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The Scott Horton Show.
Taking out Saddam Hussein turned out to be a pretty good deal.
They hate our freedoms.
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No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.
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That action has now begun.
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I cannot be silent in the face of the greatest purveyor of bombs in the world today, my own government.
All right, you guys, introducing our friend Grant F. Smith.
Again, he wrote the book, Big Israel, about the Israel lobby.
And every year, right around this time, he hosts a conference about the Israel lobby.
This year, it's the Israel Lobby and American Policy, 2018.
It's at israellobbyandamericanpolicy.org.
And it's this Friday, March the 2nd, at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.
Welcome back to the show.
How are you doing, Grant?
Hey, Scott, doing really well.
And thanks for having me on again.
Yes, sir.
And you know, I meant to mention, too, that you're the founder and the director of the Institute for Research Middle Eastern Policy.
That's at irmepirmep.org.
And speaking of which, it's IRMEP, and it's the Washington Report on Middle Eastern Affairs, or MIA, again, putting this event on, correct?
That's right.
And in fact, if you can't make it, you can actually go to the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs YouTube channel and subscribe to that channel.
And you can watch the entire conference live via YouTube video stream.
So that's already up, and the countdown clock is on.
Okay, right on.
So, the Israel Lobby and American Policy, 2018.
Before you tell us who's speaking at it, why don't you tell us why this issue is so important to you, that you keep writing books and hosting conferences about it?
It's important because we have a situation of a high level of capture by this ecosystem of 500 lobbying organizations with 17,000 employees, 414,000 volunteers, and $6.3 billion exercising undue influence on policymaking.
Anybody who's been following the whole Jerusalem Declaration, where the U.S. against the entire world has said that, yep, that's Israel's capital, and announcing plans to move the embassy in May against all of these UN resolutions and against the protests of country after country, and not to say anything of the justice of the situation, you can see the capture.
And what's happening two days after our conference is that there's going to be a mass lobbying effort by AIPAC people trying to work their citizen lobbying into passage of the two pieces of legislation, the Israel Anti-Boycott Act and the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act, which will both have huge First Amendment curtailment on their fellow American citizens.
So we think this is important.
The lobby is important to study and know about because it is really the primary actor behind a lot of these long-term drives, whether it's the massive aid packages, whether it's constant agitating for war with Iran, whether it's the biggest slice of the foreign aid budget.
It's constant, and it's something that can't really be challenged if nobody knows about it.
All right.
Well, so what are we going to learn then if we go there on Friday, March 2nd, to the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. for this thing?
Well, the first thing you're going to get is an overview of each Israel lobby agenda item that they're trying to get passed or trying to get moved forward.
And I'll be doing that along with a whole new set of public opinion polls and analysis just to give a framework for people coming into the conference.
And that starts at 9 o'clock.
Then we'll move right to a panel of UN experts who have a number of books between them.
Dr. Virginia Tilly, Ian Williams, and Nora Erkat are going to be talking about nothing but the United Nations and whether these U.S. moves are basically shifting that place off its foundations.
Our second panel is going to be Barry Trachtenberg and Rabab Abdul-Hadi, who are both well-informed about the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act and what's happening on campuses to try and prohibit any sort of real discussion about U.S. Middle East policy, particularly those pertaining to the pet projects of the Israel lobby.
We've got a person who's an expert on Christian evangelicals, Thomas Getman, who's going to be talking about their impacts and whether they're driving policy, as many people say, with Mike Pence in the vice presidency.
And then we have the dean of Israeli journalists, Gideon Levy, coming to talk about an update of the entire Zionist movement as it's going on in Israel.
Andrew Kadhi is a new add to the program.
He's with the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights.
He's going to be talking about the BDS campaign, what it is, what it's not.
This is something that virtually every single Israel affinity organization is opposing and mischaracterizing at this point.
He's going to set the record straight.
Ali Abunimah from the Electronic Intifada, co-founder, is going to be talking about Russia versus Israel in the media.
And then we have our final panel on American foreign policy with Jefferson Morley, who's written extensively about the Central Intelligence Agency for many, many mainstream outlets, but has a new book about it.
And Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson talking about the U.S. policy toward Iran.
So it's a full program.
People can check out that program by punching in israellobbycon.org into their web browser and going right to the program.
And again, if you can't make it, and of course most people can't, you can certainly check out that website during the conference or after for the video and audio clips, as well as a list of all of the books that these experts have written.
Well, you know, I can't emphasize enough how great these things have been.
I got to go in 2014, but I've watched them all online too.
And there's just been some really incredible stuff, groundbreaking stuff going on at these conferences that you do.
And so I'm really looking forward to it and looking forward to running into good people there as well.
Yeah, that's something that's got to be mentioned.
The exhibition hall of organizations doing work that touch on this space is fully booked.
And it's not just Scott Horton and the Libertarian Institute of Anti-War, but it's also a number of other organizations that come in and talk about what they do and what their information sources are, what's on offer compared to some of the most traffic sources of media and information for these topics.
So the dynamism of the exhibitors and people coming in to be in that portion of the conference is excellent as well.
And I got to mention the reception.
I think we were talking about the reception.
There's a giant reception at the end.
It starts at five o'clock and it's probably the best part of the conference because people get to actually meet with each other and confer, have a conference and not just watch programs.
And it's really a great time to meet people and match names to faces.
Yeah, definitely.
And I'm going to be there selling books.
You kind of alluded to that.
So I'll see people there.
And then let me go ahead and tack on here just because I'm selfish.
The next day, Saturday the 3rd, I will be giving a speech to the Libertarian Party of Pennsylvania to their state convention.
And that one's going to be covered by C-SPAN Book TV.
And then thanks to you, Grant, I'll be back in D.C. on Sunday giving talks to the Wormia Bookstore, Middle East Books and More, and then also the Tentley Town Library.
And so both of those, that'll be on Sunday and people can find all that stuff on Eventbrite and on my Twitter.
And I need to blog it again at the Libertarian Institute site and all that.
But yeah, the tickets are going fast.
And if you just put in fool's errand into Eventbrite, you can see all these opportunities and reserve a seat.
But the Washington, well, it's Middle East Books and More at 11 a.m. on Sunday and then 3 p.m. at the Tentley Town Friendship Public Library.
It's going to be great.
It's going to be a really interesting talk and I can't wait to hear you.
Yeah.
But now back to important business again.
Israel Lobby and AmericanPolicy.org is the site.
And again, Ali Abunimah, Nora Erekat, Gideon Levy, Larry Wilkerson and a lot of other great speakers there and promises to be a really good time and really worth it.
So that's at the National Press Club this Friday, March the 2nd in Washington, D.C.
See you guys there.
Thanks again, Grant.
Appreciate it.
Hey, Scott.
Thanks a lot.
All right.
And you guys know me, foolserrand.us for the book.
The audio book should be out any minute now.
I don't know what's taking so long, but somebody's got to flip a switch. foolserrand.us for that. antiwar.com and libertarianinstitute.org for stuff I want you to read.
Oh, yeah, scotthorton.org for the show that you like listening to so much.
And follow me on Twitter at Scott Horton Show.
OK, thanks, guys.
Oh, and again, that's Israel Lobby and AmericanPolicy.org.
Israel Lobby and AmericanPolicy.org.
National Press Club this Friday, March the 2nd, all day long.
OK.
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