “I don’t think that anybody’s doing a good job. We’re not
even doing a good job.”
He is also said to regret that the Israel lobby’s habitual tactic
of
falsely alleging Palestine solidarity activists are motivated by
anti-Jewish hatred is losing its impact.
“Personally I think anti-Semitism as a smear is not what it used
to be,” he is said to tell the undercover reporter.
Schanzer’s views echo a secret report endorsed by the Israeli
government and distributed to Israel lobby leaders last year. That
report, a leaked copy of which was
published by The Electronic Intifada, concludes that Israel’s
efforts to stem the growth of the Palestine solidarity movement have
largely failed.
Film delayed
In October last year, Clayton Swisher, Al Jazeera’s head of
investigations,
first announced that the Qatari satellite channel had in 2016
run an undercover journalist in the US Israel lobby.
Swisher made the announcement soon after the UK’s broadcast
regulator dismissed all complaints against Al Jazeera’s
film
The Lobby.
That documentary, broadcast in January 2017, exposed Israel’s
covert influence campaign in the UK’s ruling Conservative and
opposition Labour parties. The film revealed an Israeli embassy
agent plotting with a British civil servant to “take
down” a government minister seen as too critical of Israel.
Although Swisher promised the US film would come out “very soon,”
nearly five months later it has yet to be broadcast.
Among them have been some of the most rightwing and extreme
figures among Israel’s defenders in the US,
including Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz and Morton
Klein, the head of the Zionist Organization of America.
Multiple Israel lobby sources
told Israel’s Haaretz newspaper last month that they
had received assurances from Qatari leaders late last year that the
Al Jazeera documentary will not be aired.
Pro-Israel groups have gone on the offensive to try and deter Al
Jazeera from showing the film.
“Let’s not mince words about what this was – a well-funded,
professional espionage operation carried out by Qatar on American
soil,” Noah Pollak, executive director of the neoconservative
Committee for Israel, has
stated.
Ironically, pro-Israel members of Congress are now
pressuring the Department of Justice to force Al Jazeera to
register as an arm of Qatar, under the Foreign Agents Registration
Act, just as the Russian-funded network RT was recently forced to
do.
Whether this pressure will succeed in burying the documentary for
good is perhaps the ultimate test of the Israel lobby influence Al
Jazeera journalists sought to expose.
Updated to add Max Adelstein screenshots.
Asa Winstanley is an investigative journalist and associate
editor with The Electronic Intifada.
Will Al Jazeera AirThe
LobbyBefore AIPAC Meets?
Israel’s lobbyists are working to suppress U.S. exposé.
Antiwar.com, February 14, 2018.
Also includes article from British
Jewish News: "Qatar won’t air American ‘Lobby’ film"