If [the suspected ISIS liaison Mohammed Mehmet] Rashid worked in some capacity for CSIS, and based on reports his computer contained images of passport and travel documents of several apparent ISIL recruits, it's conceivable he was actually gathering intelligence for CSIS about those recruits and the methods, logistics and contacts for spiriting them into Syria.
Canadians sound off on proposed anti-terrorism bill, by Genna Buck http://t.co/YU3v8TUEQt #StopC51 pic.twitter.com/VOKUlgYPL2
— Everett Coldwell (@EverettColdwell) March 14, 2015
On March 2, [Florida Rabbi David] Paskin, who attended the AIPAC annual conference in Washington that coincided with Netanyahu's speech, was among dozens at a packed closed-door session on pro-Israel outreach to progressives. There, the discussion quickly turned heated when former Democratic congressman Barney Frank (who is [AIPAC operative] Ann Lewis's brother) chided the lobby for not speaking out against Netanyahu's visit and for avoiding any criticism of Israeli policies. According to two session participants, Frank argued that this reluctance causes pro-Israel activists to lose their credibility among progressives.Remember that Walt and Mearsheimer were tarred as anti-Semites for saying in 2006 that the Israel lobby pushed the Iraq war. I supported the two scholars' argument because I had heard as much myself; in 2002, my brother shocked me when he said, "I demonstrated against the Vietnam War, but my Jewish newspaper said this war could be good for Israel."The Jewish community has never had an honest conversation about this matter; no, Jeffrey Goldberg and Marty Peretz and friends shut it down by calling Walt and Mearsheimer anti-Semites. That conversation would include asking Tom Friedman, David Remnick, Peter Beinart, and Kenneth Pollack if they pushed the Iraq war in part out of concern for Israel's security. And did they believe that Jeffrey Goldberg and Judith Miller were carrying water for Israel when they put out their bogus reports on Saddam's WMD? This is another great benefit of the Netanyahu speech, problematizing the issue of what Joe Klein called divided loyalties inside American Zionist life. Not a witchhunt, an accounting.
Tempers flared even more, they said, when Frank claimed that Israel and AIPAC had lobbied members of Congress a decade ago to support the war in Iraq. Similar arguments in the past have been hurled at the lobby by anti-war activists from the left and have always been vehemently denied. Frank, faced with vocal resistance from AIPAC members in the room, clarified that while calling for war was not the lobby's official position, some of its top members advocated for it personally in their meetings with him and other members of Congress.
Efforts to contact Frank to ask about this exchange were unsuccessful.
Comment: Seems strange it is only for two days.