Setting the scene: preparations for Aipac’s policy conference plenary session at the Washington Convention Centre in Washington DC Andrew Harrer · Bloomberg · Getty

An investigative documentary by Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera scheduled for broadcast earlier this year was expected to cause a sensation. Its four 50-minute episodes centred on the young and personable James Anthony Kleinfeld, British, Jewish, an Oxford graduate who speaks six languages including Dutch and Yiddish and is well-informed about Middle East conflicts — seemingly a natural fit for a western foreign ministry or a major thinkthank.

The documentary showed Kleinfeld being enthusiastically recruited for his skills by The Israel Project (TIP), which defends Israel’s image in the media, and associating with senior members of organisations that support Israel unconditionally, especially the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), the powerful US lobbying group. For five months, he mixed with them at cocktail parties, congresses and conventions, and on training courses. He won their trust and they opened up to him, abandoning doublespeak and official lines. How, he asked, did they go about influencing the US Congress? ‘Congressmen don’t do anything unless you pressure them, and the only way to do that is with money’. How did they counter Palestinian rights activists on university campuses? ‘With the anti-Israel people, what’s most effective, what we found at least in the last year, is you do the opposition research, put up some anonymous website, and then put up targeted Facebook ads.’

Kleinfeld’s contacts told him they were spying on US citizens with the help of Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs, founded in 2006, which reports directly to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. One official said: ‘We are a different government working on foreign soil, [so] we have to be very, very cautious.’ And indeed some of the things they do could be subject to prosecution under US law.

At the end of Kleinfeld’s time at TIP, his boss there, Eric Gallagher, was so happy with his performance that he wanted to hire ‘Tony’ on a permanent (...)