Israel Lobby Damage Assessment
”Israel Lobby Damage Assessment” is a podcast of the Institute for Research Middle Eastern Policy. IRmep is a Washington-based nonprofit organization that studies US-Middle East policy formulation. Founded in 2002, IRmep is non-partisan and does not support or oppose candidates for public office. IRmep’s Center for Policy & Law files Freedom of Information Act requests and lawsuits to create warranted transparency and reveal the functions of government. It also examines how balanced and vigorous law enforcement—as well as civil suits—can improve human rights, trade, economic development and America’s international standing. IRmep’s Israel Lobby Archive documents and exposes the history and little known initiatives, providing citizen access to relevant documents about the behind-the-scenes activities of one of the most harmful—but little studied—forces driving policy formulation through the US political process: Israel and its US lobby. IRmep Conferences are public events, often held in partnership with other organizations or solely organized by IRmep, that provide the timely insights of experts and opportunities to network with Americans concerned about US Middle East policy and how it is made. IRmep Polls are periodic single-question queries to representative samples, mostly in the United States, asking key questions about US policy. IRmep research and analysis appears in online publications, paid news releases, email updates, select social media platforms, syndicated podcasts and the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, a major print and online publication critically focusing on Middle East policy. Visit https://IRmep.com and https://IsraelLobby.org for more information
Episodes
60 years ago today, the Senate uncovered $60 million in Israeli and foreign seed money had been laundered into the US to set up AIPAC. What really happened and what has been the impact? Grant F. Smith gives an overview of the 1963 Senate investigation of Jewish Agency money laundering into the US, why the Senate Foreign Relations Committee investigated Israel front organizations in America, what Israel and the Jewish Agency were t...
James Bamford’s new book Spyfail: Foreign Spies, Moles, Saboteurs, and the Collapse of America’s Counterintelligence devotes nine chapters to the impunity of Israel, its spies and U.S. lobby.
Bamford is best known as America’s premiere chronicler of the ultra-secretive National Security Agency in his books The Puzzle Palace and The Shadow Factory.
Unlike most authors published through mainstream publishing houses, Bamford has not h...
On Friday explosive news broke that China had successfully concluded a secret peace agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia. The plan aims to restore diplomatic relations by reopening embassies within two months. They also agree to restart their April 2001 Security Cooperation. Also back on the front burner is a 1998 General Agreement covering economic, trade, investment, technology, science, culture, sports and youth ties. It is w...
2024 will mark the fourth decade since AIPAC and the Israeli Minister of Economics stole classified American industry data to aid passage of America’s worst bilateral trade deal.
Among all bilateral “Free Trade Agreements” (NAFTA and CAFTA are multilateral) the 1985 U.S. Israel deal has produced the highest inflation adjusted cumulative merchandise trade deficit—$365.9 billion—since going into effect. In 1984 American companies wer...
The Israeli company Energix Renewable Energies has been lavishly subsidized by U.S. solar energy tax credits and the cadmium telluride solar panel manufacturer First Solar. But Energix has also been listed by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights as a category g human rights violator over its resource theft in the Israeli occupied West Bank and Golan Heights. Virginia communities have successfully challenged Energix across th...
The ADL has been trying to liaise with the FBI by offering ADL investigators as informants, offering to exchange files to “avoid duplication of investigation” and “train” FBI and law enforcement personnel since the 1940s.
What have been the negative consequences for human rights activists?
IRmep presents findings from years of Freedom of Information Act filings at a number of relevant Washington, DC locations.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III was the perfect keynote speaker at the January 10, 2023 AIPAC Political Leadership Forum.
Austin prioritizes Israeli over American defense priorities, advocates illegal land grabs that benefit Israel, inserts Israel into places it does not belong, and uses cultish, reverential language.
Most important, he is willing to dishonor JFK's three final bids for justice, rule of law and against Midd...
2022 US Middle East policy review and 2023 forecast. US Middle East policy continued its downward spiral in 2022. The president and Congress aided and abetted illegal Israeli objectives over better policies preferred by overwhelming majorities of American voters. In poll after poll, Americans have signaled they would like to cut U.S. foreign aid to Israel. Sanction Israel over apartheid practices. Hold it responsible for being the...
American journalist Ali Abunimah is co-founder of the Electronic Intifada and author of "One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israel-Palestine Impasse'' and "The Battle for Justice in Palestine." He discussed post-election administration policy on key issues. Will the administration demand any pause to illegal Israeli settlements? Will Israel be successful in continuing to use the coercive power...
Grant F. Smith is the author of seven books about the Israel lobby, and research director of IRmep. His most recent books are "Big Israel: How Israel's Lobby Moves America" (2016) and "The Israel Lobby Enters State Government: Rise of the Virginia Israel Advisory Board" (2019). Continuing an election year tradition, Smith presented his most recent research findings about Israel affinity organization legislative, executive agency an...
Historian and author Walter Hixson answers cross disciplinary questions about foreign policy, the Israel lobby and settler colonialism. What are the core objectives of settler colonialism? Why must the population targeted for removal be the object of hatred and portrayed as primitive, uncivilized and "savage?" Massacres can exist without genocide, but can genocide exist without massacres? Are in...
Interview with Jeremy Rothe-Kushel of the program "Understanding Israel-Palestine" on the rise of the Israel lobby in America, prominent figures, Israeli nuclear weapons espionage and related topics. Check out other IRmep content at https://IRmep.org
A conversation with the Virginia Coalition for Human Rights. Fighting questionable edits to VA textbooks, the case against VIAB, and the expansion of Israeli human rights violator Energix in Virginia. Check out other IRmep content at https://IRmep.org
David Swanson, host of Talk Nation Radio, interviews Grant F. Smith to discuss his latest and ninth book about the Israel lobby called The Israel Lobby Enters State Government: Rise Of The Virginia Israel Advisory Board. Find the paperback at Middle East Books & More. Check out other IRmep content at https://IRmep.org
Grant F. Smith of the Institute for Research for Research: Middle Eastern Policy discusses the findings of his new book, The Israel Lobby Enters State Government: Rise of the Virginia Israel Advisory Board at Middle East Books and More. Check out other IRmep content at https://IRmep.org
IRmep presentation at the Palestine Center’s annual conference. It covered the how the Gallup Organization’s misleading polls about U.S. "sympathy" for Israel would have been deployed to falsely claim Americans support the Kushner-Friedman-Greenblatt Middle East "Deal of the Century," much like they have been used by the Congressional Research Service to insinuate Americans support massive U.S. ...
Grant Smith elaborates on his May 20th article, “”Lesson from FBI’s ‘Niger Uranium Forgeries’ File: There will be no consequences for twisting intelligence to attack Iran.” It was based on his obtaining, through FOIA, and analyzing the 640 pages of FBI records In which he describes then FBI director, Robert Mueller stifled efforts to investigate possible Washington (obviously neocon) links to th...
Grant F. Smith, director of research at IRmep, exposes the IRS's long history of aiding and abetting billions of dollars of U.S. charitable contributions flowing through tax-exempt charities into illegal West Bank settlements during a live broadcast with the IRS Taxpayer Advocate. Check out other IRmep content at https://IRmep.org
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