Former AIPAC Honcho Sues Israel Lobby For “Defamation”

By Andrew I. Killgore


	AIPAC’s former foreign policy director Steve Rosen (l) and the lobby’s former Iran specialist, Keith Weissman (Jewish Telegraphic Agency/Lloyd Wolf).

ON AUG. 4, 2005 the U.S. government indicted Steve Rosen, then the powerful foreign policy director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and Keith Weissman, AIPAC’s Iran specialist, on charges of revealing “codeword protected intelligence” to an officer of the Israeli Embassy in Washington, DC. The pair had been under FBI surveillance since at least April of 1999.

Nearly four years later, it is not clear if the two will ever be tried. Clever defense attorneys Abbe Lowell for Rosen and John Nassikas for Weissman, together with AIPAC-friendly Judge T.S. Ellis of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia (Alexandria), have managed to achieve delay after delay in the trial.

Judge Ellis has ruled that Lowell and Nassikas may bring such highly classified sensitive intelligence before the court that the prosecutor will feel compelled not to proceed with the case lest precious intelligence “sources and methods” be compromised. Ellis has also ruled, and been upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, that the defense can call William Leonard to testify in the trial.

Leonard, now retired from the Defense Department, was the U.S. government’s “classification czar” who the defense hopes to use to support its argument that the information Rosen and Weissman transferred to Israel was in fact not worthy of classification. Despite the difficulties piling up for the prosecution, a spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office in Alexandria which is handling the case is quoted as saying that it is “reviewing the decision and will respond in court.”

In an article surprisingly critical of AIPAC that appeared in the March 5 issue of the New Jersey Jewish News and other Jewish weeklies, author Douglas Bloomfield—who for nine years was AIPAC’s legislative director and chief lobbyist—suggests that trials can be dangerous “…even to a vaunted lobby.” AIPAC’s claim that Rosen and Weissman were “rogues acting beneath the group’s [AIPAC’s’] standards,” Bloomfield wrote, “…will be shot full of holes from all directions in court, whether in the criminal case or in a likely civil suit by the defendants.”

Bloomfield maintains that AIPAC knew fully what Rosen and Weissman were doing. AIPAC insiders, former colleagues and sources close to the defense say “what they [AIPAC] don’t want out is that even though they publicly sounded like they were supporting the Oslo peace process, they were working all the time to undermine it,” a well-informed source told Bloomfield.

In a March 11 story, the Jewish Telegraph Agency reported that Rosen—who reportedly believes he will be acquitted—has in fact sued AIPAC for “defamation,” and is seeking $21 million in compensation. Weissman has not joined in Rosen’s suit against AIPAC. He apparently believes he will be convicted. One report said that Weissman had “gone Arab” and was even wearing a keffiyeh, a common headdress for Middle Eastern Arab men.

According to Bloomfield, AIPAC raised $86 million in 2007—twice its take the previous year—so the organization will not be short of money. Rosen’s suit suggests that there is no love lost between AIPAC and himself. Nevertheless the boldly aggressive Rosen suit suggests he really expects to be acquitted or to see the case dropped. Or, perhaps, by filing the suit, he hopes to influence the government to drop its charges.

Rosen is a very dangerous man for U.S. national interests. Most recently, in his new incarnation as visiting fellow and blogger for Islamophobe Daniel Pipes’ Middle East Forum, he led the charge against the appointment of Ambassador Chas Freeman as director of national intelligence (see p. 10). If Rosen is acquitted or the case dropped, the interests of Israel can be expected to continue to prevail over those of the United States, in foreign and domestic affairs alike.

Andrew I. Killgore is publisher of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.