Clinton and Israel -- the Marc Rich story

"HAIM KATZ: He's made that commitment?

"DAVID STEINER AIPAC: Well, he said he's going to help us. He's got something in his heart for the Jews, he has Jewish friends. Bush has no Jewish friends."

My favorite part of that exchange is when Steiner says that he has Martin Indyk. Indyk would go on to many policy positions in the Clinton Administration: special assistant to Clinton on the Middle East, then US ambassador to Israel (even though he was foreign born). And he had worked for AIPAC and AIPAC's president claimed him. Jeez.

Then Clinton pardons Marc Rich, the financial and intelligence asset of the Israelis in many a hostile country. Notice in the Times obit at the top that Rich gave money for "the absorption of immigrants." Surely a lot of those immigrants ended up in the occupied territories, as illegal settlers, their presence protested by George Bush, who lost his presidency in part for taking that position, and countenanced by Bill Clinton, whose wife may be running for president soon.

And the lobby continues to be a major player in Democratic politics. Martin Indyk is running the liberal think-tank Brookings, which is funded by Haim Saban, whose greatest political concern is Israel and who gives tons of money to political candidates.

Israeli president Shimon Peres was one of those pressing Clinton for the Rich pardon, and last month, Bill Clinton received $500,000 from an Israeli outfit for a speech on Shimon Peres's 90th birthday.

According to the Jerusalem Post, the money was donated by a number of contributors to the Peres Academic Center, most prominent among them the Jewish National Fund, which of course helps to Judaize land taken from Palestinians.

It's really hard to say throughout these tales, where the Israeli interest ends and the American one begins. Does Hillary Clinton know?