VIDEO: Reporter Tossed Out of AIPAC Conference!
This is the kind of scene that would not happen in Israel. Clayton Swisher from Al Jazeera English asks as impertinent question about the upcoming AIPAC trial and gets thrown out.
In Israel, the question would have produced a debate -- screaming, hollering and God knows what else. Here, the reporter is banned. Good journalism though. I wish Swisher was asking this kind of provocative question at the White House press room. We need less politeness by reporters (again, see Israel).
Meanwhile the lawyer representing the AIPAC guys asks in an op-ed in the Forward. Why haven't these guys received their constitutional due of a speedy trial. The case looks very flimsy. Try them or free them. Just letting them dangle in the wind seems indefensible.
RESPONSE FROM AIPAC AIPAC's spokes person, Josh Block, called to say that "There were some 463 reporters at Policy Conference, including over 25 from Arab TV channels alone and numerous others from outlets consdidered unfriendly to AIPAC, all of whom had equal access to cover events throughout the 3 days." He said that all reporters were told that "the opportunity to ask questions at the forums is reserved for delegates who pay and travel from across the country to attend the conference." The substance of the question was irrelevant. Block made clear that Al Jazeera English is a welcome participant at the conference.
Thanks for the video link.
I don't know a ton about the spying indictments but usually when there's a long lag between an indictment and the actual trial, it signals that the case is pretty weak.
That said, we know we spy on our allies and that our allies spy on us so it's hardly shocking.
June 5, 2008 9:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm pretty sure these speedy trial claims are a red herring. There is a well developed body of law on the constitutional right to a speedy trial, and nothing prevents them from raising the speedy trial argument if it would be valid and possibly successful.
June 5, 2008 12:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
From the Forward piece:
The name Larry Franklin is conspicuous in its absence these days. Some may remember Franklin as the Pentagon official who passed the alleged classified documents on to Rosen and Weissman, and without whom none of this Law and Order episode ("ripped from the headlines!") would be necessary. But he flipped, narcing on the AIPACers, and was apparently rewarded with a white hat, a possible footnote in history and the chance to live happily ever after. We Americans love our happy endings.
June 5, 2008 9:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
Bar Kafka says;
"But he flipped, narcing on the AIPACers, and was apparently rewarded with a white hat, a possible footnote in history and the chance to live happily ever after. We Americans love our happy endings."
from NY Times:
Pentagon Analyst Gets 12 Years for Disclosing Data
By DAVID JOHNSTON
Published: January 20, 2006
WASHINGTON, Jan. 20 - A federal judge sentenced a former Defense Department analyst, Lawrence A. Franklin, to more than 12 years in prison today after Mr. Franklin admitted passing classified military information to two pro-Israel lobbyists and an Israeli diplomat. Mr. Franklin's sentence, which included a fine of $10,000....."
Not exactly a white hat living happily ever after.
June 5, 2008 3:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you, JohnW1141. I reacted hastily, as it turns out the ending hasn't even been writeen yet. Fair enough. But Franklin still hasn't spent a day in jail, and he is still lawyered up....
June 5, 2008 6:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bar Kafka,
I wasn't aware he was still free. Thanks for the update.
June 6, 2008 2:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
MJ -- good distinction between AIPAC and Israel.
I'm not Jewish, but I have had many long discussions with a good Israeli friend about Jewish culture and history. She said something that I recognized very quickly, because it was a common thread, to varying degrees of course, among Israelis I've met: if you have a point, make it confidently and sustain your argument. That can mean shouting, whatever! It's all about the quality of your argument, your case.
I love it, because I grew up in a very similar family, where debate was enouraged! I feel at home in that kind of setting.
This is quite different, a cultural difference, from the anti-democratic censorship that AIPAC produces. I call it Abe Foxman disease.
I am a pluralist -- I believe in ethnic diversity, equality and tolerance. Open debate is best for all!
June 5, 2008 10:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
So, Abbe Lowell claims Weissman and Rosen are getting the shaft because they haven't received a speedy trial - when the reason they haven't been tried yet is a full-court press of shrewd delaying tactics by Lowell and his defense team. Lowell is a very good attorney and he has thrown everything but the kitchen sink in terms of motions and postponements at an out-of-his-element judge. The defense wants everyone but Whittaker Chambers to testify in this case - including all the heavy hitters in the American intelligence sector. They know that ain't gonna happen. In this case, Weissman and Rosen have one excuse for turning over secret strategic information to the Israelis: Everyone does it.
Lowell and his team hope to kill this case by putting it on a legalistic treadmill and running it to death. And it just may work: When was the last time you read of "AIPAC spying scandal" in your newspaper?
But to turn around and cry victim because these two haven't received prompt justic is the essence of gall. Or... chutzpah, if you will.
June 5, 2008 3:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
What does the Bush Administration and AIPAC have in common?
They don't like inconvenient questions from reporters.
Helen Thomas, you must sit in the back from now on! (next to that Al Jazzera guy)
June 5, 2008 3:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh bullshit that "this" wouldn't happen in Israel. Even though MJ favors restricting Freedom of Speech on his own threads and the banning of Norman Finkelstein (because MJ is determined to remain ignorant about Hezbollah), the notion that Israel is some bastion of independent voices has been seriously eroding over the past several years.
Dead journalists, creeping press censorship, Haaretz choosing to downsize out some of it's most effective reporters and recently arrested "security risks" such as the head of the courageous and effective Israeli Physicians For Human Rights give lie to this nonsense.
MJ is perpetuating the glorious fuzzy-pink picture of Israel while under the delusion that this distortion somehow helps the REAL ISRAELIS who are struggling against mounting odds to make their country match up to the hasbara. By doing so, MJ and similliar "supporters of Israel" are actually undermining the values of the country they profess to love.
The influence of the American Disapora is finally starting to gain more critical scrutiny by Israelis who are being forced to face the truth that so much of the LOVE is corrosive and corruptive.
With luck, President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Tzipi Livni will be able to get serious about seeking to improve Israel's security by focusing on the real threats instead of the hysterical gibberings of those who refuse to allow Israel to become a functional part of the neighborhood.
As Yoel Marcus put it in his May22 column:
"Israel needs to ready itself for peace agreements and smart diplomacy under the leadership of someone capable of reining in generals who see our future through the sights of a gun"
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/986427.html
Insh'Allah, B'ezrat Hashem and God willing.
June 5, 2008 3:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Has Mister Rosenberg ever written a column praising Israel? Has he ever written a column condemning explicit Arab threats of genocide against Jews? Or a column objecting to Palestinians who murder Jewish children and then receive a hero's welcome from Palestinian society? Can we expect an outraged response from Mister Rosenberg about the Muslim in Seattle who was just awarded a mistrial after admitting that he deliberately killed Jews because he wants them all dead?
Rhetorical questions, each and every one.
I am still waiting for Mister Rosenberg to list the "Jews who care only for Israel" whom he repeatedly castigates. What are the identities of these loathsome Jews? Don't any of them have names?
June 5, 2008 8:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, I think it would happen in Israel. I attended an exhibition at KunstWerke in Berlin by two Jewish Israeli architects about the strategic design of the Israeli landscape to keep Israelis from being confronted with the degrading circumstances that the Palestinians live in. Even the highways are designed to keep Palestinian settlements out of view and out of reach. These two architects were booted out of the Israeli Architecture Guild.
The more Israelis and Israel supporters refuse to have an open discussion about the various conflicts and issues surrounding Israel, the more they come to resemble the Fascists who tormented them 80 years ago. A concrete example of this would be the Israeli commando who told a friend of mine that in order to "control" the Palestinians it was acceptable to "study the methods of the Nazis".
June 6, 2008 3:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
hey Bob Lane, did you know there are a lot of Arabs who are mad at Jews? Isn't that awful? And unfair? And it's very, very scaaary. Better deny them the right to participate in a discussion because, since the Jews were the victims of genocide before, they can't possibly have (even unintentionally) contributed to that anger. They are victims, not perpetrators. Am I right?
June 6, 2008 3:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
I wonder what happened to you at AIPAC which caused you to hate them so. I bet someone in authority called you a dumb little putz unfit for anything more than errand boy.
June 6, 2008 6:05 PM | Reply | Permalink