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It’s Still the Same Old Story
 “It remains unclear whether
any classified information reached Israel,” the Washington Post
reports with dry humor.  Where, then, was the information supposed to wind up?
The story concerns Lawrence
Franklin, a Defense Department policy analyst who has now been charged
with passing on highly classified info to two pro-Israel lobbyists, a foreign
official (we are left to guess what country he works for), and
“unidentified members of the media.” Franklin also seems to
have ties to neoconservative notables like Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith,
and 83 classified documents were reportedly found in his West Virginia
home.
The two lobbyists were (allegedly,
as they say) top officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee,
better known as AIPAC. Ask your congressman if he’s ever heard of
it. Chances are his knees will buckle and his mouth will dry up. You may take
that as a Yes.
Franklin’s lawyer says his
client is innocent and will fight the charges. Israeli officials say they
aren’t involved in the case and have never received any secret
information. AIPAC has long since denied everything, saying the investigation
smacks of anti-Semitism and stuff. Don’t they all.
There have been innumerable
stories of Israeli espionage and technology theft against this country over
the years. The most famous was the Jonathan Pollard case twenty years
ago. At first the Israeli government denied everything then too, saying
Pollard was part of a “rogue operation” it hadn’t
authorized. But it soon promoted his handler and, after he received a
sentence of life in prison, pressured the U.S. Government for his release.
He’s still in prison, but a generous pension awaits him if he ever gets
to Israel, where he’s considered a national hero.
This is, as your congressman
would probably say, “our only reliable ally in the Middle East,”
whose agents and advocates in this country agitate tirelessly for war on
Israel’s enemies, which is the main reason the United States keeps
fighting Arab and Muslim countries that haven’t attacked us. These
wars, in turn, are the chief reason the United States has become the most
unpopular country in the world.
![[Breaker quote for It's Still the Same Old Story -- Israeli espionage: Our "reliable ally" again]](2005breakers/050505.gif) Our
consolation is that we
are very popular in Israel. The lion’s share of American foreign aid
goes to one tiny country, a very rich one (as measured by personal income)
and the only one in the Middle East that has nuclear weapons. Your
congressman probably votes for annual increases in that limitless largesse.
Ask him what we’ve gotten in return, besides 9/11.
Our prestige has fallen so low that
it’s surprising that the Israelis don’t dissociate themselves
from America in their own interest. Both countries are widely regarded as
threats to the world’s peace, but the United States has been killing
far more people than Israel has. American propaganda is starting to
resemble the old Soviet variety, with its Orwellian blather of
“liberation” and “democracy” to cover horrifying
acts of violence.
George Washington and Alexander
Hamilton warned that republics are especially vulnerable to “foreign
corruption.” No doubt that’s still true, but the United States
also produces plenty of the home-grown stuff. Do you know whom your
congressman had lunch with today?
Americans are forever
congratulating themselves on enjoying the blessings of self-government, but
nobody bothers to measure them. Before our Revolution, the historian Paul
Johnson points out, the average American paid sixpence a year to the British
Crown. When our own income tax was adopted less than a century ago, only
the very richest paid the top rate: 7 per cent. (Another historian mentions
that under the Roman Empire income taxes might have been “as high
as one per cent.”)
Israel is a small country with a big
government. The United States is a big country with a humongous
government. But don’t worry. It’s not just government,
we’re assured; it’s self-government! We can all vote. That
makes everything all right, according to the slogans of democracy that the
looters employ to placate the looted.
In truth, we are all implicated in a
system so vast and intricate that nobody can comprehend it; and all the
world’s governments increasingly cooperate with each other. Modern
war is terrifying, but modern peace is sinister.
Joseph Sobran |
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| Copyright © 2005 by the
Griffin Internet Syndicate, a division of Griffin Communications This column may not be reprinted in print or Internet publications without express permission of Griffin Internet Syndicate 
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