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Steven J. Rosen, who directs the Washington Program at the neoconservative Middle East Forum, is a former pioneering AIPAC lobbyist who was indicted for allegedly passing Pentagon secrets to the Israeli government.

Steven J. Rosen last updated: January 27, 2014 Share:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)Click to print (Opens in new window) Please note: The Militarist Monitor neither represents nor endorses any of the individuals or groups profiled on this site. Affiliations Middle East Forum: Visiting fellow (2009 - ) Rudy Giuliani 2008 Presidential Campaign: Foreign policy adviser American Israel Public Affairs Committee: Former lobbyist (1982-2005) RAND Corporation: Former analyst University of Pittsburgh: Former faculty member Brandeis University: Former faculty member Australian National University: Former faculty member Education Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Diplomacy: PhD Related: American Israel Public Affairs Committee Middle East Forum Elizabeth Cheney Donald Trump Mark Kirk AIPAC’s Legislative Wish List List of PNAC Signatories and Contributing Writers Center for Security Policy Washington Institute for Near East Policy Iran and the Liberal Interventionists Steven Rosen is “pro-Israel” writer and media pundit who is a program director at the Middle East Forum (MEF), a neoconservative think tank led by Daniel Pipes.[1] A longtime former lobbyist for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Rosen was indicted by the Justice Department in 2005 as part of a high-profile federal investigation into the alleged passing of sensitive U.S. information to Israel. Rosen again drew widespread attention in early 2009 for his role in helping spearhead the effort to overturn the appointment of former Ambassador Charles Freeman, an outspoken critic of some Israeli policies, to a top intelligence post in the Barack Obama administration.[2] Rosen has a reputation as "pro-Israel" bulldog inside the Beltway. “The Washington Post noted that ‘Rosen helped pioneer executive-branch lobbying, a style of advocacy that was not widespread when he began it in the mid-1980s, but is now a routine complement to the more traditional lobbying of Congress,’" boasted a 2009 MEF press release announcing Rosen’s hiring. "The New York Times," it continued, "called him one of AIPAC's ‘most influential employees, with wide-ranging contacts within the Bush administration and overseas.’ National Public Radio called him ‘a larger-than-life figure’ who ‘helped shape AIPAC into one of the most powerful lobby groups in the country.’ According to a 2005 Ha'aretz article, ‘In the eyes of many, he is AIPAC itself.’"[3] Rosen reportedly once slipped a napkin to journalist Jeffrey Goldberg and quipped, "You see this napkin? In twenty-four hours, we could have the signatures of seventy senators on this napkin.”[4] Writings and Views Since joining MEF, Rosen has penned a number of articles castigating the Obama administration's policies toward Israel and attacking Palestinians. He has published in neoconservative outlets like Commentary magazine as well as mainstream journals such as Foreign Policy.[5] In his writings, Rosen frequently asserts that Iran is actively developing a nuclear weapon[6] (a view not shared by the U.S. intelligence community), blames the impasse in the Israeli-Palestinian “peace process” on Palestinian intransigence,[7] and calls for unflinching U.S. support for the Israeli government.[8] Rosen also insists on an interventionist U.S. role in the Middle East and elsewhere. “Without a strong United States,” he wrote in 2013, “the world of our children will descend into a very dark void, because after America there is no one else waiting in line to assume leadership except these forces of evil and chaos.”[9] Although he was fired from AIPAC in 2005—and subsequently fought a highly public legal battle with the outfit over the circumstances of his termination—Rosen continues to write favorably about the organization and advocates its positions. As the Obama administration pressed for congressional authorization to strike Syria in 2013, for example, Rosen observed that the impending vote “put the pro-Israel camp just where it did not want to be: openly advocating American military involvement in the volatile Middle East.” Nonetheless, Rosen wrote, “AIPAC has weighed in fully in support of the president's call for intervention.” Rosen himself endorsed a strike as a means to damage the Syrian regime’s military capabilities, which he said “would be a benefit to Israel and the region—no matter who emerges victorious there.”[10] Rosen has also gotten involved in disputes within the "pro-Israel" community concerning Israeli policies in the Middle East and the nature of Washington's relationship with Tel Aviv. Israel's critics, Rosen wrote in 2012, "portray Israel as a strategic liability rather than an asset—a trigger-happy country that exaggerates the Iranian threat and is plotting the annexation of the West Bank at the expense o...

Steven J. Rosen - Militarist Monitor