Koch brothers give a megaphone to Anti-Israel fringe

[ericson00]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-wp-blm-declassified-koch-3817ffdc-1d01-11e6-82c2-a7dcb313287d-20160518-story.html

On Wednesday, the Charles Koch Institute, a think tank funded by one of the conservative movement's most generous donors, will host a conference featuring some of the academy's most virulent foes of Israel.

Charles and David Koch, scions of the Koch Industries fortune, have always leaned libertarian in their political giving and nonprofit work. The two brothers have supported criminal-justice reform and other free-market initiatives in education and labor. In foreign policy, the Kochs have stayed away from the uglier fringes that blame Israel and its supporters for hijacking U.S. foreign policy. That is, until now.

The institute's conference scheduled for Wednesday will feature separate panels with Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, co-authors of the 2006 book "The Israel Lobby."

While Walt and Mearsheimer are hardly household names, they are known in U.S. policy circles. Their book prompted Abe Foxman, who was then national director of the Anti-Defamation League, to write a response, "The Deadliest Lies: The Israel Lobby and the Myth of Jewish Control."