Listen to his comments:

"The very fact that this kind of climate can exist in the capital of the U.S. is unacceptable," he said at the Herzliya Conference.

Rosen and Weissman, he said, "are two patriotic American citizens working for a Jewish organization, who did nothing to violate the American security."

Abe Foxman of the Anti-defamation League (ADL) at the Herziliya conference concurred with Hoenlein. "The lack of clarity," he said, "could have a destructive influence on the activities of all U.S. Jewish groups."

The April trial of Steve Rosen who created the successful AIPAC lobbying model and Ken Weissman one of their senior Middle East policy analysts has to be played out against the backdrop of FBI's drive led by associate director and counter intelligence chief David Szady and his hunt for "moles" in the American Jewish community whose divided loyalty in his view is" questionable."

As an example, we have the case of former CIA staff lawyer, Adam Cirelsky against the CIA and FBI that revealed Szady's alleged anti-semitic comments during an earlier 1999 investigation.

Szady probably believes that every American Jew is a closet "Jonathan Pollard." Fundamentalist Christians, too, by the likes of DoD analyst Larry Franklin's harsh penalty handed down by Federal Judge Ellis last week: 12.7 years plus a fine, unless he "squeals."

To those of us here in the US that smacks of the classic "Juden frage" or the "Jewish question" of 19th and 20th Century Europe where governments and citizenry alike accused Jews of "dual loyalties" - a dynamic "conflict" between being loyal citizens of countries in the Diaspora and being supporters of Zionism and the formation of the Jewish State, Israel.

Over the weekend, I got an email from Janet Levy in California who is active in Dr. Frank Gaffney, Jr.'s Center for Security Policy. She wrote about her questioning of FBI associate director and Counter Intelligence chief Szady at last year's Intelligence Conference held across the Potomac in Northern Virginia in the Washington, DC vicinity about Larry Franklin and AIPAC defendants, Messrs. Rosen and Weissman. Szady was adamant in his remarks about the "relentless" prosecution of fundamentalist Christian and loyal Americans Larry Franklin and the AIPAC Jewish officials, Messrs. Rosen and Weissman.

While in Florida last year I was invited by friends to listen in on the AIPAC conference calls that with executive director Howard Kohr and other key staff. The funfering about the Rosen, Weissman was like skirting the "elephant in the room" was apparent to me and other callers whom I queried after hearing some of the questions and answers. I knew then that Kohr and others at AIPAC were effectively muzzled by the federal national security litigation and couldn't speak out and express their views. Rosen and Weissman became "instant" non persons which frankly disturbed me as I'm sure it has others, including Messrs. Malcolm Hoenlein and Foxman.

Franklin, Rosen and Weissman and the Israeli "political officer" Naor Gilon were alleged to be part of a cabal reviewing confidential information damaging to the US and its ally Israel about Iranian nuclear weapon developments and contingent plans for dealing with this palpable threat now roiling the world.

The irony is that AIPAC has recently come out strongly requesting that our government undertake explicit actions to counter the Iranian "nuclear weapons" development crisis. It is the key agenda item in the AIPAC March policy conference scheduled for March 5 - 7th in Washington, DC.

The FBI counterintelligence functions may be an important segment of our national security apparatus in the post 9/11 environment created by patent radical Islamic jihadists. But then, why has this same agency bent over backwards to engage in PC multicultural "benefits" for its Muslim staff that violate our civil rights laws vis a vis segregation of women staff? Or never followed up on reports of FBI Arabic translators "celebrating" 9/11 as reported by loyal non-Muslim Turkish American Sibel Dinez Edmunds in a FrontPageMagazine report by author Paul Sperry? Why are these same Muslim patently disloyal FBI workers given a free pass? Moreover, why has the FBI with a backlog of over 100,000 hours of intercept tapes not seen fit to hire both Middle Eastern Christians and Mizrahi and Iranian Jews who are fluent Arabic and Parsi speakers to assist in this translation effort?

The word we get back from those in both communities who applied as loyal American citizens immediately after 9/11 was rejection because of-you guessed it- "dual loyalties."

At an AIPAC forum this past December at my synagogue here in Connecticut-Congregation Beth El-my chaver Judy Shapiro queried U.S. Representative Chris Shays (R-4th Dist), our Congressman and chairman of the House National Security Subcommittee about holding hearings on this "dual loyalty" matter as regards Middle East Christian and Mizrahi Jewish linguists/translators barred by the 'alphabet soup" of national security agencies in the US- FBI, DHS, NSA, CIA and DIA.

Shays indicated interest in this "issue." We hope he will take the matter up for investigative hearings.

So, the Franklin "conviction" is aimed at not only the dual loyalties of American Jews but also the dual loyalties of American Christian friends and allies of Israel and the Jewish people.

And that is what I find most reprehensible about the severity of Federal Judge Ellis's severe penalty for former Defense analyst Larry Franklin and the upcoming trial of Messrs. Rosen and Weissman in April.

I don't wish to be in Howard Kohr's shoes as executive director of AIPAC at their annual Washington, DC policy conference in early March because he will be "muzzled" regarding any responses to less than "sotte voce" comments from AIPAC members, American Jewish communal leaders like Malcolm Hoenlein and his own organization's members about "why" this is happening. Having the FBI use the courts to send a chilling message: that Jews and Christian allies for Israel are all "Jonathan Pollards" in our midst.