The Long Arm of AIPAC

By George Thompson

It has now been revealed what those who served in the Middle East have known for some time: It was Israel that cajoled the United States into participating in the Iran arms deal, with Israel's loyal agents in Washington playing key roles along the way.

Not all such "agents" carry guns, however. Here is how one of Israel's American agents operated with me, a retired US foreign service officer, who happened to have been in the right place—Khartoum, Sudan—at the wrong time—February, 1973—when two colleagues were brutally murdered.

A decade later, a woman calling herself an "Information Assistant" for the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in Washington called me at home. AIPAC is the most powerful lobby in the United States. The National Rifle Association is a kindergarten by comparison. Congress defies AIPAC at its peril.

She wanted to know whether I would testify before a special Senate Investigating Committee seeking to indict Yasser Arafat, titular leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

My ears tingled.

"Why are you calling me?" I asked. "What does AIPAC, an agency registered to lobby Congress to provide US economic and military support to Israel, have to do with an investigating committee of the United States Senate? If the Senators want me, why don't they call me?"

"We're just helping them," she said. "They want to indict Arafat for the murders in the Sudan of Ambassador (Cleo) Noel and (George "Curt") Moore, his deputy chief of mission."

Suddenly, pieces scattered across Europe to Tripoli and Israel fell into place.

The puzzle began to take shape.

I had been third man on the US embassy diplomatic staff that terrible night when Cleo and Curt were taken hostage by a Palestinian commando team of the Black September organization, headed at that time by Abu Nidal, who subsequently broke with Yasser Arafat's mainstream Fatah organization and who has repeatedly threatened Arafat's life. Noel, the incoming US Ambassador, and Moore, the departing US Chargé d'Affaires, had been seized at a farewell party for Curt at the Saudi Arabian embassy. Their kidnapping left me in charge of the Embassy.

The terrorists had been aided by the Libyan embassy diplomatic staff. We knew that. The assistant editor of a London paper later gave me copies of plans for the attack which came from a desk drawer in the Libyan embassy. We also learned that weapons used to kill the two Americans, the Belgian chargé and a Sudanese guard had entered the Sudan in a Libyan diplomatic pouch.

We had known this for more than a decade. Why would the US Senate be interested now? Why was AIPAC involved?

The answers came quickly: Taking advantage of the jingoistic adrenalin running freely in the veins of virtually every non-thinking American—especially those in Washington then and now—Mossad, the Israeli intelligence arm, could easily set the psychological stage for a US attack on Khadafy. And AIPAC was seeking to bring in the name of Yasser Arafat as well.

All this was in Israel's, not the United States' or the West's, best interests. Our European allies knew this. That is why they were opposed then as they are now to the use of force based upon domestic political pressures at home, to deal with political problems abroad.

At the time of the call, Khadafy was the least dangerous terrorist in the Middle East. He is even less dangerous today, merely the easiest target, which explains why Reagan felt compelled to "do something" and ordered the air strikes. Nobody in Washington wanted to tangle with the more heavily armed but infinitely more culpable Iran, or even with Syria—not with the Soviets waiting in the wings.

As for Arafat, the popular leader of the only moderate Palestinian armed group, he was then and is now the last block to Israel's efforts to avoid peace in the Middle East.

Sound strange? Think about it now as I did while the woman from AIPAC awaited my reply.

A Middle East peace would prevent Israel from keeping its settlements on the occupied West Bank of the Jordan River, considered illegal in the eyes of the world, including the United States.

With Arafat gone, no rational negotiator remains. The maddened George Habash and that worst-of-all-terrorists, Abu Nidal, are among those who seek control of the myriad PLO splinter groups. Both have sworn to destroy Arafat because he is amenable to peace with Israel , and popular enough to make it stick with an overwhelming majority of Palestinians.

It was apparent from the woman's call that Israel and its agent, AIPAC, were taking advantage of the national mood to maneuver the US into a position where it could not seek peace through Arafat. Each day's dawn without peace permits more work on more Jewish settlements on the West Bank and Gaza, home to 1.3 million Palestinians.

At the time of the call, Shimon Peres, head of the Labor Party and also a moderate, was Israeli Prime Minister. If there was to be any route for peace it had to come via Arafat in the short window of time remaining before October. It was then that Yitzhak Shamir, leader of the far-right Likud Party, was to take Peres's place.

Shamir assumed office, and the window was close.

Most Middle East observers agree that peace and a reduction of terrorism would be difficult under Shamir. He owes much to Rabbi Meir Kahane, a radical Brooklyn-born Israeli immigrant who rode a racist platform of hatred for the Arabs to a seat in the Knesset.

His banner: "There is no place in Israel for anyone except Israelis. The Arabs must leave."

There are now many in Israel who listen and believe.

In the West Bank under Shamir, where Israelis have shed the cloak of captive for that of captor, frustrated Palestinians once again are losing hope for the homeland promised them by the original United Nations Partition Resolution of 1947. As their blood again flows freely, they are striking out with renewed hatred. Terrorism against Israelis, Americans and other Westerners will continue.

The agent's call, coupled with AIPAC's haste to close that "window of opportunity," is but one of many such incidents directly traceable to Israeli efforts to delay peace in the area until their territorial ambitions are satisfied. Consider these:

• The so-called "irrefutable" but still unrevealed evidence that Libya ordered the Berlin disco bombing, one of a series of other such incidents that may or may not have been caused by dissident Arabs.

• The bungled billion dollar arms deal in Bermuda, prelude to today's "Iranscam," also sponsored by Israel.

Israel's original denial of responsibility is not credible. When my wife and I sailed our yacht into Israel's waters a few years ago, the Israeli Defense Force circled us 30 miles offshore, searched us upon arrival in Tel Aviv's sealed marina, took our small arms and maintained close watch on all packages in or out during our nine-month stay.

With such attention to keeping its borders closed, the Israeli government could not possibly be unaware of the transfer to Iran of nearly a billion dollars worth of US jet aircraft, tanks and bombs. Leader of the gang was a retired IDF General who, when arrested by US lawmen, immediately called the military attaché at the Israeli Embassy.

Israel simply took advantage of prevailing American concerns to propose transferring arms to Iran. It used its profits from the continuing sales to ease its economic pains. Supplying Iran with crucially needed US munitions and spare parts of course also served the purpose of keeping the Iran-Iraq war going an admitted strategic objective of Israel's but an objective totally contrary to the US goal of restoring a measure of security and calm to an area critically important to the free world's oil production.

These issues flashed through my mind during that call from Israel's American agent as I pondered my reply. The answer didn't please her, so she asked for names of embassy colleagues who were with me during those dismal days in Khartoum. I was surprised at how many she already knew. She could not have had much success elsewhere. The Senate subsequently dropped its investigation.

I didn't know at the time that Israel would succeed in luring the US into the "Iranscam." But it is a clever ploy which effectively pulls the eyes of the world away from what the Israelis are doing on the West Bank to what the Americans did in Iran.

Meanwhile, the building of settlements goes on.

There is solace in knowing that my decision not to accept her invitation was the rare right one. But there is no comfort in knowing that Americans still dance to another country's tune, a song sung by subversive agents with no weapons other than the lyrics of political persuasion.

George Thompson, a retired US Information Agency Foreign Service Officer, is a television talk-show host, author, and syndicated columnist now living in Melbourne Village, Florida.