- More than 46 years ago, President John F. Kennedy sought
to preclude a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. In June 1963, he wrote
the last in a series of insistent letters to Israeli Prime Minister David
Ben-Gurion. Those letters sought what Israel now demands of Iran: international
inspections of its nuclear facilities. The key difference: Kennedy knew
for certain that Israel, while portraying itself a friend and ally, repeatedly
lied to Kennedy about its nuclear weapons development at the Dimona reactor
in the Negev Desert.
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- Best estimates point to sometime between 1962 and 1964
when Israel produced its first weapon in what is now a vast nuclear arsenal
estimated at 200-400 warheads. Kennedy's letter to Ben-Gurion was anything
but friendly. The words he chose were drawn not from diplomacy but from
the instructions that a judge gives a jury on criminal culpability. In
that brusque letter, the U.S. commander-in-chief insisted that this purported
ally prove "beyond a reasonable doubt" that the Zionist enclave
was not developing nuclear weapons.
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- One day after that June 15th letter was cabled to Tel
Aviv for delivery by the U.S. ambassador, Ben-Gurion abruptly resigned
citing undisclosed personal reasons. As his resignation was announced before
the letter could be physically delivered, Jewish authors routinely claim
that Kennedy's message failed to reach Ben-Gurion. Nonsense. That interpretative
gloss ignores what we now know about Israeli operations inside serial U.S.
presidencies-and about Tel Aviv's routine intercept of White House communications.
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- Deprived of an Israeli government with which to negotiate,
Kennedy was denied a national security victory that may well have spared
the world a problem he foresaw almost a half-century ago. In retrospect,
that Israeli conduct raises topical questions about the ability of the
U.S.-or any nation-to hold Zionist extremists accountable.
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- The Khazars vs. the Kennedys
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- During this same 1962-63 period, Senator William J. Fulbright
of Arkansas, chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, convened hearings
on the legal status of the American Zionist Council. The AZC received funds
from the Jewish Agency, a predecessor to the state of Israel. As a recipient
of U.S. taxpayer funds, the Jewish Agency used those funds to lobby for
more funds. Under U.S. law, that conduct required the AZC to register as
a foreign agent.
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- Attorney General Robert Kennedy joined Fulbright in that
quest. That effort was thwarted by the Israel lobby and then by the death
of President Kennedy. Thereafter, concerns about the impact of Zionist
influence on U.S. policy making continued to grow. By 1973, Fulbright could
announce with confidence: "Israel controls the U.S. Senate."
In 1974, he lost his Senate seat. [See: "How the Israel Lobby Took
Control of U.S. Foreign Policy."]
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- Fast-forward to today and imagine the Middle East without
an enclave of nuclear-armed Zionist extremists. The threat that Kennedy
posed to Tel Aviv's arsenal was eliminated five months after Ben-Gurion's
strategically well-timed resignation. When Vice President Lyndon Johnson
was sworn in as his successor, LBJ quickly increased the arms budget for
Israel. Imagine today's Zionist influence on U.S. policy had Fulbright
and the Kennedys succeeded in requiring that the lobby register as what
it is: a foreign agent.
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- Following the Kennedy assassination in November 1963,
Nicholas Katzenbach replaced RFK as Attorney General. Soon thereafter,
the AZC evaded registration as it morphed into the American Israel Public
Affairs Committee. AIPAC now oversees a transnational network of pro-Israeli
political operatives commonly known as "the Israel lobby."
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- The Kennedy/Fulbright risk to Zionist influence reemerged
five years later when Robert Kennedy announced his candidacy for the presidency
during the height of an unpopular war that was vastly expanded under the
leadership of the Texan who replaced his brother as president. Another
Kennedy presidency posed for Tel Aviv a two-fold threat.
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- First, Robert Kennedy's peace candidacy revived the possibility
that he would pursue his brother's agenda and target Israel's nuclear arsenal
in order to preclude a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. Second, with
Fulbright still wielding influence on U.S. foreign policy, a Kennedy administration
revived concerns about restrictions on the Israel lobby.
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- When this charismatic contender surged in the political
polls, that threat was eliminated June 5, 1968 at a campaign event in Los
Angeles. His death at the hand of Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian émigré,
coincided with the first anniversary of the Six-Day War. The assassin later
cited as his motive Kennedy's campaign pledge to provide more fighter jets
to Israel.
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- With that murder, the road to the presidency was cleared
for Richard Nixon. When lobbied by Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, Nixon
readily agreed to endorse an "ambiguous" status for Israel's
nuclear arsenal, akin to "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."
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- Special Standard for a Special Friend
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- Due to its "special relationship" with the
U.S., Tel Aviv remains a non-signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty. Its Dimona facility has never been subjected to the inspections
it now seeks for Iran. But for photographs taken inside the Dimona facility
in 1986 by nuclear technician Mordecai Vanunu, that "ambiguity"
might well remain intact.
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- The International Atomic Energy Agency has repeatedly
certified that Iran is not enriching uranium beyond the 3.5% required for
nuclear energy. Tehran has agreed to send its uranium abroad for the further
enrichment required for medicine (19.5%), a level still well below the
90% required for nuclear weapons.
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- In mid-September, the U.S. intelligence agencies reported
to the White House that their assessment since the National Intelligence
Estimate of November 2007 remains unchanged. They still do not believe
that Iran has resumed nuclear weapons development work
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- What about Israel? What has their lobby been doing? Answer:
lobbying. As during the Kennedy era, Tel Aviv remains focused on a single
goal: ensuring that its ally and patron continues a six-decade policy ensuring
that Israel is not held accountable-for anything.
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- At what cost has the U.S. acted as if the Israel lobby
is not a foreign agent? The strategic issue faced by Fulbright and the
Kennedys remains unresolved: how best can the U.S. eliminate Israeli influence
as a threat to national security? Since that fateful letter of June 1963,
what has been the cost of this lobby to U.S. interests? What costs have
been imposed on others by this special relationship? At what point will
Americans say: Enough!
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- Jeff Gates is author of Guilt By Association, Democracy
at Risk and The Ownership Solution. See <http://www.criminalstate.com>www.criminalstate.com
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