



On November 14, over 40 members of Congress--both Democrats and Republicans--wrote to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, warning him of their concerns about Iran establishing a permanent presence in Syria, and thus completing a Shia Corridor, running from Iran through Iraq and Syria into the Mediterranean coast of Lebanon. The signers of the letter, we learned, had just returned from a visit to Israel, "our regional ally," and the views "they" expressed were, for all intents and purposes, word-for-word from the mouth of the Israeli government.

To say that the members of Congress who signed on to this Made in Israel tract are brainwashed may be a bit strong. They were surely intoxicated by the experience of hearing the briefings from the Israeli Defense Forces, the Mossad and the Office of the Prime Minister.

I cannot say with 100 percent certainty, but I presume that these US elected officials were in Israel during a recess "CODEL" (Congressional Delegation), which means they were there are US taxpayers funds, soaking up the Israeli propaganda on your dime.

Some visits by members of Congress and other American influential are directly financed through the Israel Lobby, through organizations like AIPAC, the ADL and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA). ADL brings American law enforcement officers to Israel, while JINSA concentrates on retired US military flag officers.

The letter was such a flagrant piece of Israeli propaganda that it reminded me again of the overreach by the Israeli government and its vast lobby.

In his latest article for Unz Review, Phil Giraldi reported that a US tax exempt organization called Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces FIDF) just conducted fundraisers in Los Angeles and New York, which generated $70 million in contributions. The organization had a bank account with $190 million in reserve, going into those events. How can the Treasury Department grant tax exempt status to an organization that is a lobby for a foreign military institution?

How did the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai Brith retain its tax exempt status after the 1992 revelations that they were recruiting US law enforcement officers to spy for Israel.

When President Dwight Eisenhower demanded that Britain, France and Israel withdraw from the Suez Canal in 1956, it was only after he threatened to strip away the US tax exempt status of the Zionist Lobby organizations that Israel agreed to withdraw (after Britain and France had already agreed to pull out). With perhaps one or two exceptions, that was the last time that the Israelis and their lobby were genuinely put in their place by an American President. That was 61 years ago.

Look where coddling to Israel has gotten us.