Right Web

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An up-and-coming neoconservative writer and pundit, Noah Pollak has worked for an array of militarist “pro-Israel” organizations since the early 2000s, including as a contributing writer for Commentary magazine, the flagship neocon publication in the United States, and as an assistant editor of Middle East Quarterly, published by Daniel Pipes’ Middle East Forum.[1]

Pollak drew attention when he was identified with the launching of the Emergency Committee for Israel, a Washington-based pressure group established in mid-2010 that claims “to provide citizens with the facts they need to be sure that their public officials are supporting a strong US-Israel relationship.” ECI’s first act was to run a controversial attack ad in July 2010 targeting the track record of Senate candidate Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA), which insinuated that he supported terrorists.[2]

ECI board members include William Kristol, editor and founder of the Weekly Standard and cofounder of the Foreign Policy Initiative; Rachel Abrams, wife of notorious Iran-Contra veteran Elliott Abrams; and Gary Bauer, a well-know Christian Zionist who leads the lobby groups American Values and Keep Israel Safe and serves on the executive board of John Hagee’s Christians United for Israel.

Although his role in the organization was not formally mentioned on ECI’s website as of mid-2010, Pollak was identified in a number of new reports as the group’s executive director.[3] In an interview with the right-wing Jerusalem Post, Pollak justified creation of the group, saying, “We will not rest until there is a pro-Israel group representing every pro-Israel person on earth.”[4]

Asked how ECI differed from other “pro-Israel” groups, Pollak said:

"Well, for starters, ECI is pro-Israel. Our purpose is to address three major threats to the U.S.-Israel alliance in the context of the American political debate: the Iranian nuclear program and Iran's sponsorship of terrorist groups; the campaign to delegitimize and isolate Israel; and the hostility of the Obama administration to the traditional closeness of the two nations. At bottom, we believe that the turn against Israel is a rejection of America's special role in the world as a defender of liberal democracies. We will do great damage to our own national soul if we allow ourselves to become cynical participants in the international lynching of the Jewish state."[5]

During a CNN interview with Campbell Brown (spouse of neocon figure Dan Senor of the Foreign Policy Initiative) in early July 2010, Pollak highlighted the Iranian threat. Asked whether Israel and the United States were on the “same page,” Pollak said he thought not, but that “there is a developing consensus that something needs to be done and that it would be very, very bad if the Iranians went nuclear.”[6]

Inter Press Service writer Eli Clifton discovered that ECI’s website domain was initially registered to a long-standing Republican Party figure, Margaret Hoover, who served under Karl Rove in the U.S. State Department during the George W. Bush presidency. Hoover, great granddaughter of Herbert Hoover, is a right-wing pundit and blogger who has appeared on Fox News and other media outlets.

Commenting on Pollak’s and Hoover’s work on ECI, Clifton wrote:

"It’s pretty clear that Pollak and Hoover, along with the people behind Keep Israel Safe and Stop Iran Now, are part of the extensive neoconservative echo chamber which seeks to create the appearance of a diverse coalition of grassroots groups calling on the US to prevent Iran from going nuclear by any means necessary. Things as simple as a looking at the registration on a domain name reveal that these groups are part of an intensely partisan (both Republican and Likudist) campaign to push the U.S. into a military conflict with Iran. And CNN, which just last week summarily fired a senior editor for a tweet praising the late Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, is amplifying their message."

Pollak got his start in neoconservative and Likud Party politics shortly after graduating from Vermont University in 2003.[7] After graduation he moved to Israel, where he worked as an assistant editor for Azure, a magazine published by the Shalem Center. The Jerusalem-based center is aligned with Israel's conservative Likud Party and claims to engage "in research, education, and publications in areas that include Jewish moral and political thought, Zionist history and ideas, Biblical archaeology, democratic theory and practice, strategic studies, and economic and social policy.” One of its projects is the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies, which is funded by major Republican Party donor Sheldon Adelson.[8]

Pollak also seems to have served as an adviser to the Israeli Defense Forces. Announcing ECI’s launching, neoconservative blogger David Frum wrote:

"Probably much of the press attention will go to the group's directors, which include Bill Kristol. But the real news is the group's director: Noah Pollak, a friend of mine, and a brilliant advocate for rethinking Israel's self-defense in a new media era. As a blogger, he proposed that the Israeli Defense Forces [l]aunch their own YouTube channel, which did enormous service rebutting falsehoods during the Gaza campaign. It's long been a thesis of mine, to adapt Clausewitz, that modern warfare is PR by other means. Pollak understands this truth (wrote his Yale thesis on it)—and friends of Israel will be excited to watch his deployment of the truth in the critical days ahead."[9]

Please note: IPS Right Web neither represents nor endorses any of the individuals or groups profiled on this site.