A propos of today’s Jane Harman story, Josh Marshall has been raising questions as to whether the “Israeli agent” mentioned in yesterday’s CQ piece might be Haim Saban, the Israeli-American entertainment mogul who also bought a huge amount of power and influence in Washington by buying out the whole the Brookings Institution’s Middle East research operation (since renamed the “Saban Center.”)
I have a few points to make regarding this:
1. An excellent late 2006 profile of, and interview with, Saban can be found here. It’s by Ari Shavit of Ha’aretz. You can learn a lot about Saban there, including his deep “passion” for Israel and the almost child-like delight he has in his ability to use his immense wealth to wield political power, e.g. in this section:
- “I’m not after power. But I do not belittle the fact that I can go to Angela Merkel in the Chancellory and say, ‘Hi, Angela, how are you?’ And she replies, ‘Haim, nice to see you.’ I don’t minimize that. That’s a great pleasure. And that I sit with Clinton in the White House and he goes to the refrigerator and asks me if I want regular water or fizzy? Sometimes I tell myself that there’s something a bit nutty here. He’s the president of the United States. I sell cartoons. So he is going to serve me and ask if I want regular or fizzy water?”
Do you have the feeling that you are living in a movie?
“I’m living in a movie all the time.”
2. Saban presents himself there as an Israeli-American, and he is almost certainly still a citizen of Israel (where he spent 19 years of his youth) as well as of the US. I am a dual citizen myself– of the UK and the US. I don’t know whether the holding of a foreign passport makes it “easier”, in US legal terms, for the NSA to wiretap a person. (Anyway, I always figured Dick Cheney would have been listening to my phone calls regardless of my nationality.)
For Saban’s part, from the Shavit interview he seems fairly strongly predisposed to go to bat for purely Israeli interests, even where these might clash with US interests, whereas since becoming naturalized as a US citizen in 1988 I have never felt the slightest urge to go to bat for British interests at the expense of any US interests at all. I don’t intervene in any way in British politics, and though Her Majesty might be shocked to learn this, I carry her passport mainly as a matter or personal and professional convenience at this point.
3. Anyway, if some of the heavy hitters in the US media would put some shoe-leather and other resources into reporting this story we’d have a far better idea of the identity of the un-named “Israeli agent”– who may or may not be an Israeli or a dual Israeli-US national– the wiretapping of whom led to the record of the call with Harman in the first place. Why have the WaPo and the NYT not yet published anything on this story?
NYT today (4/21) does identify Saban’s involvement:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/21/us/politics/21harman.html?hp
The official with access to the transcripts said someone seeking help for the employees of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a prominent pro-Israel lobbying group, was recorded asking Ms. Harman, a longtime supporter of its efforts, to intervene with the Justice Department. She responded, the official recounted, by saying she would have more influence with a White House official she did not identify.
In return, the caller promised her that a wealthy California donor — the media mogul Haim Saban — would threaten to withhold campaign contributions to Representative Nancy Pelosi, the California Democrat who was expected to become House speaker after the 2006 election, if she did not select Ms. Harman for the intelligence post….
One of the officials said he was familiar with the transcript of “at least one phone call” in which Ms. Harman discussed weighing in with the department on the investigation of the Aipac officials and her possible chairwomanship of the Intelligence Committee. (She did not get the post.) He identified the California donor as Mr. Saban, a vocal supporter of Israel who turned the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers into a global franchise.
Helena, accusing someone of being a foreign agent is not the same as say that he or she would “go to bat” for another country. (In 1939 and 1940 a lot of Americans and British subjects living in America “went to bat” for England.)
At least Saban is a realist. He understands that he just sells cartoons.
JES seems a little confused about the matter of agency. An agent is one authorized to act on behalf of another. If that other is a foreign country, that person is a foreign agent. The original decision of the Justice Department to force registration of Israeli foreign agents in the US was overridden by President Lyndon Johnson – the same President who called off the rescue planes in 1967 and allowed the IAF to strafe the Liberty and kill American sailors. The NYT has finally picked up on the Jane Harman story, apparently the WAPO still refuses to do so. Clearly, the interests of the US call for the prosecution of people who violate our law by passing classified information to foreign nations. Just as clearly, Israel has an interest in protecting its spying activities in the US. Anyone trying to protect such spies and limit disclosure of the spying activities by exerting pressure to thwart the prosecution is acting as a foreign agent.
Jack, you seem to have a problem with reading comprehension. Please go back and read carefully what I originally wrote. I am not arguing about what constitutes an agent of a foreign country. I’m arguing that simply siding with that foreign country – or as Helena quaintly put it: “going to bat” for that country – does not, in and of itself mean that one is a foreign agent. Attributing the status of foreign agent to Haim Saban simply because he may or may not still hold an Israeli passport carries the error one step further.
Just to remind you and Helena, the US has a history of attributing foreign agency to an entire race when they threw the Japanese into camps after Pearl Harbor.
Your reference to the USS Liberty is totally irrelevant.
“Going to bat” for a foreign country – whatever that may mean – is not the same thing as acting against the interests of your own country in favor of the opposing interests of a foreign country or a specific party in that country. In typical fashion, I note that you try to immediately take a comment regarding a specific incident and a specific person and conflate with some all encompassing horror. No one has talked about groups, so be careful.
“Going to bat” for a foreign country – whatever that may mean – is not the same thing as acting against the interests of your own country in favor of the opposing interests of a foreign country or a specific party in that country.
I am not really certain what “going to bat” for another country is. You should ask Helena. She’s the one who first used that expression in this context here.
As far as “acting against the interests” of the US, I can refer you to Vadim’s excellent post to Helena in the preceding thread.
the opposing interests of a foreign country or a specific party in that country. In typical fashion, I note that you try to immediately take a comment regarding a specific incident and a specific person and conflate with some all encompassing horror.
LOL. Who was it that brought up the USS Liberty?
I have never felt the slightest urge to go to bat for British interests at the expense of any US interests at all.
How patriotic of you. But clearly Saban doesn’t see his “going to bat for Israel” (whatever that means) as being at the expense of US interests, and nothing in your interview would suggest otherwise.
Like Mearsheimer & Walt & as always you’re projecting your own idea of “what serves US interests” upon those who do not share those ideas.
By the way, I’ve noticed a really unhealthy trend in these posts where “pro-Israel” is used again and again in a pejorative sense (I guess this goes with the assumption that “pro-Israel” has to be “anti-American”)
Didn’t you once say that wise leaders and peacemakers should seek to be “pro” both sets of people & that being “pro-Israel” should absolutely not be considered as being in a “zero sum game” relationship with being “pro-Arab.” If this is possible of people at war, mightn’t it be easier still between allies? Or would you prefer that US-Israeli relations were more hostile?
marvellous: the speed with which a serious question is reduced to nit-picking.
Where the agent in question is, allegedly, offering a legislator inducements, including financial support, to employ her influence to compromise a police case for prosecution the question of whether or not that agent is acting for one state, another state or the benefit of the Universe does not arise. The agent, in such a case, is undoubtedly acting illegally.
The truth is that if the Rosenbergs were guilty of passing atomic secrets to the USSR, they were very possibly acting in the interests of humanity by balancing power internationally. They might have saved millions of lives in China and Korea. But none of such considerations had anything to with whether they were guilty or not.
It is important to remember that the alleged spies, in the current case, were engaged in a campaign to involve the USA in a war with Iran which they perceived as being in the best interests of a faction in Israeli politics. Not Israel but a school of zionism. What was at stake was a struggle for electoral advantage within the Knesset.
Vadim is right to point out the danger of conflating the interests of the neo-fascists with those of the State to whose interests they constitute an existential threat far greater than that of any external force.
I can’t help but think that this is “trial by Internet”, with a great number of assumptions being made by concerned parties – each with more, and often less, expertise – about the guilt of those concerned. I also find it strange that, while people are up in arms about what Rep. Harman, Rosen and Weissman might have done, they do not ask similar questions about the leakers of sensitive, or even classified information who, no doubt, have broken the law.
Today’s latest leak is here:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1080184.html
Personally, I hope that Rosen and Weissman are tried and exonerated, and that those who rashly sought indictments from a grand jury under the antiquated Espionage Act of 1917 pay the price with their jobs. And let there be no mistake, if they are found guilty, I hope they receive the full punishment due.
Just so there’s no mistake: If Rosen and Weissman are found guilty, I hope they receive the full punishment due.
Like Mearsheimer & Walt & as always you’re projecting your own idea of “what serves US interests” upon those who do not share those ideas.
Well said. One of the problems with Mearsheimer and Walt (in the paper, at least) is that they never explicitly state what exactly they believe US interests to be. They, therefore, do not have to argue for those interests and can devote themselves to exposing “The Lobby”.
The downside is that it is difficult for them to establish a causal relationship between the actions of “The Lobby” and specific policy decisions. The decision makers may have come to their decisions simply because they saw these as serving the interests of the US without.
As for Helena projecting her own (personal) view of what’s in the US interest, well what do you expect from someone who assumes that anyone would care were she to intervene in UK politics or that Dick Cheney even knows who she is.
Jack and Jes
I like your discussion. At least there is no name calling and the entries are kept succinct. Unfortunately for Jes – Jack is right on all points
Bysta, I’m certain that Jack will be happy to hear that you feel that way. (As a matter of fact, I believe that I am too!)
Clearly, the interests of the US call for the prosecution of people who violate our law by passing classified information to foreign nations.
Jack, have you read any of the briefs relating to this case, or are you going on hearsay yourself?
As JES’ already showed with a link to FAS, the presiding judge has determined that ‘classification status’ is hearsay. A key point of the defense is that documents are classified as “top secret” by the government, even when such information is not closely held and when it doesn’t clearly damage the United States or prove useful to its enemies (as the Espionage statute specifically demands.) The court as termed this issue “a major focus of the trial” and is in fact the crux of the defense, as you’d surely know if you studied the case in any depth.
please read:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/jud/aipac/rosen021709.pdf
I hope this clears up your confusion.
Actually, that doesn’t clear up the confusion for me. Yes, I am going solely on newspaper reports and I would certainly defer to the actual pleadings and rulings in the case. Media reports of legal proceedings are notoriously inaccurate.
I am confused? Was Lyndon Johnson an agent of Israel?
I just like to say one thing here to same people raising the issue of loyalty to their country and their country follow in regards to US/ Israeli relations and all the discussion around that.
All the people here who did and doing from analysing and commenting about US and Iraq poppet group that put in power I would ask very simple question here:
Did you taken this issue when you did discussed Iraq and Iraqi views about US Poppet setting in Green Zone? Or you still arguing here its elected grope and democracy set by occupier.
How the reactions by Iraqi citizens and their felling with what done and doing with their country richest asset, did you asked yourself?
Finally the word came from mouth of Brittan PM John Browne here what he said:
“achievements of British troops have been ‘more limited’ than the government hoped when the invasion took place six years ago”
“Iraq does now have an elected government, but democratic institutions are fragile and
there is still a very serious problem with security.
Iraq invasion failed to achieve all its
aims, admits Gordon Brown
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 9 April 2009