This is how the UK Guardian reports this sadly unsurprising story:
The US government is to drop espionage charges against two officials of America’s most powerful pro-Israel lobby group accused of spying for the Jewish state because court rulings had made the case unwinnable and the trial would disclose classified information.
And this is how a leading Jewish news agency reports the same story:
Baruch Weiss, the young lawyer who helped cripple the government’s case against two former AIPAC staffers, says the prosecution’s loss is a “great victory” for free speech and for Israel’s friends.
He’s not wrong, but — like any legal document — the government’s motion Friday to dismiss classified information charges against Steve Rosen, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s former foreign policy chief, and Keith Weissman, its former Iran analyst, begs for footnotes and qualifiers.
The decision upholds as a matter of law the right of lobbyists to relay information to allies like Israel. The drawn-out case, however, unquestionably wounded the pro-Israel community’s reputation as unassailable. It also defers a looming crisis for one of the fundamentals of reporting: the right of a reporter or lobbyist or anyone to listen to a source without running to tell the feds.
What this really tells us is that the Zionist lobby is able to work incredibly closely with senior American officials and basically get away with murder.
At what point does the American government’s role end and the Zionist lobby’s begin?