The slow creeping cancer that has infected Middle East politics

The Trojan horse that is AIPAC has proved to be most dangerous infiltration of US Middle East policy by a foreign state actor in the history of the United States.

PREFACE | PART ONE | PART TWO | PART THREE | PART FOUR

Given that I’ve summarised the history of the birth of the state of Israel and the Arab backlash that resulted from the Zionist self-declaration of statehood in 1948, It’s time to start to look at when and why the US became so aligned with Israel. To examine this, we need to look at the rise of the Israel lobby and the formation of AIPAC in 1959. There is no correlation between the influence of AIPAC and John F Kennedy’s decision to supply Israel with HAWK anti-aircraft missiles in 1962. That decision was a result of high-level diplomacy between Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, who lobbied Kennedy directly.

The most notable discussion between Ben Gurion and Kennedy took place at a meeting in New York in May 1961. This was a deliberate move by Ben-Gurion to bypass AIPAC, which at the time lacked both the funds and the infrastructure to deliver the required outcome. AIPAC was new and had recently changed its name from the American Zionist Council Political Affairs Committee in 1959. It would be over a decade later before AIPAC had the required financial and political clout to deliver the influence Israel needed.

What you have to remember is that this was the Cold War era, a period of significant tension between the US and the Soviet Union. In the Middle East, the Soviets engaged in the same geopolitical disruption they pursue today. They had supplied MiG jets to Egypt, which had tipped the balance of power in the region. At the same time, the UK and the US had a regional arms embargo in place. The reason for this was that both countries were heavily reliant on Arab-controlled oil, so the US had to tread a delicate line. As a result, the supply of HAWK missiles to Israel by the US was advertised as a move to balance the regional power scales. It was NOT an arms agreement, but rather a move to mitigate Russia's supply of MiG jets.

There was also a secondary reason for Kennedy to supply the missiles. US intelligence had discovered the Dimona secret nuclear facility in Israel. So Kennedy added a condition that Israel allow US inspectors to inspect the facility. The actual name of the site was the Shimon Peres Negev Nuclear Research Centre. Although the inspections were allowed to proceed, they were deliberately heavily restricted. As noted in the National Security Archive, Israel tightly controlled the timing, restricted movement, and routed inspection teams past specially constructed false walls and covered-up corridors to conceal underground plutonium-reprocessing facilities. Once Israel had got what it wanted from the US in terms of an arms pipeline, the inspections were halted in 1969 under an agreement between Richard Nixon and then Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir.

This led to Israel’s policy that prevails to this day of nuclear ambiguity. It has allowed no inspections of any kind since the agreement with Nixon was reached, and Israel is NOT a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Yet another example of a ‘teacher’s pet’ mentality that allows them to do what they like with impunity. Unlike with Iran, Trump is not going to war with Israel to prevent them from owning nuclear weapons. As a result, Israel currently retains an independent nuclear deterrent. If you would like to get a better insight into how Israel became a nuclear power, I highly recommend this article by Emma Claire Foley from June 23rd 2024, which appeared in Jacobin.

Returning to AIPAC. For a decade, from 1960, the organisation had its work cut out for it because Kennedy was not only cautious about their cause but, some might say, mildly hostile. He had an adversarial relationship with the AIPAC umbrella organisation, the American Zionist Council (AZC). Indeed, between 1962 and 1963, the Kennedy DOJ actively demanded that the organisation register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). The pressure on the AZC faded after Kennedy’s assassination and the transition to the Lyndon Johnson administration. It was never again placed under the same pressure. Also, before anyone jumps in to promote the conspiracy theory that Mossad was responsible for Kennedy’s assassination, there’s not a shred of evidence to prove it.

AIPAC operated separately from the AZC; it was incorporated by Isaiah Kenen, a US citizen born in Canada, thereby allowing it to function as a domestic American nonprofit lobby rather than as a registered foreign agent. This was despite Kenen being a registered public relations and information officer involved in Israeli government affairs in the United States. He’s credited with creating the modern framework of the Israeli lobby we know it today.

Understanding AIPAC's influence not just in American politics but in American society is absolutely critical. AIPAC goes way beyond politics; it has quite literally infiltrated the very heart of US policymaking and foreign policy and is deep-rooted in American society at large. In my view, it represents the most significant and dangerous breach of US national security in American history. Its tentacles extend into every facet of policy and legislation in relation to promoting Zionist objectives. It has also metastasised worldwide due to its grip on US politics. It’s ubiquitous; it has no party loyalty, just as in the 1940s, when Zionist leadership courted the Soviet Union on its march to secure the state of Israel, and later, its deal with Czechoslovakia to obtain arms for its fight in the Arab-Israeli war.

Today, AIPAC’s only loyalty is to Zionist ambitions for a Greater Israel. I’ve linked a video below to hopefully help you understand my assessment.

There’s no question that while politicians from BOTH parties remain on the payroll of what has become a rogue state, now widely regarded as a pariah around the world, public opinion, once solid in the US, has undergone a massive shift. Netanyahu is very aware of the threat this represents. This is why we have seen a transformation in its approach, using AIPAC and the now myriad of Israeli-sponsored entities and opaque organisations providing a front for a mobster state to maintain control of US politicians. The shift from removing the billions of dollars in military aid to integrating its military technology into the US industrial-military complex is a masterstroke by Netanyahu, and his loyal political foot soldiers on BOTH sides of the aisle have lined up to support the move. It's the biggest psyops coup in geopolitical history, and the US has swallowed it whole. It is a true testament to the power of a nation of 10 million people over a captive population of 340 million.

What intrigues me is the evolution of public opinion since October 7 2023. For some, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict wasn’t on their radar; they had more important things to worry about. However, the events of October 7, as they have become known, changed that as the spotlight was turned on the most audacious and barbaric act of terrorism since 9/11, an attack which saw Hamas kidnap and murder hundreds of innocent civilians.

If we are to examine the events that triggered the unprecedented rampage of vengeful retribution that followed, it is, in my view, imperative to establish the truth about a day which will remain in infamy for its senseless depravity and callous disregard for human life. Once again, I want there to be no doubt that the actions of the Hamas terrorists and their allies on that day were war crimes, and I unreservedly condemn them today as I have on numerous occasions since the attack.

Every life lost on that day was a human being. A father, a mother, a son, a daughter, a child whose presence posed no threat to anyone. They were loved ones who no longer sit at the dinner table, come home from work or school to share their day. They are now just voices and images in the minds of those left heartbroken by their absence.

In our polarised political dystopia, tragically, their memory has been weaponised to justify reciprocal war crimes. As a result, those like me who simply seek to tell the truth have become the enemy, declared antisemites and terrorist sympathisers. Since when did the truth lose its value and legitimate questions become acts of disloyalty? Even the loss of one life on October 7 would be unacceptable, so the loss of hundreds of lives targeted simply because they were Jews is abhorrent and unquestionably a crime against humanity, as it was later judged by the United Nations and the International Criminal Court.

Israel claims to be the only democracy in the region and to adhere to the rule of law. We’ll deal with that assertion shortly, but before that, we should address the facts of the number of fatalities declared by the Israeli government on the day and days following the events of October 7. The initial claim in the fog of war was that 1400 innocent Israelis had been murdered. This was later revised down to 1200, not uncommon when dealing with such attacks, given the confusion and the fact that some were still listed as missing at the time.

There were no 40 beheaded babies or babies cooked in ovens, as was claimed over and over by not just Israeli spokespeople, and often repeated to this day, but also by Benjamin Netanyahu. A man on a propaganda mission to gain unwavering support from the US and European allies for his planned atrocities. As if the horrors of sexual violence and abuse were not enough, the Israeli government decided that further embellishment was required to secure the weapons it required for what it intended to do.

If we are to have an open and frank conversation about the horror of the events of October 7 2023, and the unbridled retribution that followed, then I think we owe it to ourselves to begin with the truth for all of those who have perished. Since the 1200 fatality number was released, there have been no further updates, just an endless stream of propaganda to justify a wholly murderous, disproportionate response. In the next episode, we’ll look in detail at the events leading up to and including October 7th. We’ll discuss what is known as the Hannibal Directive, the unfathomable and uncharacteristic security failures that simply don’t make sense.

I’m very aware that there remains a gap in this historical journey we are taking together in respect of the intifadas, but fear not, I will incorporate these into where we are going, because we also need to discuss the 2006 elections in Gaza and the overstated support for Hamas. I know this has become an epic journey, but it’s my hope that, when complete, you will have access to a resource that breaks down the Palestinian question into digestible segments that make historic sense.

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