The first congressional junket to Israel

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_5042.shtml


Large congressional junkets to Israel have become such fixtures in Washington, DC, that few Americans now question their curious origins.

These periodic pilgrimages were once contentious and of such dubious legality for AIPAC’s founder he had to tread a cautious line between Congress, the Executive, the State Department, and US Department of Justice Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) enforcement section.

FARA was passed in 1938 to protect Americans from undue influence over Congress by foreign lobbies. It netted up assorted Communists with Soviet connections and Nazis corresponding with the Reich in the 1940s. They were prosecuted not for their activities, but rather their failure to properly notify Americans of their true foreign government sponsors, and required disclosures at a public FARA office visited often by reporters.

Isaiah L. Kenen, the founder of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, had to tread especially carefully. In the early 1950s, he was still on the payroll of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, running a propaganda outfit called the Israel Office of Information. Though he occasionally lobbied for arms and money in Washington while still registered as a foreign agent for the Israeli government, Kenen wanted to break away from all such transparency.

-snip continues the history-

Today, AIPAC’s nonprofit affiliate conducts lobbying tours much in the style of Isaiah Kenen -- no scrutiny, no accounting for funds spent or promises made, and completely beyond the reach of American constituents sitting patiently in town halls across the nation, eagerly awaiting the return of their representatives.
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just so you know