When The U.S. Government Spied On American Jews

That's the title from an article written by Dr. Rafael Medoff, director of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, which focuses on America's response to the Holocaust, in the Jewish Press:

The year was 1944, and the object of U.S. government wrath was the Bergson group, a political action committee led by Peter Bergson (Hillel Kook). Bergson, a resident of British Mandatory Palestine, came to the United States in 1940 and led a series of political action campaigns seeking U.S. rescue of Jews from Hitler and the establishment of a Jewish state.

Through full-page newspaper advertisements, theatrical productions, rallies, and lobbying on Capitol Hill, the Bergson group gained national attention for its cause. The Bergson group's activity made it a thorn in the side of the Roosevelt administration, which resented pressure to aid Hitler's victims and sought to avoid tension with England over its closure of Palestine to Jewish refugees.

Irritated by Bergson's campaigns, the administration sent the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service after him. They were looking for evidence of criminal activity, but their motivation was political. "This man has been in the hair of [Secretary of State] Cordell Hull," an internal FBI memo bluntly noted in 1944, in its explanation of the reasons for U.S. government action against Bergson.

I thought it interesting that Wyman wants to draw a parallel between this and the current uproar with the NSA and secret eavesdropping. To me, a more intriguing comparison would be to the indictment of the two AIPAC officials. I imagine that AIPAC's pro-Israel activity has also annoyed some people. Then as now, the FBI is behind the investigation.

But whereas Roosevelt sent the FBI after Bergson, who sent the FBI after AIPAC?

While it's obvious that Bush knows about the ongoing investigation, I don't know of any indication that he is the one who called for the investigation. Considering the CIA leaks, it is unfortunately possible that the FBI initiated this without Bush's knowledge.

According to the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs:

But from the Aug. 4 indictment of former AIPAC foreign policy director Steve Rosen and former AIPAC Iran specialist Keith Weissman, it now appears that Rosen has been under FBI surveillance since early 1999. Specifically, the indictment says, Rosen talked on April 13, 1999 with “Foreign Official 1,” an Israeli, disclosing “codeword protected intelligence.”

Assuming this is accurate, then the investigation started under the Clinton administration. WRMEA goes on to claim:

The fact that the investigation is continuing means that President Bush is aware of it and, so far, approving it.

The fact that Bush is aware of the investigation and has not stopped it is not necessarily the same as saying that he is approving it. With all the coverage of the investigation, it is unlikely the kind of issue over which Bush is going to stick his neck out and risk media scrutiny and partisan attack.

In the Bergson case, the IRS investigated the group:

In the end, the IRS investigators were unable to find evidence of any wrongdoing. Moreover, as the IRS team became familiar with the group's work, they came to sympathize with it, and "when they finished, [they] made a contribution between them — every one of them gave a few dollars," Bergson later told historian David Wyman.

In the end, will AIPAC officials get off so easily?

Technorati Tag: FBI and AIPAC.