Will Al Jazeera Air The
Lobby Before AIPAC Meets?
Israel’s lobbyists are working to suppress U.S. exposé
By Grant Smith
Antiwar.com,
February 14, 2018
The Israel lobby has a lot of levers it can push and pull to
curry favorable news coverage from media organizations. These
range from denying access to the limited pool of top-tier
pundits and Israeli government officials, to crippling economic
boycotts. This power is visible in the battle to punish and
shutter Al Jazeera, the Qatari state-funded news organization.
Al Jazeera’s undercover investigative series The
Lobby stunned both U.K. and US viewers last
year. The product of a six-month 2016 undercover investigation,
the four-part series revealed the Israeli embassy’s close
guidance of allegedly "independent" pro-Israel UK domestic
organizations, unfounded accusations of anti-Semitism lodged
against Labour Party members, and coordinated efforts to take
down lawmakers deemed hostile to Israel. The series led to the
dismissal of Shai Masot, a shadowy Israeli embassy official
profiled in part
four of the series, and apologies from the
Israeli embassy.
Less well known is that concurrent to the UK investigation,
another undercover reporter was hard at work penetrating
Israel’s Washington lobby. James Anthony Kleinfeld, a British
citizen, interned at The Israel Project. The Israel Project
works as a quasi-public relations agency for Israel, using its
cartel-like access to sought-after Israeli officials to shape
media appearances and influence who can appear opposite Israel’s
media luminaries. The behind-the-scenes activities of The Israel
Project’s chief, former American Israel Public Affairs Committee
(AIPAC) spokesperson Josh Block, to condition and ultimately
quash the appearance of Rula Jebreal on VOA, were exposed via a FOIA
request in 2016.
Kleinfeld reportedly gained access to The Israel Project’s
donor information by asking to work in donor development, a
position not normally given to interns. Not much is known about
the source of the nonprofit 501(c)(3) The Israel Project’s
funding. Under the leadership of founder Jennifer
Laszlo-Mizrahi, donations grew from $1.8 million in 2003 and
peaked at nearly $20 million in 2010. Donations fell to $8.7
million in 2016 after The Israel Project received stinging
rebukes from more established Israel lobbying
organizations over its claims to be a one-stop shop leading all
major branches of Israel advocacy. The Internal Revenue Service
claims it cannot
locate any of the publicly-releasable (PDF)
documents The Israel Project presented in its application for
tax-exempt status or explain what social welfare purpose it
allegedly serves.
Almost immediately following the airing of The
Lobby, the Government of Qatar, which owns Al Jazeera, suddenly
faced an intense coordinated campaign accusing it of supporting
terrorism, being too close to Iran and demanding that Al Jazeera
be shut down. The "Qatar diplomatic crisis" is not easily
traceable directly back to Israel or the lobby’s intense
displeasure over the UK investigative report or to fears that
the US edition would be released. The countries that first cut
off diplomatic relations with Qatar were Saudi Arabia, UAE,
Bahrain and Egypt.
However, the Qatari government soon came to its own
conclusion that exiting the "crisis" demanded wooing the western
pro-Israel lobby. The Emirate sent a series of invitations to
Mort Klein, head of the Zionist Organization of America, one of
the oldest Israel advocacy organizations in the US, to visit the
Emirate beginning in September of 2017. Klein lobbied the Obama
administration to cancel Qatar Airways landing rights in the
United States to escalate "the crisis." The airline’s last
reported annual revenue was $10.6 billion, with
$538 million in profits and 43,000 employees. Other Israel
advocates, such as Alan Dershowitz, visited the Emirate along
with leaders of the American Jewish Congress and Conference of
Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. Many demanded
that Qatar cut ties to Hamas, the Taliban and Iran. But this may
have been cover for their principal aim – to shutter
Al Jazeera and keep the US series from airing.
Work is currently underway to convince the
Department of Justice to order Al Jazeera to register as a
foreign agent, limiting its access to facilities and US
government officials.
Such activities have generated back-page stories claiming
that Al Jazeera finally promised the wave
of Israel lobbyists it would not air the now
somewhat aging The Lobby US edition.
The most sensible time to release it would be just before AIPAC
convenes in Washington in early March.
But many in the pro-Israel ecosystem grew alarmed when Al
Jazeera sent
letters requesting comments on its US
investigative series to Israel lobby organizations in early
February. Such letters are commonplace before big investigative
pieces air. Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed al-Thani
claimed Qatar’s constitution forbids any interference in the
media. Whether Al Jazeera finally broadcasts the US series of The
Lobby before AIPAC convenes will reveal whether it
remains true to its upstart, "take no prisoners" reporting, or
has become as beholden to orchestrated Israel lobby pressure
campaigns as mainstream US media organizations and its fellow
government-owned outlets like Voice of America.
Grant F. Smith is
the director of the Institute
for Research: Middle Eastern Policy in
Washington and the author of the 2016 book, Big
Israel: How Israel’s Lobby moves America and
co-organizer of "The
Israel Lobby & American Policy 2018" conference on
March 2.
World news-roundup: Qatar won’t air American ‘Lobby’ film
By Jewish News Reporter
Jewish News,
February 12, 2018
[...]
Country: Qatar
Senior Qatari leaders have promised American Jewish leaders
not to air a damning Al-Jazeera documentary on the pro-Israel
lobby in the United States, in an effort to get help from the
Trump White House in its diplomatic spat with neighbours. Qatar
is being shunned and effectively cut-off by Gulf monarchies.
