Channel Title: National Summit to Reassess the U.S.-Israel "Special Relationship" Channel Description: This historic summit provides an in-depth, multifaceted symposium on how U.S. military, diplomatic, and financial support (over $8 million per day) impacts Americans. Congress has not examined the impact of Israel lobbying influence on U.S. national security and international standing since the 1960s. In this nonpartisan event, a roster of high-level experts -- military, diplomatic, intelligence, academic, and economic, as well as former members of Congress -- analyze the effects on the U.S. of America's "special relationship" with Israel. These 15-minute talks provide valuable facts and information for public, classroom, and other discussions of one of the most significant topics facing Americans today. <video> Ray McGovern - Does Israel act like a U.S. ally? Description: National Summit to Reassess the U.S.-Israel "Special Relationship" on March 7, 2014 at the National Press Club. Raymond McGovern is a retired CIA officer who holds an M.A. in Russian Studies from Fordham University, a certificate in Theological Studies from Georgetown University, and who is a graduate of Harvard Business School's Advanced Management Program. McGovern was a CIA analyst from 1963 to 1990. In the 1980s he chaired National Intelligence Estimates and prepared the President's Daily Brief. He received the Intelligence Commendation Medal at his retirement. McGovern's current work includes commentating on intelligence issues and in 2003 co-founding Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. </video> <video> Philip Weiss - What is changing in "permissible" mainstream public debate—and what is not? Description: National Summit to Reassess the U.S.-Israel "Special Relationship" on March 7, 2014 at the National Press Club. Philip Weiss is an American journalist who co-edits Mondoweiss, a news website devoted to covering American foreign policy in the Middle East, chiefly from a progressive Jewish perspective. Weiss has written for the New York Times Magazine, Harper's Magazine, Esquire, and the New York Observer. In 2006 he began writing a daily blog called Mondoweiss on The New York Observer website. In the spring of 2007 he started Mondoweiss as an independent blog because of 9/11, Iraq, Gaza, the Nakba, the struggling people of Israel and Palestine, with the aim of building a diverse community, with posts from many authors. He co-edited The Goldstone Report: The Legacy of the Landmark Investigation of the Gaza Conflict (2011) with Adam Horowitz and Lizzy Ratner. </video> <video> Closing Statements - National Summit to Reassess the U.S.-Israel "Special Relationship" Description: National Summit to Reassess the U.S.-Israel "Special Relationship" on March 3, 2014 at the National Press Club. </video> <video> Panel 2 & 3 - Questions and Answers Description: National Summit to Reassess the U.S.-Israel "Special Relationship" on March 7, 2014 at the National Press Club. </video> <video> John Quigley: 1967, international laq and the cost of U.S. support for the occupation Description: Presentation at the National Summit to Reassess the U.S.-Israel "Special Relationship" on March 7, 2014 at the National Press Club. John B. Quigley is a professor of law at the Moritz College of Law at the Ohio State University, where he is the Presidents' Club Professor of Law. In 1995 he was recipient of The Ohio State University Distinguished Scholar Award. Before joining the Ohio State faculty in 1969, Professor Quigley was a research scholar at Moscow State University, and a research associate in comparative law at Harvard Law School. Professor Quigley teaches International Law and Comparative Law and holds an adjunct appointment in the Political Science Department. In 1982-83 he was a visiting professor at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. John Quigley is active in international human rights work. He has published many articles and books on human rights, the United Nations, war and peace, east European law, African law, and the Arab-Israeli conflict, including The Case for Palestine: An International Law Perspective, Duke University Press, 2005 and The Statehood of Palestine, Cambridge University Press. 2011. </video> <video> Philip Giraldi - Is Israel a U.S. ally? Description: National Summit to Reassess the U.S.-Israel "Special Relationship" on March 7, 2014 at the National Press Club. Philip Giraldi is a former counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Giraldi is a recognized authority on international security and counterterrorism issues. He is a regular contributor to Antiwar.com in a column titled "Smoke and Mirrors" and is a Contributing Editor who writes a column called "Deep Background" on terrorism, intelligence, and security issues for The American Conservative magazine. He has written op-ed pieces for the Hearst Newspaper chain, has appeared on Good Morning America, MSNBC, National Public Radio, and local affiliates of ABC television. He has been a keynote speaker at the Petroleum Industry Security Council annual meeting, has spoken twice at the American Conservative Union's annual CPAC convention in Washington, and has addressed several World Affairs Council affiliates. He has been interviewed by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the British Broadcasting Corporation, Britain's Independent Television Network, FOX News, Polish National Television, Croatian National Television, al-Jazeera, al-Arabiya, 60 Minutes, and Court TV. He prepares and edits a nationally syndicated subscription service newsletter on September 11th issues for corporate clients. Giraldi is the Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a group that advocates for more even handed policies by the U.S. government in the Middle East. </video> <video> Justin Raimondo - Has the Israel lobby captured the Right? Description: Presentation at the National Summit to Reassess the U.S.-Israel "Special Relationship" on March 7, 2014 at the National Press Club. Justin Raimondo is an American author and the editorial director of Antiwar.com. In addition to his thrice-weekly column for Antiwar.com, Raimondo is a regular contributor to The American Conservative and Chronicles magazines. Raimondo's books include Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement (Center for Libertarian Studies, 1993), reissued in 2008 with new introduction by George W. Carey, by Intercollegiate Studies Institute. Into the Bosnian Quagmire: The Case Against U.S. Intervention in the Balkans (AFPAC, 1996). Colin Powell and the Power Elite (America First Books, 1996). An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard, (Prometheus Books, July 2000). </video> <video> Paul Pillar: Are threats to Israel's security inflated to justify occupation and U.S. support? Description: Presentation at the National Summit to Reassess the U.S.-Israel "Special Relationship" on March 7, 2014 at the National Press Club. Paul Pillar retired in 2005 from a 28-year career in the U.S. intelligence community, in which his last position was National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia. Earlier he served in a variety of analytical and managerial positions, including as chief of analytic units at the CIA covering portions of the Near East, the Persian Gulf, and South Asia. Professor Pillar also served in the National Intelligence Council as one of the original members of its Analytic Group. He has been Executive Assistant to CIA's Deputy Director for Intelligence and Executive Assistant to Director of Central Intelligence William Webster. He has also headed the Assessments and Information Group of the DCI Counterterrorist Center, and from 1997 to 1999 was deputy chief of the center. He was a Federal Executive Fellow at the Brookings Institution in 1999-2000. Professor Pillar is a retired officer in the U.S. Army Reserve and served on active duty in 1971-1973, including a tour of duty in Vietnam. </video> <video> Jeffrey Blankfort - Are there Israel lobby gatekeepers and damage control squads on the Left? Description: National Summit to Reassess the U.S.-Israel "Special Relationship" on March 7, 2014 at the National Press Club. Jeffrey Blankfort is a journalist and radio programmer. His articles have appeared in CounterPunch, Dissident Voice, Mondoweiss, Pulse Media, Left Curve, The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs and the Encyclopedia of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. He currently hosts a twice monthly program on international affairs for KZYX, the public radio station for Mendocino County in Northern California where he now lives. Blankfort was a founding member of the November 29th Committee on Palestine, a co-founder of the Labor Committee on the Middle East and editor of its publication, The Middle East Labor Bulletin (1988-1995). </video> <video> Grant Smith: A brief history of unprosecuted Israeli foreign agent, smuggling and espionage cases Description: Presentation at the National Summit to Reassess the U.S.-Israel "Special Relationship" on March 7, 2014 at the National Press Club. Grant F. Smith is the director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRmep) in Washington, DC. He is the author of two unofficial histories of AIPAC--America's Defense Line: The Justice Department's Battle to Register the Israel Lobby as Agents of a Foreign Government and Foreign Agents: AIPAC from the 1963 Fulbright Hearings to the 2005 Espionage Scandal, as well as the books Divert, Spy Trade, Deadly Dogma, Visa Denied and editor of the book Neocon Middle East Policy. Before joining IRmep, Smith was senior analyst and later program manager at Yankee Group Research, Inc. in Boston. Smith has a bachelor's degree in International Relations from the University of Minnesota and a Masters in International Management from the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. Jeff Stein of The Washington Post designated Smith "a Washington D.C. author who has made a career out of writing critical books on Israeli spying and lobbying." Nathan Guttman of The Jewish Daily Forward recognizes Smith as leading a public effort to "call attention of the authorities to AIPAC's activity and demands public scrutiny of the group's legal status." John J. Mearsheimer, the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago claims "Grant Smith's new book is a major step forward in correcting that problem. He provides a fascinating--and disturbing--account of how I. L. Kenen laid the groundwork for AIPAC, the most powerful organization in the lobby." </video> <video> Janet McMahon: The Israel lobby network and coordinated PACs that finance U.S. elections Description: Presentation at the National Summit to Reassess the U.S.-Israel "Special Relationship" on March 7, 2014 at the National Press Club. Janet McMahon is the managing editor at The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. She earned her B.A. in English at Reed College and has a graduate diploma in Middle East Studies from the American University in Cairo. She is an expert on the Israel lobby and pro-Israel political action committees (PACs). She co-edited Seeing the Light: Personal Encounters With the Middle East and Islam, and Donald Neff's 50 Years of Israel, both compilations of feature articles from The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. In addition to her editorial duties, she has written special reports on Israel and Palestine, and has contributed articles to special issues of the Washington Report on Iran, Tunisia, Cyprus and Libya. </video> <video> Panel 5 - Questions and Answers Description: National Summit to Reassess the U.S.-Israel "Special Relationship" on March 7, 2014 at the National Press Club. </video> <video> Panel 6 - Questions and Answers Description: National Summit to Reassess the U.S.-Israel "Special Relationship" on March 3, 2014 at the National Press Club. </video> <video> Delinda Hanley: U.S. Aid to Israel in Numbers Description: Presentation at the National Summit to Reassess the U.S.-Israel "Special Relationship" on March 7, 2014 at the National Press Club. Delinda Hanley is the executive director and news editor at The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. Before joining the magazine in 1996, Hanley spent decades in the Middle East, studying in Lebanon, volunteering with the Peace Corps and later working in Oman and Saudi Arabia. From 1990 to 1996 Hanley worked as a researcher, editor and writer for Empire Press (now Weider History Group) and Sovereign Media. Hanley writes for the Washington Report on an array of topics, and her articles have also been published in the Arab News, the Minaret, Islamic Horizons, Jewish Spectator and other publications. She is the winner of the NAAJA 2011 Excellence in Journalism award for her dedication to accuracy and professionalism. </video> <video> Scott McConnell - Did Neoconservatives take over GOP foreign policy? Description: National Summit to Reassess the U.S.-Israel "Special Relationship" on March 7, 2014 at the National Press Club. Scott McConnell is an American journalist and founder of The American Conservative. After working on the 1976 presidential campaign of Jimmy Carter, McConnell earned a Ph.D in history at Columbia University, During this time he became attracted to the neoconservative movement and began writing for Commentary and National Review. In 1989, McConnell became an editorial writer and later columnist for the New York Post and served as editorial page editor in 1997. McConnell was fired from the Post later that year. McConnell has since emerged as one of the leading figures in the broadly defined paleoconservative movement. After spending many years as a columnist for the New York Press and Antiwar.com, in 2002 he collaborated with Pat Buchanan and Taki Theodoracopolous in founding The American Conservative, a magazine which has served as a voice for traditionalist conservatives opposed to both liberalism and the policies of the George W. Bush administration. By the end of 2004, McConnell became the sole editor of The American Conservative. </video>

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This historic summit provides an in-depth, multifaceted symposium on how U.S. military, diplomatic, and financial support (over $8 million per day) impacts Americans. Congress has not examined the impact of Israel lobbying influence on U.S. national security and international standing since the 1960s. In this nonpartisan event, a roster of high-level experts -- military, diplomatic, intelligence, academic, and economic, as well as former members of Congress -- analyze the effects on the U.S. of America's "special relationship" with Israel. These 15-minute talks provide valuable facts and information for public, classroom, and other discussions of one of the most significant topics facing Americans today.

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