Soccer Dad

The Amazing Shrinking Spy Scandal

On Saturday night I had a quick chance to check the news and was surprised to find that there were new allegations of Israel spying on the United States. HonestReporting.com raised a number reasonable objections to the story and rightly called the allegations "media hype."
I have my own (non-rigorous) reason for doubting the story. That is the story is too perfect. There are certain people - many of whom are in the media - who believe that Israel exerts too much influence over American foreign policy or that Jews (whoops! I should have written "neo-conservatives") in government have subverted American policy in order to benefit Israel.
The spying charges in one fell swoop:
1) Show that the war in Iraq was not in America's interest
2) Show that Jews (I mean "neo-conservatives") in government are more loyal to Israel than they are to the United States
and
3) That Israel exerts too much influence over American policy.
The story *is* too perfect for those who believe such things.
The Washington Post today gives too much credence to the spy charges. At least it quotes Michael Oren at the end of the article:

"There's a convention going on in New York," he said, referring to the Republican National Convention, "and the canard has been out there for a long time that Israel and Israel's supporters and the neo-conservatives in the Defense Department have manipulated U.S. foreign policy, especially on Iraq, to serve Israeli purposes, and this would tend to substantiate that canard."

If you think that I exaggerate, read "Bush and Sharon Nearly Identical On Mideast Policy" by Robert Kaiser, an assistant editor at the Washington Post. (Kaiser's article is quoted approvingly by Patrick Buchanan and other Israel bashers.)

"The Likudniks are really in charge now," said a senior government official, using a Yiddish term for supporters of Sharon's political party. Neumann agreed that Abrams's appointment was symbolically important, not least because Abrams's views were shared by his boss, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, by Vice President Cheney and by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. "It's a strong lineup," he said.

The article would have been harmless if it showed an evolution in the thinking of the President, but rather it continually emphasized the ties to Israel that various Jewish administration officials have.)
The Post to its credit, reported on Sunday, why the accusations of a spy for Israel seemed far fetched:

Colleagues said they were stunned to hear Franklin was suspected of giving secret information to a foreign government. And foreign policy specialists said they were skeptical that the pro-Israel group under FBI scrutiny, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, would jeopardize its work with classified documents from a midlevel bureaucrat when it could find out almost anything it wanted to by calling top officials in the Bush administration.

"The whole thing makes no sense to me," said Dennis Ross, special envoy on the Arab-Israeli peace process in the first Bush administration and the Clinton presidency. "The Israelis have access to all sorts of people. They have access in Congress and in the administration. They have people who talk about these things," said Ross, now a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Crossposted on Israpundit and Soccer Dad.

Posted by SoccerDad at August 30, 2004 5:54 AM