New Book Reveals How The Israel Lobby Destroyed U.S. Diplomacy With Iran.

Written By: Justin K.P.

Investigative journalist Eli Clifton and political scientist Ian Lustick have released a detailed history of the Israel lobby’s influence on U.S. foreign policy titled “Israel’s Lobby: America in the Grip of a Foreign Power”.

The book contains a detailed history of the Israel lobby’s influence over various U.S. administrations going back to its creation.

Among the book’s most interesting revelations is how the Israel Lobby pushed anti-Iran propaganda in the United States in order to destroy U.S. diplomacy with Iran.

This campaign- the book noted- began when the Obama administration was negotiating the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, aka the JCPOA.

The authors note that Israel Lobby groups attempted to end the deal with Iran, writing “The Republican Jewish Coalition, whose board included Sheldon Adelson and Home Depot cofounder Bernie Marcus, immediately attacked Obama as ‘misguided’ and ‘giving cheer to Tehran’s rogue regime and causing alarm among our friends in the region, including Israel, Saudi Arabia and most other Gulf States.’”

The Republican Jewish Coalition, the book noted, was joined by other Zionist lobby groups, such as The Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) in trying to prevent U.S. diplomacy with Iran.

The authors wrote, “The Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a heavy promoter of the Iraq War and the Global War on Terror before that, followed suit the next day, opposing the proposed deal as ‘a gamble on Western optimism.’ It was joined by a shadowy pressure group, United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI). ‘Tonight’s events are a disappointment for those of us who have worked to pressure Iran’s economy and impose the toughest sanctions in history on Iran—the same sanctions that brought the regime to the negotiating table,’ its statement said. ‘Those touting this agreement do not appear to understand the fragility of sanctions, or the dangers of rolling them back and easing the economic pressure on Iran.’”

These groups, the book noted, were “funded by a small, overlapping set of donors with deep ties to Israel”.

United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) it noted, “according to a 2013 document, received $500,000 from the Adelsons that year alone. Another $843,000 was contributed by a series of trusts controlled by billionaire precious metals speculator Thomas Kaplan, a citizen of the United States, France, the Republic of the Seychelles, and the United Arab Emirates, and his wife, Daphne Recanati, the daughter of Israeli financier Leon Recanati.”

The book noted that Thomas Kaplan told former Israeli Prime Minister and Jeffery Epstein’s Israeli handler Ehud Barak that “A nuclear Iran ‘represents a psychological threat that will have untold consequences on the Israeli economy and population flows’” in a leaked email.

As for the FDD, the book noted that it was “formed originally in 2001 as Emet (‘Truth’ in Hebrew) with a mission that included ‘provid[ing] education to enhance Israel’s image in North America.’ That name and mission, while submitted to the IRS in its founding documents, was nowhere to be found on its website. By the time the JCPOA debate was occurring, the group had also removed evidence of its advocacy for the Iraq War. Articles with statements including ‘that Saddam still has weapons of mass destruction cannot be seriously doubted’ and language claiming ‘we know Saddam Hussein is making weapons of mass destruction’ were long removed, focusing attention on the alleged threat posed by Iran instead. Al Jazeera hidden cameras captured Sima Vaknin-Gil, the director general of Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs, speaking in blunt terms about Israel’s relationship with the FDD. ‘We have FDD. We have others working on’ projects including ‘data gathering, working on activist organizations, money trail,’ said Vaknin-Gil to an audience of American pro-Israel advocates in 2016. ‘This is something that only a country, with its resources, can do the best’”.

The Israel Lobby cutout ,the book noted, “wasn’t just a producer of research papers and op-eds advocating against the JCPOA and for more sanctions and military threats against Iran. It also served as an important element of an echo chamber informing the public and Congress about Middle East policy,” noting that, “In an eighteen-month period preceding and immediately following the signing of the JCPOA in 2015, FDD staff and fellows provided congressional testimony opposing the deal seventeen times.”

The FDD was also primarily funded by Israel’s first billionaire donors, the book noted, writing “a misfiled document revealed that Bernie Marcus contributed $10.7 million, Paul Singer contributed $3.6 million, and Sheldon Adelson contributed $1.5 million in a five-year period ending in 2011. The three men were the three largest donors to the FDD in that time frame, the only period in which the group’s top donors have been disclosed.”

Meanwhile, the book documented how AIPAC’s messaging became more explicitly anti-Iran.

In 2010, the book noted, “AIPAC-contracted telemarketers were directed to say: ‘Iran is rejecting international calls to end its nuclear pursuit.’”

It added, “By 2014, the emphasis had shifted to warning about Iranian president Rouhani’s diplomatic engagement with US and European diplomats. The script read: ‘Regional dangers continue to grow for Israel. In Iran, President Rouhani’s rhetoric continues to charm world leaders, while the regime has not slowed its nuclear pursuits.’”

This was ramped up further in the following years.

The book noted that, “the threat of an Iranian nuclear weapon continued to appear in AIPAC’s fundraising scripts even as the group worked against the JCPOA—a joint agreement with the US and other world leaders that sought to limit Iran’s uranium encroachment with verifiable safeguards and put in place provisions to extend Iran’s breakout time to produce enough highly enriched uranium or plutonium for a nuclear weapon from two to three months to one year or more” with the 2015 AIAPC script reading, “Iran continues to pose a grave threat of attaining a nuclear weapons capability”.

The book added that, “After the signing of the JCPOA in 2015, the fundraising scripts became even more vivid in the violence and existential threats described and either ignored or stood in direct opposition to the foreign policy agenda undertaken by the Obama administration. The 2016 script read: ‘… and Iran continues to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of striking the U.S’”.

The authors added that, “Iran had not in fact developed such a missile”.

While the Zionist lobby did not initially get its way on the Iran deal, the book documents how the lobby made inroads with the Trump 2016 campaign, eventually getting him to rip up the deal.

The book meticulously documented how Trump in 2016 changed his platform after massive funding from pro-Israel donors.

“ (Sheldon) Adelson told reporters that Trump ‘will be good for Israel.’ Trump’s support for Israel was not mentioned in Adelson’s endorsement of Trump later that month in a Washington Post op-ed. But he once again acknowledged the centrality of US policy in the Middle East as a driving motivation for his political engagement, characterizing himself as ‘hawkish on Israel’ and having ‘waged battles’ over the Iran nuclear deal, ‘an issue of paramount importance to me personally and to many others around the world.’ In an email sent to fellow Republican Jewish leaders, Adelson urged them to support the presumptive nominee, saying he was convinced Trump would be a ‘tremendous president when it comes to the safety and security of Israel.’”, the book noted.

The book noted how Trump changed his 2016 platform after major donations from the Israel Lobby, writing, “The Adelsons and Marcus quickly came around, donating $25 million and $7 million, respectively, to support Trump’s general election candidacy. That flow of support from the pro-Israel billionaires came alongside a flurry of movement from the campaign to bring Trump’s platform in line with that of his new biggest donors. Just before the July GOP convention and Trump’s formal nomination, the Republican Platform Committee unanimously omitted any reference to a two-state solution from the party’s Israel planks. Trump met with Netanyahu in September and promised that, if elected president, he would ‘recognize Jerusalem as the undivided capital of the State of Israel.’ The campaign reported that Trump agreed with Netanyahu that peace between Israelis and Palestinians required ‘the Palestinians [to] renounce hatred and violence and accept Israel as a Jewish State.’ Six days before the election, Trump’s ‘Israel Advisory Committee’ published a position paper proposing a break from the Israel policy of previous Republican and Democratic administrations, celebrating ‘the unbreakable bond between the United States and Israel’ based on ‘shared values of democracy, freedom of speech, respect for minorities, cherishing life, and the opportunity for all citizens to pursue their dreams.’”

The book added, “As for ‘never Trump’ pro-Israel donors who held out on endorsing Trump, even Paul Singer, who had warned that Trump’s policies would lead to a ‘widespread global depression,’ ultimately made amends with the new president-elect. Singer donated $1 million to the president-elect’s inaugural committee.”

Trump, during his first term, enacted every policy these pro Israel donors demanded, including by ripping up the Iran deal, the book noted, writing, “Trump, in his first term, enacted a series of wish-list items for Israel, including a unilateral withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, recognition of Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and, at the repeated urging of the Adelsons, the promised move of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.”

(Emphasis: Mine)

The destruction of U.S. diplomacy with Iran, bought by Zionist donors like Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, Bernie Marcus and Paul Singer, eventually led to the U.S. war on Iran for Israel.

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