Leaving well enough alone

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If Social Security is the third rail of American politics, Israel is the third rail of U.S. geopolitics.

For most of Israel's short life as an independent state, AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee) has played the role of a political action committee (PAC) defending and advocating Israeli interests in both houses of Congress. It is the single most important organization affecting the relationship with Israel.

In the last 50 years, AIPAC has nursed through Congress scores of pro-Israel legislative initiatives, blocking at the same time pro-Arab measures Israel deemed dangerous to its security.

AIPAC's list of almost 100,000 members reads like a Who's Who of generous supporters of Israeli causes. That AIPAC never had to register as a foreign agent demonstrates Israel is an integral part of the body politic, a de facto 51st state of the Union. Its most successful lobbying effort was to convince each new Congress and the occupant of the White House that Israeli interests are identical to America's fundamental interests, ergo no need to register if you are lobbying for a safer America.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon recently concluded his 11th tete-a-tete with President Bush. He had flown over for AIPAC's annual conference, attended by 5,000 activists at the Washington Hilton, where congressional and administration luminaries consider it a "must" to be seen on the podium extolling eternal friendship between the two countries The convention draws more politicians than any other event, except the president's State of the Union message.

AIPAC Hall-of-Famer Richard N. Perle's Israel-right-or-wrong speech drew thunderous applause when he favored a military raid on Iran. Condoleezza Rice drew stony silence when she said Yasser Arafat's successor Mahmoud Abbas "is committed to both freedom and security."

The FBI unfortunately threw caution to the wind when it ignored this column's friendly advice last September and decided to try touching the third rail. What a mess that made.

A Pentagon official, Larry Franklin, who had worked at the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv and fell in love with Israel, was seen sharing national security documents with his pals at AIPAC over lunch at the Tivoli restaurant in Arlington. FBI surveillance tapes show Mr. Franklin relaying top-secret information to Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman. But this was the kind of routine exchange that had gone on for a half-century. It was hardly another Jonathan Pollard case, the Israeli spy who carted off secret documents by the wheelbarrow-full, and is now serving a life sentence.

Mr. Franklin, 58, surrendered in early May at the FBI's Washington field office after the government filed a criminal complaint accusing him of handing over classified national defense information to persons not entitled to receive it.

This was the first time AIPAC officials had been tagged as unworthy to hear high-level confidences. They had listened to, or been shown, classified information of interest to Israel for decades -- and no gumshoe ever filed a complaint. The FBI, for reasons it has kept close to its bulletproof vest, elevated routine practice to treason.