Shmuel Rosner, Chief U.S. Correspondent
U.S. Jews start thinking seriously about the AIPAC case Sunday, January 29, 11:10 EST
There are signs that the Jewish community is beginning to come to its senses regarding the AIPAC case - to perceive the significance of the moment and maybe even to take some action.
The sentence handed down 10 days ago that sent former Pentagon official Larry Franklin to 12 years in prison - for having given secret information to people from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and to Israel itself, via an Israeli Embassy employee in Washington - has profoundly shaken AIPAC. Suddenly some of them remembered Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, two former AIPAC employees, who are also up for trial. Their fate, if they are convicted, may be similar to Franklin. Immediately after the sentencing, Judge T.S. Ellis said individuals who have unauthorized possession, or who come into unauthorized possession of classified information, must abide by the law. Ellis said this applies to academics, lawyers, journalists and professors. In must certainly also apply to lobbyists. If this is, indeed, Ellis? position then one defense argument has fallen: The argument that the obligation to maintain secrecy does not apply to private citizens the way it does to federal employees.
At the time he said this, Ellis had already received a defense request to cancel the trial. The request had been submitted only one day before the sentencing.
It is worth pausing to consider the signatory to the request - Viet Dinh, a Vietnamese refugee who came to America and embarked on a dazzling legal career. He studied at Harvard and then clerked for, among others, Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.
He was subsequently appointed in the Bush administration as an assistant attorney general. In this capacity, he played a key role in the framing of the Patriot Act, one of the more controversial laws in recent years.The Patriot Act is blamed by many for having denied liberties to citizens in favor of exaggerated considerations of state security. But now, in a reversal of roles, its author is defending Rosen and Weissman. This time Dinh is ostensibly for "the citizen" and against "security."
The document he wrote for the court holds that the prosecution is against the law and its spirit. It was not the legislator's intention - argues Dinh - and if it was, then it contradicts the First Amendment guaranteeing freedom of speech. [
Trading in state secrets and planting false information on behalf of a foreign country to foment war against its arch rival is "freedom of speech"?]
Dinh is not the only one who holds this opinion. Bodies that deal with defending freedom of speech have also joined the defense of Rosen and Weissman. [
Which ones?] The notion that lobbyists who received information without soliciting it, without monetary compensation, without extortion - simply received information and made the expected use of it - should be brought to trial seems wrong to them, and also dangerous.
This is a constitutional question that has far-reaching future implications. Ellis will have to weigh these arguments towards the end of February. If he accepts them, the case will be canceled. If he decides to reject them, there is reason to assume that there will be an attempt to appeal until the case reaches the Supreme Court. Legal experts who are familiar with the case believe that its chances of being accepted for deliberation are good because of the large number of questions of principle it entails. According to U.S. law, however, this can occur only if Rosen and Weissman are convicted prior to that.
Here is a strange paradox: Those who wish the two well certainly want them to be acquitted - but at the same time will regret that they did not have the opportunity to bring about an authoritative ruling on the questions at the basis of the case.
Regardless, some U.S. Jewish leaders convened this week and decided that the time has come for action. For some time now they have felt uncomfortable with the way the case is being conducted. Many thought that the prosecution was not justified and that its motivations are extraneous - the power wars of Washington
and perhaps also a bit of anti-Semitism, or at least a desire to humiliate the pro-Israel lobby and damage its power. Malcolm Hoenlein of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations - one of the few who has persisted in public criticism of the case - strongly attacked the prosecution from the podium of the Herzliya Conference: "The very fact that this kind of climate can exist in the capital of the United States is unacceptable," he said. His remarks have also influenced a number of the activists.
Hoenlein spoke out publicly; others have been speaking quietly. Some of them are saying that they have reached the executive director of the organization, Howard Kohr, and several members of the board. Why, they wondered, has the organization not stood by its commitment to pay for the defense of the accused? The two were fired from AIPAC about a year ago after the gravity of the charges against them became partially clear - but AIPAC created the impression that the organization would bear the high costs of the defense. As was published for the first time in Haaretz a few weeks ago, this has not happened.
A year has gone by and not a single dollar has arrived. From a letter that was sent by
an AIPAC lawyer, Jamie Gorelick, it can be understood that the organization believes that it is not its obligation to pay in "advance." That is, perhaps it will transfer money after the trial. However, a source familiar with AIPAC says Rosen and Weissman are simply not interested in the money now - because it is their intention to sue after the trial. A few months ago, and after consultations with the defendants' lawyers, the two were offered a large sum - $1.625 million, in addition to the money that the organization had already spent on their defense last year. They rejected the offer.
Nevertheless, there is great discomfort in the Jewish community, both because of the money and because of the disassociation from the two lobbyists. Some have gone so far as to use the word "abandonment." Three different courses of action have been decided upon by three different people (all of whom ask that their names be kept confidential): to give additional financial support to the defendants (certain sums are also now coming to the defendants from a known donor); to divert AIPAC to a channel less alienated from the two; and to publicly condemn the prosecution. On Friday,
former executive director of AIPAC Neal Sher published a very critical article in The Jewish Week: "The very last thing the community needs are leaders acting as though they are guests in their own country," he wrote.
This has not been an easy period for AIPAC, which has faced criticism from home as well as external threats. The organization's income has gone up in recent years. This is testimony to the importance that donors attribute to the organization's existence even at a time of crisis. It can also be attributed to the expectation that the costs of the trial will necessitate considerable additional expenditures - an expectation that has been nurtured, if not explicitly, in statements and letters from the organization.
But external threats also strong: Rosen and Weissman are players in an event that is bigger than them. Their trial - even if they have been fired - will be known as "the AIPAC trial." The organization, say defense lawyers who are involved in proceedings of this sort, will be on the table the whole time. The defendants will try to prove that they did not act as wildcat envoys of the organization. The prosecution, which has already taken the opportunity to praise AIPAC for firing the two when the indictment was filed, will offer as evidence material that indicates that AIPAC knew quite a bit about what its employees were doing. Although it has not, thus far, asked to summon any of the senior people in AIPAC to testify.
What is AIPAC worried about? More than anything, about an atmosphere that will enable a move to change the status of the organization to one that represents a foreign country, a move that would mean its demise. Sources who are familiar with AIPAC's dilemma are constantly stressing the "collective good" that necessitates caution. Rumors that are circulating among them connect to the case a sermon that was preached by one of the organization's lawyers about "the casting of the Prophet Jonah into the sea in order to save a sinking ship."
Therefore, said the head of one of the major Jewish organizations, it is not AIPAC that should be attacked.
A large majority of the Jewish community is interested in defending it, even if it is sometimes not pleased with its policy. "It is necessary to attack the prosecution and the case," he says. In this matter there is wall-to-wall agreement: The case is ridiculous, dangerous, unprecedented and biased. For decades, ever since the law was passed, no American citizen has been tried on a charge of this sort. [
Uh, Pollard, Hansen, et al.] This is an attempt by elements in the administration to muzzle public debate, prevent leaks
and thwart legitimate attempts to influence administration policy. www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/rosnerBlog.jhtml?itemNo=676155&contrassID=25&subContrassID=0&sbSubContrassID=1&listSrc=Y&art=1
