End The AIPAC Case

by The Editors

The federal case against two former employees of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), already three years old, long ago crossed the line between serious prosecution and farce. While nobody condones the illegal use of sensitive national security information, federal prosecutors have signaled that this case is about something else: the Bush administration’s obsession with secrecy, with maybe a dash of resentment about the pro-Israel lobby thrown in for good measure.

But this farce isn’t funny.

Two prominent Jewish activists, Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, remain under the dark cloud cast by their prosecution under an ancient, rarely invoked Espionage Act, even though they are not charged as spies.

A prosecution that looked flimsy at the outset has grown progressively weaker, with Judge Thomas

Ellis sometimes openly disdaining elements of the government’s case and the chief prosecutor quitting to go into private practice, leaving his staff to plod ahead even as legal scholars scratch their heads.

A trial remains an elusive goal. This week Ellis was forced to order yet another indefinite delay. The protracted legal limbo has boosted assorted conspiracy theories about the pro-Israel lobby. Just check out the Web; the phrase “AIPAC Spy Case” appears regularly, although the organization itself has been accused of nothing.

More than anything, the Rosen-Weissman affair looks like prosecutorial overreach, followed by a bad case of bureaucratic inertia by officials too proud — or too embarrassed — to back down. If by some chance Rosen and Weissman are found guilty, the precedent might make it a crime for newspapers to learn and publish how critical foreign policy decisions are made, like the decision to go to war, and make it much harder for advocacy groups to exercise their constitutional right to influence U.S. foreign policy without risking federal charges.

We do not believe this case was started with the intention of hurting the pro-Israel lobby, but that is already one of its consequences as it drags on. Whatever its motives, it is clear this prosecution serves no useful purpose. All it is doing is reinforcing those who believe pro-Israel advocacy is synonymous with disloyalty, and intimidating those with a legitimate interest in learning how foreign policy decisions are made. And we should not be unmindful of the personal dimensions of a case that has left two prominent Jewish activists in a seemingly endless state of legal peril.

Westchester Jewish Conference

Westchester’s Jewish Community Relations Organization