Unplugged Mike

So the Larry Franklin spy scandal is working its way through the media and predictably, the anti-Israel brigade is coming out of the woodwork. The response at the Internet's bastion of radical-left antisemitism, Counterpunch, has had a number of predictable responses, ranging from accusations of dual loyalty, to proclamations that this is just the tip of the iceberg, to, most humorously, questioning of the story for accuracy on the basis that Israel has no need to spy on a country it already controls. But the conspiracy theorizing has made its way into the mainstream press; the Los Angeles Times published a story (no longer available online) in which several intelligence officers assert that Israel has a wide spy network in the US. Surprise, surprise, none of the sources gave their names for the story.

I believe, as many do, that this will soon blow over, but there is fallout; many Jewish communal groups are running scared, wondering if the FBI is spying on them as well. Some Jewish leaders, however, are blasting the White House for not responding more quickly to what they perceive to be an antisemitic attempt by anti-Israel forces in the CIA and State Department to discredit AIPAC.

Pat Buchanan more or less summed up the view of these elements on Meet the Press this past Sunday when he called for an investigation into whether there was a "nest of Pollardites" in the Pentagon, referring to AIPAC as the "Israeli lobby", code for accusing AIPAC, an American Jewish organization, of dual loyalty.

posted by Michael Brenner @ 3:06 PM