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http://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/ : Nuclear weapons, Israel, Dimona, Mordechai Vanunu | Homeland Security News Wire

Thu, 30 Apr 2015 14:27:10 +0000

In 2005 this American writer met Vanunu and began a series of interviews which led to “30 Minutes with Vanunu” taped in 2006 shortly after his FREEDOM of SPEECH Trial began. Outcome from that kangaroo court consigned Vanunu to 78 days back in solitary in 2010, so I published BEYOND NUCLEAR: Mordechai Vanunu's FREEDOM of SPEECH Trial and My Life as a Muckraker: 2005-2010 As Vanunu’s struggle for the right to leave Israel continued I published the FREE eBook: The Vanunu Legend: Israel’s Nuclear Whistleblower’s Struggle for Freedom I am Eileen Fleming, Senior Non-Arab Correspondent for USA’s The Arab Daily News https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncQ-mheucoI http://thearabdailynews.com/author/eileen-fleming... https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/479363

Antiwar.com Blog : Daniel Ellsberg on Mordechai Vanunu's Arrest

Fri, 1 Jan 2010 20:00:31 +0000

PLEASE do not miss the point! Vanunu paid with 18 years of his life for telling the world about Israel's clandestine 7 story underground WMD facility, which remains un-inspected by international inspectors. The point is that because Israel has denied him the RIGHT to leave the Jewish state and have arrested him just because he has a foreign gf; While this little American citizen journalist has been streaming 2005, 2006 and 2008 video interviews with him, has interviewed him countless times, has twice snail mailed the Mossad agent who trapped him, SECURITY should WAKE UP that this latest bullshit just maybe the best thing that has happened to Vanunu in 24 years! IF Israel had only been just and merciful they would have let Vanunu leave the Jewish state and fade away into history, instead of continuing to make it! The law of Karma is what you put out, always returns to you, and I am hoping it will soon kick in, for this latest harassment has garnered Vanunu more media attention than he has had in years! And as I know way more than The MEDIA does about Vanunu, tune into VANUNU ARCHIVES @ http://wearewideawake.org/ As more is on its way onto the WWW. little sister in JC, xoxe

Antiwar.com Blog : Daniel Ellsberg on Mordechai Vanunu's Arrest

Fri, 1 Jan 2010 13:58:21 +0000

The Rest of What the World Needs to Know About Mordechai Vanunu and 2005, 2006, 2008 video interviews with him and reports from Day One of his FREEDOM OF SPEECH TRial @ VANUNU ARCHIVES: http://www.wearewideawake.org/

Antiwar.com Blog : Daniel Ellsberg on Mordechai Vanunu's Arrest

Fri, 1 Jan 2010 13:39:47 +0000

Part 4: Regarding Israeli behavior towards Vanunu, please know that in 1986, Israel kidnapped him from Rome but Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states: "No one shall he subjected to arbitrary arrest or detention", including abduction of a person by agents of one state to another state. Vanunu was charged with and convicted of treason and espionage. According to Section 99 of the Israeli Penal Code, treason is defined as "an act calculated to assist (an enemy) in time of war...delivering information with the intention that it fall into the hands of the enemy." Section 113 defines aggravated espionage as "deliver(ing) any secret information without being authorized to do so and with intent to impair the security of the state" and a sub-clause provides for a penalty of seven years for the unauthorized collection, preparation, recording or holding of secret information; if this is done with intent to impair the security of the state and then, the penalty is increased to 15 years. Vanunu got 18 years and was also rendered defenseless when the court ruled that his motivations were not ideological and they refused to allow Vanunu's own statements regarding his intentions to be considered in his defense. Defense witness and the Sunday Times journalist who broke Vanunu's story, Peter Hounam, stated, "It is clear that, as far as Vanunu's accusers are concerned, the trial is not only about whether this decision to reveal the secrets of Israel's atom bomb amounted to treason and espionage, it is also about whether his decision to become a Christian was at the root of his alleged treachery". Hounam also testified that "We did not pay him money, but only covered his expenses... Money did not motivate him." [5] Sunday Times journalist Wendy Robbins wrote, "Mordechai never asked for nor received a single penny for his information... he blurted out the whole tale without first setting out any financial preconditions. Mordechai got nothing out of the whole episode. He never `sold' Israel's secrets -- he told them." In the 80's, Vanunu was transported to and from his closed door trial in a crash helmet, handcuffs and leg-irons, inside a van with blacked out windows that blasted a siren to assure Vanunu would not communicate with journalists or supporters. During the court hearings, two Israeli security agents flanked him at all times in order to be able to cover his mouth if he began to reveal anything they deemed secret. The public, the press and all observers-even Amnesty International- were excluded from the hearings and the court's judgment was censored before publication. On January 25, 2006, the first day of his freedom of speech trial in Israel only two reporters from minor media showed up for Vanunu's historic court case. Not one was in the court room on February 22, 2006, when it was revealed that Israel had gotten Microsoft to hand over all the details of Vanunu's Hotmail account before a court order had been obtained by eluding that he was being charged for espionage. TBC

Antiwar.com Blog : Daniel Ellsberg on Mordechai Vanunu's Arrest

Fri, 1 Jan 2010 13:37:02 +0000

Part 3: In 2005, Vanunu told me, "President Kennedy tried to stop Israel from building atomic weapons. In 1963, he forced Prime Minister Ben Guirion to admit the Dimona was not a textile plant, as the sign outside proclaimed, but a nuclear plant. The Prime Minister said, ‘The nuclear reactor is only for peace.’ "Kennedy insisted on an open internal inspection. He wrote letters demanding that Ben Guirion open up the Dimona for inspection. The French were responsible for the actual building of the Dimona. The Germans gave the money; they were feeling guilty for the Holocaust, and tried to pay their way out. Everything inside was written in French, when I was there, almost twenty years ago. "Back then, the Dimona descended seven floors underground. In 1955, Perez and Guirion met with the French to agree they would get a nuclear reactor if they fought against Egypt to control the Sinai and Suez Canal. That was the war of 1956. Eisenhower demanded that Israel leave the Sinai, but the reactor plant deal continued on. "When Johnson became president, he made an agreement with Israel that two senators would come every year to inspect. Before the senators would visit, the Israelis would build a wall to block the underground elevators and stairways. From 1963 to ’69, the senators came, but they never knew about the wall that hid the rest of the Dimona from them. "Nixon stopped the inspections and agreed to ignore the situation. As a result, Israel increased production. In 1986, there were over two hundred bombs. Today, they may have enough plutonium for ten bombs a year." TBC

Antiwar.com Blog : Daniel Ellsberg on Mordechai Vanunu's Arrest

Fri, 1 Jan 2010 13:31:03 +0000

Part 2: A little history: Mordechai Vanunu was released from Ashkelon prison to open air captivity in east Jerusalem on April 21, 2004 after 18 years-most all in solitary-on April 21, 2004. In 1986, Mordechai Vanunu was clubbed, drugged, bound and kidnapped from Rome by the Mossad because he told the truth and provided the photographic proof of Israel's clandestine 7 story underground WMD facility in the Negev. In the case of Mordechai Vanunu, please know that the restrictions that have held him captive in Jerusalem come from the Emergency Defense Regulations which were implemented by Britain against Palestinians and Jews after World War II. After WW II, Attorney Yaccov Shapiro, who later became Israel's Minister Of Justice, described the Emergency Defense Regulations as "unparalleled in any civilized country: there were no such laws in Nazi Germany." During one of my seven trips to Jerusalem since 2005, I asked Vanunu, "If the British Mandate has expired why not the British Mandate's Emergency Defense Regulations?" Vaunu replied, "The reason given is security but it is because Israel is not a democracy unless you are a Jew. This administration tells me I am not allowed to speak to foreigners, the Media, and the world. But I do because that is how I prove my true humanity to the world. My freedom of speech trial began January 25, 2006 for speaking to the media, the same day as the Palestinian elections…When I decided to expose Israel’s nuclear weapons I acted out of conscience and to warn the world to prevent a nuclear holocaust." In 1963, Peres was Israel’s Deputy Minister of Defense when he met with President Kennedy at the White House. Kennedy told Peres, “You know that we follow very closely the discovery of any nuclear development in the region. This could create a very dangerous situation. For this reason we monitor your nuclear effort. What could you tell me about this?” Peres replied, “I can tell you most clearly that we will not introduce nuclear weapons to the region, and certainly we will not be the first.” TBC

Antiwar.com Blog : Daniel Ellsberg on Mordechai Vanunu's Arrest

Fri, 1 Jan 2010 13:28:48 +0000

On January 25, 2006, after nearly two years of speaking to hundreds of foreigners since his release from prison, Vanunu was convicted by the Jerusalem Magistrates Court of 15 violations of a military order that had prohibited him from talking to non-Israelis and because he attempted to "leave the state" by taking a cab from Jerusalem to Bethlehem to attend Christmas Eve mass at the Church of the Nativity in 2004. The original indictment included 22 different violations; Vanunu was charged with 19 and acquitted of four. He was acquitted of speaking to foreign nationals on the internet and via video and voice chats. Just prior to the taping of "30 Minutes with Vanunu" [freely streaming @ VANUNU ARCHIVES http://wearewideawake.org/ ] on March 26, 2006, Vanunu told me, "Many journalists come here to the American Colony, from CNN and NY Times. They all want to cover my story, but their EDITORS say no...CNN wants to interview me; but they say they can't do it because they don't want problems with the Israeli censor. BBC is doing the same thing. Sixty Minutes from the United States from the beginning they wanted to do a program, but because of the censor situation they decide not to do it." On July 2, 2007, Israel sentenced Vanunu to six more months in jail for speaking to foreign media in 2004. On September 23, 2008, the Jerusalem District Court reduced Vanunu’s sentence to three months, "In light of (Vanunu’s) ailing health and the absence of claims that his actions put the country’s security in jeopardy." On June 14, 2009, Vanunu told me, “The Central Commander of the General Army testified in court that it is OK if I speak in public as long as I do not talk about nuclear weapons.” On July 6, 2009, the Supreme Court stated, "pending a review of his conduct, Vanunu will be able to ask for the restrictions to be lifted and be allowed to travel abroad…The state's representative noted that six months may be too short a time period to determine a change in Vanunu's behavior and that the state will reconsider the restrictions based not only on Vanunu's behavior but a host of other considerations, including the time that had lapsed since he divulged state secrets to the British paper." [1] On December 14, 2009 Vanunu returned to the Israeli Supreme Court. I phoned him that day and he told me he expected their decision regarding the 3 month sentence "in a few weeks" and remained confident he will be freed as "they have no case against me." It will soon be twenty-four years since Vanunu "divulged state secrets" and as Vanunu told me, "All the secrets I had were published in 1989 in an important book, by [Nuclear Physicist] Frank Barnaby, The Invisible Bomb: Nuclear Arms Race in the Middle East." [2] A few days before Vanunu was lured from London to Rome, where he was clubbed, drugged and kidnapped by the Mossad, he spent three days being interviewed by Nuclear Physicist, Frank Barnaby. Barnaby had been employed by the London Sunday Times to review the 57 photos Vanunu had obtained at various restricted locations in the Dimona and he also went to Jerusalem to provide expert testimony at Vanunu's closed door trial. Barnaby testified, "I found the fact that Vanunu was able to smuggle a camera and films into and out of Dimona and photograph highly sensitive areas in the establishment astonishing. I very vigorously cross-examined Vanunu, relentlessly asking the same questions in a number of different ways and at different times...I found Vanunu very straightforward about his motives for violating Israel's secrecy laws he explained to me that he believed that both the Israeli and the world public had the right to know about the information he passed on. He seemed to me to be acting ideologically. "Israel's political leaders have, he said, consistently lied about Israel's nuclear-weapons programme and he found this unacceptable in a democracy. The knowledge that Vanunu had about Isreal's nuclear weapons, about the operations at Dimona, and about security at Dimona could not be of any use to anyone today. He left Dimona in October 1985 and the design of today's Israeli nuclear weapons will have been considerably changed since then…Modern nuclear weapons bear little relationship to those of the mid-1980."[3] A total of 1,200 pages of transcript of that closed door trial have been released and Vanunu told the court: "I wanted to confirm what everyone knew, I didn't want Israel to go on denying that it had nuclear weapons, and Shimon Peres to go on lying to (then US president) Ronald Reagan, saying that we didn't have a nuclear arsenal. I also wanted controls to be placed on these weapons." [4] TBC

Antiwar Newswire : Israeli police arrest nuclear whistleblower Vanunu

Wed, 30 Dec 2009 14:29:30 +0000

Antiwar.com Original Articles : September 'Surprise'

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 04:10:03 +0000

What also needs to be confronted is how Israel deceived LBJ and Congress, Nixon's collusion with the Jewish State and the German and French Connection: In 2005, Vanunu told me: “Did you know that President Kennedy tried to stop Israel from building atomic weapons? "In 1963, he forced Prime Minister Ben Guirion to admit the Dimona was not a textile plant, as the sign outside proclaimed, but a nuclear plant. The Prime Minister said, ‘The nuclear reactor is only for peace.’ “Kennedy insisted on an open internal inspection. He wrote letters demanding that Ben Guirion open up the Dimona for inspection. “The French were responsible for the actual building of the Dimona. "The Germans gave the money; they were feeling guilty for the Holocaust, and tried to pay their way out. Everything inside was written in French, when I was there, almost twenty years ago. “Back then, the Dimona descended seven floors underground. In 1955, Perez and Guirion met with the French to agree they would get a nuclear reactor if they fought against Egypt to control the Sinai and Suez Canal. That was the war of 1956. Eisenhower demanded that Israel leave the Sinai, but the reactor plant deal continued on. “When Johnson became president, he made an agreement with Israel that two senators would come every year to inspect. Before the senators would visit, the Israelis would build a wall to block the underground elevators and stairways. From 1963 to ’69, the senators came, but they never knew about the wall that hid the rest of the Dimona from them. “Nixon stopped the inspections and agreed to ignore the situation. As a result, Israel increased production. In 1986, there were over two hundred bombs. Today, they may have enough plutonium for ten bombs a year.” IMAGINE if Obama would keep the promises he made in Prague: “As the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon, the United States has a moral responsibility to act…When we fail to pursue peace, then it stays forever beyond our grasp. We know the path when we choose fear over hope. To denounce or shrug off a call for cooperation is an easy but also cowardly thing to do. That’s how wars begin. That’s where human progress ends…the voices of peace and progress must be raised together…Human destiny will be what we make of it…Words must mean something.” Eileen Fleming, Founder of WeAreWideAwake.org A Feature Correspondent for The Palestine Telegraph and Arabisto.com Author of “Keep Hope Alive” and “Memoirs of a Nice Irish American ‘Girl’s’ Life in Occupied Territory” Producer “30 Minutes with Vanunu” and “13 Minutes with Vanunu” freely streaming @ VANUNU ARCHIVES: http://wearewideawake.org/

Antiwar.com Original Articles : September 'Surprise'

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 04:09:46 +0000

Obama has stated that “Iran is breaking rules that all nations must follow … and threatening the stability and security of the region and the world…[this] is going to lead to confrontation.” What needs to be confronted is Israel and their still un-inspected WMD Facility that everyone in the world knows all about-except most Americans due to our Occupied MSM. In my 2005, 2006 interviews with the Whistle Blower of Israel's WMD Program, Mordechai Vanunu told me: “The Israelis have 200 atomic weapons and they accuse the Palestinians and Muslims of terrorism. The Dimona is 46 years old; reactors last 25 to 30 years. The Dimona has never been inspected and Israel has never signed the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty but all the Arab states have. “Twenty years ago when I worked there they only produced when the air was blowing towards Jordan ten miles away. No one knows what is happening now. The world needs to wake up and see the real terrorism is the occupation and the Palestinians have lived under that terror regime for 40 years. “It’s very sad that Hilary Clinton went to the Jewish Wailing Wall and forgot the real crying wall is the Palestinian wall; the apartheid wall, the wall is not for defense, but to keep this conflict permanent. “Israel is only a democracy if you are a Jew.” To be credible Obama must confront Shimon Peres on what he said in 1963 while he was Israel’s Deputy Minister of Defense and met with President John Kennedy, inside the White House. Kennedy told Peres, “You know that we follow very closely the discovery of any nuclear development in the region. This could create a very dangerous situation. For this reason we monitor your nuclear effort. What could you tell me about this?” Peres repLIED, “I can tell you most clearly that we will not introduce nuclear weapons to the region, and certainly we will not be the first.” By September of 1986, Peres was convulsing over Vanunu, who had been employed as a lowly tech in his progeny; Israel’s clandestine underground nuclear weapons centre in the Negev called the Dimona. Peres ordered the Mossad, to “Bring the son of a bitch back here.” Peres ordered Vanunu’s kidnapping that included a clubbing, drugging and being flung upon an Israeli cargo boat back to Israel for a closed door trial that led to 18 years in jail-most all in solitary. In 1985, before quitting the Dimona, Vanunu shot 56 photos of the top-secret labs and production processes that proved Israel had become a major nuclear power by stockpiling between 100 and 200 atomic bombs within the underground WMD facility where plutonium production, and secret nuclear weapons were assembled without any knowledge, debate or authorization from its own citizens. TBC

Antiwar.com Original Articles : Picking on AIPAC?

Wed, 20 May 2009 21:44:45 +0000

In 1959, The American Zionist Council was renamed AIPAC. The lax enforcement of The Logan Act, The Foreign Agents Registration Act/FARA, the 1917 Espionage Act, Thompson Memorandum guidelines for prosecuting corporate crime coupled with the fear of being labeled anti-Semitic and a media who have failed at their commission to seek and report the truth have all colluded to exert an undue influence over Congress and thus; we the people of America to be "under the de facto influence of a powerful foreign interest." "AIPAC's illegal tactics harm America…[and] corporate crime inflicts far more damage on society than all street crime combined…Harvard economist Thomas Stauffer estimated the total cost of [the] prolonged conflict in the Middle East at $3 trillion [in 2002 USA dollars and he] lays a good deal of the blame for this at the doorstep of AIPAC." The Rest: http://www.wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=co...

Antiwar.com Original Articles : Is Obama Taking on the Israel Lobby?

Sat, 9 May 2009 23:52:55 +0000

What Mordechai Vanunu [the whistel blower of Israel's WMD Program] told me in June 2005: “Did you know that President Kennedy tried to stop Israel from building atomic weapons? In 1963, he forced Prime Minister Ben Guirion to admit the Dimona was not a textile plant, as the sign outside proclaimed, but a nuclear plant. The Prime Minister said, ‘The nuclear reactor is only for peace.’ Kennedy insisted on an open internal inspection. He wrote letters demanding that Ben Guirion open up the Dimona for inspection. "The French were responsible for the actual building of the Dimona. The Germans gave the money; they were feeling guilty for the Holocaust, and tried to pay their way out. Everything inside was written in French, when I was there, almost twenty years ago. Back then, the Dimona descended seven floors underground. In 1955, Perez and Guirion met with the French to agree they would get a nuclear reactor if they fought against Egypt to control the Sinai and Suez Canal. That was the war of 1956. Eisenhower demanded that Israel leave the Sinai, but the reactor plant deal continued on. Kennedy demanded inspections. "When Johnson became president, he made an agreement with Israel that two senators would come every year to inspect. Before the senators would visit, the Israelis would build a wall to block the underground elevators and stairways. From 1963 to ’69, the senators came, but they never knew about the wall that hid the rest of the Dimona from them. Nixon stopped the inspections and agreed to ignore the situation. As a result, Israel increased production. In 1986, there were over two hundred bombs. Today, they may have enough plutonium for ten bombs a year. Who knows?” e http://www.wearewideawake.org/

Antiwar.com Original Articles : Obama Aide Puts Israel's Nukes in the Diplomatic Mix

Sat, 9 May 2009 15:51:44 +0000

Making peace requires justice-and that means telling the truth and once again justice has been denied by the Jewish State against Vanunu, who told the world the truth in 1986 that Israel had already manufactured upwards of 200 nuclear warheads and also provided the 2 rolls of film taken in top secret locales in the Dimona-made accessible by a supervisor leaving the keys in the shower room after Vanunu had already smuggled a camera and film in on separate occasions. During a 2005 interview Vanunu said: “Did you know that President Kennedy tried to stop Israel from building atomic weapons? In 1963, he forced Prime Minister Ben Guirion to admit the Dimona was not a textile plant, as the sign outside proclaimed, but a nuclear plant. The Prime Minister said, ‘The nuclear reactor is only for peace.’ Kennedy insisted on an open internal inspection. He wrote letters demanding that Ben Guirion open up the Dimona for inspection. The French were responsible for the actual building of the Dimona. The Germans gave the money; they were feeling guilty for the Holocaust, and tried to pay their way out. Everything inside was written in French, when I was there, almost twenty years ago. Back then, the Dimona descended seven floors underground. In 1955, Perez and Guirion met with the French to agree they would get a nuclear reactor if they fought against Egypt to control the Sinai and Suez Canal. That was the war of 1956. Eisenhower demanded that Israel leave the Sinai, but the reactor plant deal continued on. Kennedy demanded inspections. "When Johnson became president, he made an agreement with Israel that two senators would come every year to inspect. Before the senators would visit, the Israelis would build a wall to block the underground elevators and stairways. From 1963 to ’69, the senators came, but they never knew about the wall that hid the rest of the Dimona from them. Nixon stopped the inspections and agreed to ignore the situation. As a result, Israel increased production. In 1986, there were over two hundred bombs. Today, they may have enough plutonium for ten bombs a year. Who knows?” Nobody but Israel. On April 21, 2009, the 6th year of restrictions that deny Vanunu the RIGHT to leave the state and the RIGHT to speak to non-Israelis began. He faces 3 months in jail for talking to foreign media in 2004. See and hear him speak for himself to the world about his FREEDOM of SPEECH Trial and more @ VANUNU ARCHIVES: http://www.wearewideawake.org/

Antiwar.com Original Articles : Jon Stewart: Wimp, Wuss, Moral Coward

Sat, 9 May 2009 13:51:42 +0000

I dissent from the critique of Jon as a "wimp, a wuss, and a moral coward" for he is FOREMOST a comic and his JOB is to entertain. Jon has done FAR more than many who claim to be journalists to open up the dialogue on what we the people need to be talking about. Jon is NOT a journalist-but he plays one as does Colbert and they are prophetic voices if we have ears to hear them. A journalist is one like Helen Thomas-please recall she was IGNORED twice by Obama when she alluded to Israel's WMD Program, but now everyone is talking about it. A healthy democracy thrives on dissent and we the people have much more power than we think-it is our silence that puts up with a supine Congress. "Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we're being run by maniacs for maniacal ends...I believe that as soon as people want peace in the world they can have it. The only trouble is they are not aware they can get it."-John Lennon On July 4, 1776, our founding father's upheld that,"We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights [and] that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; and, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it." - The Declaration of Independence The hearts and minds that require the most transformation are the ones that hold the most power; and power never gives any away without a battle, and words can be the most deadly of nonviolent weapons. e http://www.wearewideawake.org/

Antiwar.com Original Articles : Is Obama Taking on the Israel Lobby?

Fri, 8 May 2009 17:01:12 +0000

AIPAC currently has 515 lobbying appointments scheduled on Capitol Hill. "Foreign Agents: The American Israel Public Affairs Committee from the 1963 Fulbright Hearings to the 2005 Espionage Scandal" exposes how US Middle East policy has been formulated and thrives due to the dearth of relevant reporting on AIPAC's activities. This book should be read by every American tax payer, Congress and foreign policy maker. It begins with Senator Fulbright's on target questions to Jewish-Agency-funded US foreign agents who did not register with the Justice Department or disclose their true financing, funding flows and covert activities and illuminates how AIPAC: the American Israel Public Affairs Committee operates "within a murky nexus regulated by four important but seldom enforced US laws." [1] The lax enforcement of The Logan Act, The Foreign Agents Registration Act/FARA, the 1917 Espionage Act, Thompson Memorandum guidelines for prosecuting corporate crime coupled with the fear of being labeled anti-Semitic and a media who have failed at their commission to seek and report the truth have all colluded to exert an undue influence over Congress and thus; we the people of America to be "under the de facto influence of a powerful foreign interest." [2] Smith documents how AIPAC-a constellation of individuals and organizations that make up the "Israel lobby" continue to actively steer USA foreign policy in a militant and pro-Israel only direction. Senator Fulbright's concerns over activities of unregistered foreign agents who worked to influence public opinion and policy resulted in the 1963 Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings to investigate the Jewish Agency and uncovered the "conduit" operation run by the American Zionist Council. In 1959, The American Zionist Council was renamed AIPAC. Within eight years, the Council received over a half a million "from the Jewish Agency to create a favorable opinion in this country for Israeli government policies. The Senate investigation closed down the conduit, but the extensive propaganda activities still go on…[and] by 1998, "US aid to Israel exceeded $3 billion a year, the highest amount of US aid given to any country." [3] "AIPAC's illegal tactics harm America…[and] corporate crime inflicts far more damage on society than all street crime combined…Harvard economist Thomas Stauffer estimated the total cost of [the] prolonged conflict in the Middle East at $3 trillion [in 2002 USA dollars and he] lays a good deal of the blame for this at the doorstep of AIPAC." [4] The Rest: Patriot Follows the Money and Exposes Foreign Agents July 7, 2008: http://www.wearewideawake.org/