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Emergency Committee for “Israel”
-P.O. Box 117, 1718 M St. NW; Washington, DC 20036 (202) 600-6220
http://www.committeeforisrael.com/about/
-P.O. Box 117, 1718 M St. NW; Washington, DC 20036 (202) 600-6220
http://www.committeeforisrael.com/about/
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“The Emergency Committee for Israel (ECI) is a neoconservative pressure group launched in July 2010 to promote militarist, “pro-Israel” U.S. policies. Among ECI’s tactics are producing ads that attack politicians who are deemed “soft” on terrorism and who question one-sided U.S. support for Israel. The group also hosts a website that provides information about political races and highlights key issues of concern via-a-vis Israel’s security.
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“According to its website:
The Emergency Committee for Israel seeks to provide citizens with the facts they need to be sure that their public officials are supporting a strong U.S.-Israel relationship. The Committee’s mission is to educate the public about the serious challenges to Israel’s security and about what elected officials in this country are doing and should do in order to meet those challenges.[1]
“The group’s’s first act was to run a controversial attack ad in July 2010 targeting the track record of U.S. Senate candidate Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA), which insinuated that he supported terrorists.[2]
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“Unlike earlier neoconservative-led endeavors that reached out to hawkish elements in the Democratic Party—like the Project for the New American Century—ECI is a decidedly right-wing affair. ECI board members include William Kristol, editor and founder of the Weekly Standard and cofounder of the Foreign Policy Initiative; Rachel Abrams, spouse of notorious Iran-Contra veteran Elliott Abrams; and Gary Bauer, a well-know Christian Zionist who leads the pressure groups American Values and Keep Israel Safe and serves on the executive board of John Hagee’s Christians United for Israel.
“ECI’s director is Noah Pollak, an apparently rising star in the neoconservative firmament who has worked for Commentary, the Middle East Forum, and the Sheldon Adelson-supported Shalem Center in Jerusalem.[3]
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“Additional ECI principals include Michael Goldfarb, a former writer for the Weekly Standard who is vice president of Randy Scheunemann’s Orion Strategies—which apparently initially housed ECI[4] —and serves as an ECI advisor[5]; and Margaret Hoover, a long-standing Republican Party figure who served under Karl Rove during the George W. Bush presidency, and who initially owned the domain name used by the website. Hoover is the great grand-daughter of Herbert Hoover and a right-wing pundit and blogger.[6]
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“While ECI’s shared address with Orion Strategies has been confirmed,[7] there has also been speculation about whether the firm, which was recently hired to represent Sarah Palin, has also advised the new advocacy outlet. In an email exchange with Salon’s Justin Elliott, Goldfarb wrote:
I’m on the record as an adviser to ECI and its no secret that I work at Orion, where the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq sign is still proudly displayed on the front of the building. ECI will be opening an office next week, but given the urgency of our cause, getting an office sorted out seemed less pressing than exposing Joe Sestak’s anti-Israel record.[8]
“The relationships between these groups and individuals has drawn attention. Wrote Inter Press Service’s Jim Lobe shortly after the group was launched in 2010:
So, apart from Goldfarb’s advisory status and a temporary letterhead, there may yet may be no formal connection between ECI and and the firm that advises Sarah Palin on “national and international” issues—the same firm that acted as one of many of Ahmed Chalabi’s “useful idiots,” including Bill Kristol, Elliott Abrams, and Gary Bauer. As Matt Duss at Think Progress suggested this week, with advocates like these, the emergency in Israel that the Emergency Committee was apparently created to address can only become more dire.[9]
“The group first debuted in early July on CNN when Campbell Brown (spouse of neocon figure Dan Senor of the Foreign Policy Initiative) interviewed Pollak. Asked whether Israel and the United States were on the “same page,” Pollak said he thought not but that “there is a developing consensus that something needs to be done and that it would be very, very bad if the Iranians went nuclear.”[10]
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“In a subsequent interview with the right-wing Jerusalem Post, Pollak justified the group’s creation, saying, “We will not rest until there is a pro-Israel group representing every pro-Israel person on earth.”[11]
Asked how ECI differed from other “pro-Israel” groups, Pollak said:
“Well, for starters, ECI is pro-Israel. Our purpose is to address three major threats to the U.S.-Israel alliance in the context of the American political debate: the Iranian nuclear program and Iran’s sponsorship of terrorist groups; the campaign to delegitimize and isolate Israel; and the hostility of the Obama administration to the traditional closeness of the two nations. At bottom, we believe that the turn against Israel is a rejection of America’s special role in the world as a defender of liberal democracies. We will do great damage to our own national soul if we allow ourselves to become cynical participants in the international lynching of the Jewish state.”[12]
“William Kristol provided a similarly banal reason for the group’s raison d’etre in comments to Politico, saying, “We’re the pro-Israel wing of the pro-Israel community.”[13]“
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Rachel Abrams, board member
http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/abrams_rachel | …stepdaughter of Norman Podhoretz…three children: Jacob, Sarah and Joseph…–Elliott E Abrams 10607 Dogwood Farm Ln; Great Falls, VA 22066-2937 (703) 757-2877 [60-64 / Rachel D Abrams, Joseph Abrams, Sarah Abrams]
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Gary Bauer, board member ["christian"-zionist]
-Gary L Bauer 9001 Glenbrook Ct; Fairfax, VA 22031-3132 (703) 978-3210 [60-64 / Carol H Bauer, Betty J Bauer, Elyse A Bauer, Sarah Bauer]
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Michael Goldfarb, advisor
http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/Goldfarb_Michael | Correctly identified as ‘one of the world’s m0st transparently evil liars,’ by online DC rag Wonkette, etc.-Probably this>Michael Goldfarb 1314 Massachusetts Ave NW, Unit 301; Washington, DC 20005-4806 (202) 758-3563 [Hillar Goldfarb]
-96 at large>http://www.whitepages.com/search/FindPerson?firstname_begins_with=1&firstname=Michael+&name=Goldfarb+&where=
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Margaret Hoover
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William Kristol, board member
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Noah Pollak, director
http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/pollak_noah | “An up-and-coming neoconservative writer and pundit, Noah Pollak has worked for an array of militarist “pro-Israel” organizations since the early 2000s… “…Pollak got his start in neoconservative and Likud Party politics shortly after graduating from Vermont University in 2003. After graduation he moved to Israel, where he worked as an assistant editor for Azure, a magazine published by the Shalem Center. The Jerusalem-based center is aligned with Israel’s conservative Likud Party and claims to engage “in research, education, and publications in areas that include Jewish moral and political thought, Zionist history and ideas, Biblical archaeology, democratic theory and practice, strategic studies, and economic and social policy.” One of its projects is the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies, which is funded by major Republican Party donor Sheldon Adelson, etc.”-2 listings only for the name>Noah E Pollak 1112 Oregon St; Berkeley, CA 94702-2220 (510) 549-3814 [Erika T Pollak]
-American Institute of Architects, MIS Staff 1735 New York Ave NW; Washington, DC 20006-5209 (202) 626-7300
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