The Israeli government tries to skirt U.S. laws to make sure that it can influence American politics without registering the influence of money as foreign agents. This is according to a shocking but not shocking report from The Guardian.
Leaked emails show that Israel sought legal advice on how to avoid registering their lobbying campaigns as foreign agents. According to The Guardian, “a legal strategy memo dated July 2018 noted that compliance with the Foreign Agents Registration Act (Fara) would damage the reputation of several American groups that receive funding and direction from Israel, and force them to meet onerous transparency requirements. A separate memo noted that donors would not want to fund groups registered under Fara.”
Fara exists for a reason! It is so that Americans know when they are being influenced by foreign actors! Here we see Israel purposely going around these laws by creating American nonprofits “in order to continue Israel’s activities in the US while avoiding scrutiny under the law.”
This is outrageous! In the words of Caitlin Johnstone: “They’re persecuting Americans like Scott Ritter and Uhuru activists for criticizing US foreign policy under extremely dubious Foreign Agents Registration Act accusations while letting Israel get away with this shit.”