RICHARD MELSON

October 12, 2003

Israelization of Washington Policy:

Washington Subdued: ZOA and Mr. Klein

The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), founded in 1897, is the oldest
pro-Israel organization in the United States. They say of themselves:

"The ZOA works to strengthen U.S.-Israel relations, educates the American public and Congress about the dangers that Israel faces, and combats anti-Israel bias in the media and on college campus."

In 1997 they announced:

"This year's honorees will be Dalck Feith and Douglas J. Feith, the noted Jewish philanthropists and pro-Israel activists. Dalck Feith will receive the ZOA's special Centennial Award at the dinner, for his lifetime of service to Israel and the Jewish people. His son Douglas J. Feith, the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, will receive the prestigious Louis D. Brandeis Award at the dinner."
ZOA NATIONAL PRESIDENT: MORTON KLEIN

Morton A. Klein, who lives in a suburb of Philadelphia where the Feith family also lives, is National President of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA). He is a member of the Executive Committee of AIPAC. He is also a member of the International Board of Governors of the College of Judea and Samaria in Ariel, Israel.

Mr. Klein is widely regarded as one of the leading Jewish activists in the United States. The Jerusalem Post called the ZOA, "one of the most important and influential groups in the U.S. today." The Wall Street Journal called the ZOA "heroic and the most credible advocate for Israel on the American Jewish scene today" and added that we should "snap a salute to those who were right about Oslo and Arafat all along...including Morton Klein who was wise, brave and unflinchingly honest...When the history of the American Jewish struggle in these years is written, Mr. Klein will emerge as an outsized figure".

In recognition of his efforts, Mr. Klein received a "Certificate of Appreciation" from the U.S. State Department "in recognition of outstanding contributions to national and international affairs" and the One-Israel Fund's "Defender of the Land" award, the Jerusalem Reclamation Project's Ze'ev Jabotinsky Memorial Award, was honored by the Center for Security Policy, the far-right neo-con Zionist group led by Frank Gaffney.

Mr. Klein has led a series of successful pro-Israel efforts in Washington. The magazine Reform Judaism wrote, "Klein has emerged as a sophisticated political infighter with a keen feel for the subtleties of US-Israel relations and Washington Lobbying."

After a 3-year campaign, ZOA was responsible for the US Government offering multi-million dollar rewards for the capture of Palestinian Arabs who have resisted in Israel and the territories. ZOA initiated the Ashcroft-Salmon Bill and the Koby Mandell Act which would facilitate the capture of these Palestinian Arab "killers". The ZOA organized 42 Members of Congress to protest the fact that Abu Daoud, the putative mastermind of the 1972 Munich Massacre was allowed by Jordan to live there comfortably. After ZOA's campaign Abu Daoud quickly left Jordan. The Jordanian government then, for the first time, publicly pledged that it will arrest Daoud if he returns. The Forward reported 9/3/99 that "The ZOA's effort to hold Jordan accountable for harboring terrorists is having an effect ... ZOA president Morton Klein wrote to the Jordanian ambassador to America, Marwan Muasher, on August 29, expressing concern that two terrorists were being harbored in Jordan, and asking 'why Jordan permits ... Hamas to maintain major facilities in Amman.' In a matter of days, the Hamas offices were closed."

Klein and ZOA initiated the creation of the 60-member Peace Accord Monitoring group in the US Congress. This group and ZOA brought the issue of PLO compliance to the fore and were instrumental in passing the Specter-Shelby Bill "which further exposed Arafat's non-compliance of Oslo".

He has been invited to testify before the US Congress, including the US House International Relations Committee, and the Israeli Knesset.

Klein played a major role in helping elect U.S. Senator Arlen Specter in his 1992 campaign. Arlen Specter is a Jewish Zionist senator like Joseph Lieberman.

September 25 to October 9, 2003 Klein/ZOA Update:

Following protests by the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), the FBI has announced that it has canceled its plan to give an award to an official of an Arab-American group that has "praised terrorist killers of Americans and accused America of committing ‘genocide’ in Iraq".

FBI Director Robert Mueller was scheduled to give the FBI's "Exceptional Public Service Award" on October 9, 2003 to Imad Hamad, the Midwest Regional director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC). ZOA and Klein objected:

"The ADC has praised Hezbollah --which massacred 241 Americans in a 1983 car-bomb attack in Lebanon-- as "a Lebanese resistance organization engaged in the legitimate defense of Lebanese land...this hardly qualifies as terrorism." (quoting ADC president Hala Maksoud, Washington Times, Aug. 25, 1996)

The ZOA then published a report titled, "The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination
Committee: What the Record Reveals", "which documented ADC officials' long
history of defending the terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah; accusing
America of committing "genocide" in Iraq; and making anti-Jewish statements
such as ‘the Jews run Hollywood’ " (Jerusalem Report, Oct. 17, 1996).

In a letter to FBI Director Mueller on September 25, 2003, ZOA National
President Morton A. Klein, Chairman of the Board Dr. Alan Mazurek, and

National Executive Committee chairman Dr. Michael Goldblatt wrote:
"Extremists who sympathize with Hezbollah should not be given awards. It makes a mockery of America's war against terrorism, and sends a message to terrorists and their supporters that the United States is not fully committed to fighting terror."

Commenting on the FBI's decision to cancel the award, ZOA president Klein said: "The FBI deserves the highest praise for rescinding the award and establishing an important new ground rule: no awards for those who praise terrorist groups. It is a crucial part of the war against terrorism to send a message that those who praise terrorists should be treated as pariahs."

Syndicated columnist Debbie Schlussel, a Jewish neo-con, (New York Post, Sept. 18, 2003),

who was the first to write about the award controversy, noted that the Immigration and Naturalization Service fought for more than 20 years to have Hamad deported from the U.S. to his native Lebanon, because it had concluded that he was a member of the terrorist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. But "due to pressure from Michigan politicians, he was permitted to remain in America". Schlussel also pointed out: "Hamad has publicly protested the U.S. government's arrest of four Arab-Americans in Detroit who were part of an Al Qaeda terror cell, and the prosecution of Omar Al-Shishani for laundering $12-million in fraudulent checks to finance Al Qaeda". "In an interview with Fox-TV's Detroit affiliate, Hamad defended a Palestinian Authority children's television program encouraging Arab children to become suicide bombers and murder Jews and Christians; Hamad called the program "patriotic."

ZOA’s subjugation of Washington goes back years:

1. When Strobe Talbott, "the author of numerous anti-Israel articles", was nominated to become Deputy Secretary of State in 1994, the ZOA "exposed Talbott's record and helped persuade 32 Senators to oppose his nomination". The New Republic reported that the controversy and substantial vote against Talbott ensured he will never be promoted to Secretary of State.

2. When John Roth, who has compared Israel to the Nazis, was nominated as research director for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1998, the ZOA led the fight against the nomination--and Roth resigned.

3. The ZOA "exposed and protested" "the anti-Israel statements and activities of Joseph Zogby, an extremist who had been hired as a senior aide to Assistant Secretary of State Martin Indyk in 1999". Within four weeks, Zogby left his State Department position.

4. When "anti-Israel extremist Salam al-Marayati", director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, was nominated to the U.S. government's National Commission on Terrorism in 1999, the ZOA led the successful campaign to have his nomination withdrawn.

5. After the ZOA in June 2001 protested plans by Vice President Richard Cheney to meet with officials of the "extremist American Muslim Council, which has praised Hamas and Hezbollah", the Vice President canceled the meeting.

COMMENT BY RM:

An honest person looking from his world-history "traffic helicopter", at this ZOA browbeating and complete "policy-colonization of Washington", would have to conclude one is in the presence here of a "historo-pathology" without precedent in American history. The China Lobby of a generation ago was nothing compared to this and the stranglehold of the Dulles Brothers and their entourage on policy in the fifties was extremely benign compared to Mr. Klein’s "government within a government." If one adds the neo-con Zionists into the mix and the "conveyor belt" that exists between the radicalized Washington think tanks and Israel’s equivalents (like the BESA Center, etc, discussed previously in this series), one would have to conclude—peering out of the historical "traffic helicopter" again—US politics has become an unique nightmare.

See also:
ZOA National
President,

Morton Klein

Morton A. Klein is National President of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), the oldest pro-Israel group in the U.S., founded in 1897. He is a member of the Executive Committee of AIPAC. He is a member of the International Board of Governors of the College of Judea and Samaria in Ariel, Israel. He is a child of Holocaust survivors, born in a displaced persons camp in Gunzberg, Germany, He is an economist who served in the Nixon, Ford, and Carter Administrations. He has served as a consultant/ biostatistician to UCLA School of Public Health and the Linus Pauling Institute of Science and Medicine in Palo Alto, California, having worked closely with two-time Nobel Laureate Linus Pauling, He has been a lecturer in mathematics and statistics at Temple University.

Mr. Klein is widely regarded as one of the leading Jewish activists in the United States. In acknowledgment of his successful activism, The Forward, a national Jewish weekly, named him one of the top five Jewish leaders in the US today, stating "it's impossible to deny that Klein has been extraordinarily effective." The Philadelphia Jewish Exponent named him one of the top dozen "Jewish activists of the century." The NY Jewish Week ( largest Federation paper) has named him one of the top ten Jewish leaders who have made a difference. The Jewish Press recently stated that "Morton Klein is one of the best minds in this country." The Jerusalem Post has called the ZOA, "one of the most important and influential groups in the U.S. today." The Wall Street Journal called the ZOA "heroic and the most credible advocate for Israel on the American Jewish scene today" and added that we should "snap a salute to those who were right about Oslo and Arafat all along...including Morton Klein who was wise, brave and unflinchingly honest...When the history of the American Jewish struggle in these years is written, Mr. Klein will emerge as an outsized figure." The New York Times, in a profile called "Public Lives," called Klein, "an iconoclast who is a prolific speechmaker, writer, and Congressional lobbyist."

His successful campaigns against anti-Israel bias in leading textbooks, travel guides, universities, churches, and the media, as well as his work on Capitol Hill, were the subject of 30 feature stories both here and in Israel, including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, AIPAC's Near East Report [One Man Made a Difference], Hadassah Magazine [Writing Wrongs], New York Jewish Week [Morton Klein: One-Man Lobby], Jerusalem Post [Economist Fights for Israel], the Philadelphia Inquirer [Keeping Watch on Behalf of Jews and Israel], Long Island Jewish World [He Does It His Way], the Jerusalem Report, Philadelphia Jewish Exponent, Baltimore Jewish Times, LA Jewish Times, Legal Times, Ma'ariv, Vesti (major Russian Israeli Daily), and Lifestyles.

In recognition of his efforts, Mr. Klein received a "Certificate of Appreciation" from the U.S. State Department "in recognition of outstanding contributions to national and international affairs," Hadassah's Myrtle Wreath Award, the Humanitarian Award from the Holocaust Memorial Committee of New York, the One- Israel Fund's "Defender of the Land" award, the Jerusalem Reclamation Project's Ze'ev Jabotinsky Memorial Award, was honored by the Center for Security Policy, a distinguished Washington think tank, and the Canadian Institute for Jewish Research, a respected think tank in Montreal, Canada, and was elected to the Philadelphia Jewish Times Hall of Fame.

His scientific research on nutrition and heart disease was cited by Discover Magazine as one of the Top 50 Scientific Studies of 1992. While a health economist in Washington, Klein was also the first to determine and publicize the dangers of annual mammograms for women under the age of 50, changing national policy in this area, including the reduction of radiation emission from mammograms.

Mr. Klein has led a series of successful pro-Israel efforts in Washington. The magazine Reform Judaism wrote "Klein has emerged as a sophisticated political infighter with a keen fool for the subtleties of US- Israel relations and Washington Lobbying." ZOA led the fight against Prof. John Roth's appointment to direct studies at the US Holocaust Museum (he equated Israeli policies to Nazi policies). Roth resigned shortly thereafter. ZOA led the fight against Joe Zogby, a State Dept. Mideast analyst, who had written anti-Israel articles in two weeks, Zogby left the State Department. ZOA exposed pro-Hamas, anti- Israel writings of Salam Al-Marayati (Director of Muslim Public Affairs Council) and led the fight against his nomination to US Terrorism Commission. Marayati's appointment was rescinded.

After a 3-year campaign, ZOA was responsible for the US Government offering multi-million dollar rewards for the capture of Palestinian Arabs who have murdered dozens of American citizens in Israel and the territories. ZOA initiated the Ashcroft-Salmon Bill and the Koby Mandell Act which would facilitate the capture of these Palestinian Arab killers. The ZOA organized 42 Members of Congress to protest the fact that Abu Daoud, the admitted mastermind of the 1972 Munich Massacre (in which 12 Israelis were murdered), was allowed by Jordan to live there comfortably. After ZOA's campaign Abu Daoud quickly left Jordan. The Jordanian government then, for the first time, publicly pledged that it will arrest Daoud if he returns. The Forward reported 9/3/99 that "The ZOA's effort to hold Jordan accountable for harboring terrorists is having an effect ... ZOA president Morton Klein wrote to the Jordanian ambassador to America, Marwan Muasher, on August 29, expressing concern that two terrorists were being harbored in Jordan, and asking 'why Jordan permits ... Hamas to maintain major facilities in Amman.' In a matter of days, the Hamas offices were closed."

ZOA exposed the anti-Israel writings of Strobe Talbott, Clinton's nominee for Deputy Secy of State. This effort stopped Talbott from becoming Secretary of State. Klein and ZOA initiated the creation of the 60- member Peace Accord Monitoring group in the US Congress. This group and ZOA brought the issue of PLO compliance to the fore and were instrumental in passing the Specter-Shelby Bill which further exposed Arafat's non-compliance of Oslo.

He has been invited to testify before the US Congress, including the US House International Relations Committee, and the Israeli Knesset.

He traveled to Germany and persuaded the publishers of Baedeker's, the world's leading travel guide, to correct the many anti-Israel errors in its guides to Israel and Jerusalem. He launched a campaign to correct dozens of anti-Israel errors in D.C. Heath's "The Enduring Vision," the most widely used American high school and college history textbook. Other campaigns by Klein dramatically reduced the number of anti-Israel lectures at Villanova University and at the largest church in the Philadelphia area. The exposure of anti-Israel sermons at this church, where U.S. Senate candidate Lyn Yeakel was VP of the Board, played a major role in helping elect U.S. Senator Arlen Specter in his 1992 campaign.

Mr. Klein is internationally quoted and has appeared in the media in countries including the U.S., Israel, France, Germany, Japan, Greece, Holland, etc. More than 300 of his articles and letters have been published in newspapers, magazines, and scientific journals around the world, including the New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, Washington Times, USA Today, Congressional Quarterly, New Republic, New Yorker, Commentary, Near East Report, Reform Judaism, Jerusalem Post and other leading Jewish papers, Philadelphia Inquirer, Miami Herald, Chicago Tribune, Ha'aretz & Maariv (Israel), Israeli-Russian paper Vesti, Canadian Jewish News, Journal of Preventive Medicine, Journal of Epidemiology.

Klein has appeared on TV and radio including ABC's Peter Jennings World News Tonight (4-minute segment on ZOA "Lobbying for Israel"), NBC National News, Jim Lehrer News Hour, O'Reilly Factor, Buchanan & Friends, Donahue, CNN, Fox-TV, CNBC, MSNBC, NPR, BBC, Col. Oliver North National Radio Show, Janet Parshall's America National Radio, C-Span, VOA, Israel TV/Radio.

He has delivered over 400 lectures throughout the world including Harvard, Harvard College, Yale, Princeton, MIT, Columbia, Penn, Michigan, Hebrew University, Ben-Gurion Univ., UC/Berkeley, Swarthmore, Brandeis, Wash. U./St. Louis, UTexas, Brigham Young, National Academy of Sciences, Institute of Medicine, General Assembly (Federation) meetings, Israel Bonds, B'nai Brith Canada, American Jewish Press Assoc., Rabbinic Council of America, Federations, JCRC'S, & Synagogues from coast to coast, and the U.S. Department of State's Distinguished Lecture Series..

Lines from his speeches appear in the respected volume entitled "Great Jewish Quotations." He is on the speaker's bureau of UJC and Israel Bonds.

Mr. Klein is married to Rita, has a married daughter Rachael, a recent graduate of Barnard College. He lives in a suburb of Philadelphia.