(Analysis) — Duel Israel-U.S. citizen and billionaire businessman, Haim Saban has hosted a forum in Washington which featured a speech by Donald Trump’s son-in-law and Senior Advisor to the President, Jared Kushner.

This is Kushner’s first public appearance since Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about speaking with the former Russian Ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak.

It later turned out that during those conversations, Flynn unsuccessfully lobbied Russia on behalf of Israel, asking that Russia’s now deceased Ambassador to the U.N., Vitaly Churkin, either delay a vote or block the passage of U.N. Security Council Resolution 2334.

It is more or less universally believed that the senior member of the Trump transition team who asked Flynn to lobby for Israel was Jared Kushner.

During his introduction of Kushner, Saban seemed to spill the beans. He addressed Kushner saying:

You’ve been in the news a lot the past few days, to say the least, but you’ve been in the news about an issue that I personally want to thank you for, because you and your team were taking steps to try and get the United Nations Security Council to not go along with what ended up being an abstention of the U.S. against 50 year old tradition and to be honest with you, some people might criticize (you)… as far as I know there’s nothing illegal there, but I think that this crowd and myself want to thank you for making that effort, so thank you very much”.

At that point, the audience applauded while Kushner appeared to nod in approval. However, Kushner did not address the issue in his subsequent remarks.

Saban’s words, which were at no time contradicted by a calm and apparently happy Kushner, demonstrate the farce of the current Russiagate scandal, which is in reality, an Israelgate scandal.

Over the past year, the United States has been engaged in a collective hysteria about U.S. citizens “colluding with a foreign power.” Now that that power has been exposed as Israel, rather than Russia, a well-known businessman and member of the Democratic party who donated to Hillary Clinton’s losing 2016 campaign, has publicly congratulated Kushner for colluding with Israel.

Saban has previously stated,

I’m a one-issue guy, and my issue is Israel.”

If a U.S. citizen born in Russia stated, “I’m a one-issue guy, and my issue is Russia” and then praised members of a U.S. presidential transition team for colluding with Russia, one could only imagine the furor that would break loose.

As it is, the remarks by Saban, which apparently confirm that Kushner indeed colluded Israel and asked Mike Flynn to do his bidding in this respect, have not made the front pages of the New York Times or Washington Post.

My views on Russia and Israel are both well-known. This is not the issue in this case.

What is the issue is that the U.S. must make up its mind. Is foreign collusion something that should be applauded by a member of the wealthy elite as it was by Mr. Saban, or is it something that should be prosecuted under the Logan Act as many pundits and politicians have suggested when they suspected that Americans were colluding with Russia?

I am not asking anyone to change their policies, I am, however, asking what every journalist should be asking: The U.S. must clarify its policy on foreign collusion and do so in a manner that is consistent with a single interpretation of its own laws.

Watch | Saban Forum 2017 – A keynote conversation with Jared Kushner

Top photo | White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, speaks with Haim Saban, about the Trump administration’s approach to the Middle East region at the Saban Forum in Washington, DC (Brookings Institute/ Twitter)