29 Comments
User's avatar
Bill Astore's avatar

I don't think there's a better "investment" to be had than these lobbying groups. They spend millions but make billions as measured by the amount of aid (mostly weaponry) sent from the U.S. to Israel.

The State Department just announced another $20 billion for Israel, for example. Maybe the lobbyists spent a few million? Think about the ROI there. You make 1000x what you spent. And you can take the high ground and attack your critics as anti-Semites.

It's a master class in grift that makes Trump look like a chump. Even worse, you get to wash your hands clean of murder charges in Gaza by claiming all this money/weaponry is for "defensive" purposes against "terrorists."

Expand full comment
23 SKIDOO!'s avatar

People keep blaming some single figure (like Trump) for the issues because scapegoating, they want to point the fingers and say that he is the death of democracy.

The fact that this was passed with zero resistance is evidence that there is no democracy in the USA. $20 billion dollars to fund an entity with a decades-long history well-documented and well-defined war crimes. Because of superstition and empty nationalism, essentially.

Expand full comment
wrknight's avatar

Now compare that with the ROI we got from the Iraq and Afghabistan wars.

And we think we're so smart.

Expand full comment
Christopher Kruger's avatar

Of course they don't have to obey the law; the law is for chumps and little people.

But thanks for getting the receipts, LEE FANG!!

Expand full comment
wrknight's avatar

It's nice to see solid evidece of what has been obvious for as long as I can remember

Expand full comment
23 SKIDOO!'s avatar

Zionists, like most other racist groups psychotically convinced of their own righteousness, will go to every length to make sure they succeed. Yet another way that these folks end up resembling their own shadow trailing them since 1933.

Of course, this just touches the surface. They don't even need to push propaganda. The Zionist influence has already rewritten most textbooks in their favor, the historical reivisionism has basically succeeded, and now the academy-approved view will always whitewash the conflict completely. This is just a little extra window dressing.

Expand full comment
Ryan DeLarme's avatar

Great work, as always.

Expand full comment
James Schwartz's avatar

We need a serious investigation and updated laws with these NGO’s. It seems every time something nefarious is going on there are a few of them involved. The government uses them anytime they legally can’t get involved like censoring people or entities online or getting illegals to the ballot box. This is a gigantic loophole that needs closing. Thanks Lee. Keep the heat up!

Expand full comment
esti marpet's avatar

good work

Expand full comment
Safir Ahmed's avatar

Setting aside the legality of these nonprofits and registering under FARA (important as that is), what this excellent reporting shows is the collusion between Democratic figures in the U.S. and Israeli government figures.

Without U.S. government support, and the billions of dollars that come with it, Israel would be an impoverished nation, financially and militarily. (It's already considered a rogue nation by many countries.)

So it's no surprise that they would seek to pour millions of dollars into defeating pro-Palestinian politicians like Cori Bush and lobbying to ensure more tax payer dollars in aid and arms from our government.

We need to put every member of Congress and Harris-Walz on notice to stop this Israeli tail wagging the American dog.

Thanks for this reporting! Please also look into connections between Israeli government and our military corporations like Boeing, Lockheed, General Dynamics, Northrop, et al.

Expand full comment
TeroB's avatar

Simply outstanding work, gentlemen.

It seems obvious that if one has to be so sneaky and underhanded in pushing an agenda, the agenda/narrative might be the problem. Israel’s government has been unbelievably shrewd in advancing their agenda, but there is only so far that one can push the boundaries of reality before the branch breaks.

I hope your investigative reports help bring that breakage about sooner rather than later.

Lee, Jack, you guys are doing such important work in incredibly dangerous and confusing times—thank you.

Expand full comment
Sera's avatar

I believe this was the law used as the excuse to harass Scot Ritter. It would be great if this reporting were useful to his case.

Expand full comment
Just Plain Me's avatar

Rules for thee but not for me, as always.

Expand full comment
GS's avatar

Well-detailed and written. I remember Thomas Massie discussing FARA and looking into Israel. The lobby is trying to get him kicked out of Congress because, god forbid, he represents the U.S. The U.S. is a puppet prostitute controlled by its foreign and corporate pimps. And the morons thought Russia interfered in U.S. affairs.

Expand full comment
Boris Petrov's avatar

Kennedy might have been assassinated because of his intention to demand AIPAC, etc. foreign agent registration and prevention or registration of Israel nuclear bomb acquisition

Expand full comment
Mike Doherty's avatar

I support Israel's right to defend itself. On the other hand, I subscribe to Lee Fang's Substack because he goes after all malefactors. And I'm interested in the truth, as far as it can be known.

Expand full comment
Sybil's avatar

A while back, Fang and others produced this two-part documentary on the evangelical fanatical obsession with everything Israel. Theirs would be the first of several boulders I would look under. Just saying

https://www.prayingforarmageddon.com/ (https://www.prayingforarmageddon.com/) Film description

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhT7oyDlBIk (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhT7oyDlBIk) Part

1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iQhbcOgfqw (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iQhbcOgfqw)

Part 2

There may be successive parts. I hope more are coming.

Expand full comment
Last One's avatar

Can anyone explain why the hackers removed “critical email metadata”? Was it to protect some individuals while exposing the overall crime?

Expand full comment
Jack Poulson's avatar

It would be a mistake to infer the motives of the hackers without receiving a direct statement on it, but the website they released the material on, anonymousforjustice.net, is fairly amateurish with some basic HTML formatting errors and files copied into the wrong folders for the links to continue functioning. Basically they just scraped the text of the emails and the copied the attachments rather than publishing a forensic copy.

Expand full comment
Last One's avatar

So if not hacker SOP, it was what they did and that’s it. Thanks!

Expand full comment