AIPAC Wall Beginning to Crack?
Ira Chernus
TruthOut
Tue, 09 Jun 2009 06:20 UTC
For years, AIPAC (The American Israel Public Affairs Committee) has helped to stonewall the Middle East peace process by building a solid wall around the Israeli government, protecting it from criticism in the US. Senators and representatives have feared the wrath of AIPAC come Election Day, even in states and districts where the Jewish vote is negligible. Whatever they may have thought privately about Israel's policies toward the Palestinians, they've remained silent.
I got a first-hand glimpse of the process shortly after last year's election, when I talked to an aide of a newly elected House member. The new member, who represents a district with hardly any organized Jewish community, knew very little about the Middle East when the campaign began. The representative had been "educated" on the issue, the aide told me, by a handful of wealthy Democrats - none from the member's district, all generous contributors to the campaign, and all staunch supporters of the AIPAC line. That's how it works, all over the country.
Or at least that's how it used to work. Now, for the first time, there are signs of a crack in AIPAC's vaunted political edifice. The wedge issue is the Obama administration's public demand that Israel stop all new construction in its West Bank settlements, including what the Israelis call expansion to accommodate "natural growth."
Though Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu heads the right-wing Likud party, settlement expansion is hardly a partisan matter in Israel. It has continued at a more or less unbroken pace for years, regardless of which party headed the government. And Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, leader of the opposition Labor Party, is equally staunch in demanding the right of "natural growth."
What's new is the serious objection being voiced in the US government, not merely by the president and his administration, but by members of Congress, including John Kerry, who heads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and several prominent Jewish lawmakers, such as Carl Levin, chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee; Howard Berman, chair of the House Foreign Relations Committee; and influential representatives Henry Waxman and Robert Wexler.
When they met recently with Netanyahu, they made him "very, very aware of the concerns of the administration and Congress," according to one Congressional aide. They pressed Netanyahu on the need to stop building in settlements and rejected his call for Palestinian reciprocity on terrorism as a precondition.
(Another sign of the change: A Congressional delegation visiting Israel actually discussed, in private, the possibility of prohibiting Israel from using American weapons in the West Bank.)
After so many years of AIPAC dominance, it would be too much to expect all Democrats to back Obama on the settlements question. There are still plenty in Congress who toe the AIPAC line.
"We are applying pressure to the wrong party in this dispute," said Rep. Shelley Berkley. "I don't think anybody wants to dictate to an ally what they have to do in their own national security interests," said Rep. Gary Ackerman. Though he allowed that there's "room for compromise," his version of compromise sounds very much like the Israeli government's version: "I think that most people could understand somebody having a child and their child living with them, as long as it's not a ruse to expand" the settlements.
But the fact that there is any debate at all on this issue in Congress marks a sea change in Washington, brought about by a perfect storm of converging factors.
Most obviously, there is the administration's tough public stance on the settlement expansion. It's not easy for Democrats in Congress to buck a very popular president of their own party, especially when he's making an argument based on national interests and national security.
Less obviously, there is a remarkable change in attitude among American Jews. Well, it's less obvious to those who get all their information from the mass media, where this change is far too little reported. But to those of us who have been working in the once-tiny American-Jewish peace movement, the growth of that movement all around us is nothing short of astounding.
It was already evident a couple of years ago. In the last two years, the thin stream of dissent has grown steadily broader and higher. At the rate it's going, it could well become something close to a torrent sooner than anyone might imagine.
Two-thirds of American Jews say they want the US to play an active role in moving Israel toward peace, even if it means the US publicly disagreeing with, and exerting pressure, on the Israelis. That's according to a poll conducted last summer by J Street, the pro-Israel, pro-peace lobby now widely seen as the counterweight to AIPAC. Contributions to J Street are growing at a rate faster than AIPAC's. In last year's election, of 41 candidates endorsed by J Street for their pro-peace positions, 31 were winners.
Working closely with J Street is the grassroots Jewish-American peace group, Brit Tzedek v'Shalom, which now claims some 45,000 members and pledges of support from over 1500 rabbis and cantors. Just a few months ago, that latter number was less than 900, another indicator of how fast the Jewish community is changing.
But numbers tell only part of the story. Inside the Jewish community, there is an intangible but unmistakable new mood of open discussion, and even debate, about Israeli policies. Politicians, whose job is to sense those intangible moods, are beginning to pick it up. More and more of them realize that the leaders of Jewish organizations who still parrot the AIPAC line may dominate the mass media, but they can no longer dominate their own rank-and-file.
And those organizational leaders are surprisingly muted in their support for Netanyahu on the settlements issue. "Even the most conservative institutions of Jewish American life don't want to go to war over settlement policy," said David Twersky, who was until recently the senior adviser on international affairs at the American Jewish Congress.
The convergence of a changed presidential administration and a changing Jewish community opens up room for legislators to be influenced by a third factor: common sense. These politicians are smart enough to realize that Netanyahu's demand to accommodate "natural growth" is just what Representative Ackerman fears: a ruse to expand the settlements.
According to Israel's own Central Bureau of Statistics, some 40 percent of the growth in settlement population comes not from "natural growth" (the excess of births over deaths), but from new immigration. Since those new immigrants need not only new bedrooms, but new kitchens, living rooms, dining rooms, as well as all the expanded public services that adults require, it seems likely that well over half of the new construction is to accommodate them and not for "natural growth."
What's more, as Israeli columnist B. Michael pointed out, when a family in Israel proper has another child or a couple gets married, their government does not provide them with new living space. They just move to new quarters, if they can afford it; if they can't, they make do with the space they already have. Why should the settlers be treated any differently?
Indeed, since the settlers are living in their current homes illegally by most interpretations of international law, there is all the more reason that they should be expected to move back to Israel proper, where there is plenty of housing to accommodate them.
"What the hell do they want from me?" Netanyahu reportedly complained after his talk with Obama. In the weeks and months ahead, we can expect a growing chorus in the US Congress to echo the changing views of American Jews and answer: We want you to heed the president's call to stop settlement construction completely, comply with international law, and open the door to serious negotiations with the Palestinians toward a two-state solution.
Every time that answer is heard publicly, it widens the crack in AIPAC's wall and brings us closer to the day when that wall, inevitably, crumbles.
Ira Chernus is professor of religious studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Not easy
J Street's first-year budget for fiscal 2009 is $1.5 million. Compare this to AIPAC's endowment of more than $100 million.
J Street seems to only support some leftwing side Democrats, while AIPAC candidates in both parties. Whether J Street would also support someone like Kokesh?
They are also attacked by neocon and neolib Jews:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/01/j_street...
The Armenian PAC is also strong and may well support Ron Paul Republicans, especially if there is some connection to Armenia. Vern mcKinley has done some work for Armenia and his wife is actually Armenian. He was in the primary race against incumbent Frank Wolf in VA last year, should just get a different district for him, perhaps the one where Virgil Goode has just lost. In Ohio there is a conservative (Reagan type) Independent who is smart, an Armenian-American and fared quite well against the not so popular "moderate" GOP woman Jean Scmidt, so if we can get him to run in 2010 in the GOP primary against her with the help of RP Republicans, other Republicans and Independents. If he wins the primary, he would be virtually assured of the seat in the 2010 election.
Proceed with extreme caution
The Israeli Lobby has a history of side stepping US law like they did in the 1960's. Just as in the 1960's, there was backlash against the AZC (American Zionist Council) - thanks to Sen Fulbright. They were required to register as foreign agents. However, by the time this occurred AZC had little funding and most of the money transferred to AZPAC (American Zionist Public Affairs Commission). Given that there was deal made with the Kennedy administration, no investigation was made into this transfer of funds. The person behind it all- Isaiah Kenen was in my opinion as weasel because he deliberately side-stepped and stonewalled investigations to increase the influence of Israel in US politics.
Now that AIPAC has a bad public name, I weary of an good intentions of the Israeli Lobby. Is this another ploy to move their operations under a different name (J-street PAC) like it happened in the past? Well shall see...
Israeli government's treatment of Jewish Israeli free-speech . .
We should also be mindful of the ways Israeli government is treating the Israeli Jewish Free-speech advocates, such as the New Profile (www.newprofile.org/englis...) group.
more details here at:
http://www.dailypaul.com/node/96406
Is O'bama in AIPAC's favor..?
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Shell game~
Even if Aipac walls came down, Comrade Opramas whole administration is full of Zioni$ts, not to mention the Fed, the whole media, and hollywood,
The list goes on and on, all they need to do is pull off another false flag operation and it back to Ziowerld.
www.takeourworldback.com/
My karma ran over your dogma~
Challenging the Israel Lobby
http://lewrockwell.com/polner/polner25.html
Criminalizing criticism of Israel is the end of free speech
Criminalizing criticism of Israel is the end of free speech
By Paul Craig Roberts
May 8, 2009, 00:22
On October 16, 2004, President George W. Bush signed the Israel Lobby’s bill, the Global Anti-Semitism Review Act. This legislation requires the US Department of State to monitor anti-Semitism worldwide.
To monitor anti-Semitism, it has to be defined. What is the definition? Basically, as defined by the Israel Lobby and Abe Foxman, it boils down to any criticism of Israel or Jews.
Rahm Israel Emanuel hasn’t been mopping floors at the White House. As soon as he gets the Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 passed, it will become a crime for any American to tell the truth about Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and theft of their lands.
It will be a crime for Christians to acknowledge the New Testament’s account of Jews demanding the crucifixion of Jesus.
It will be a crime to report the extraordinary influence of the Israel Lobby on the White House and Congress, such as the AIPAC-written resolutions praising Israel for its war crimes against the Palestinians in Gaza that were endorsed by 100 percent of the US Senate and 99 per cent of the House of Representatives, while the rest of the world condemned Israel for its barbarity.
It will be a crime to doubt the Holocaust.
It will become a crime to note the disproportionate representation of Jews in the media, finance, and foreign policy.
In other words, it means the end of free speech, free inquiry, and the First Amendment to the Constitution. Any facts or truths that cast aspersion upon Israel will simply be banned.
Given the hubris of the US government, which leads Washington to apply US law to every country and organization, what will happen to the International Red Cross, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, and the various human rights organizations that have demanded investigations of Israel’s military assault on Gaza’s civilian population? Will they all be arrested for the hate crime of “excessive” criticism of Israel?
This is a serious question.
A recent UN report, which is yet to be released in its entirety, blames Israel for the deaths and injuries that occurred within the United Nations premises in Gaza. The Israeli government has responded by charging that the UN report is “tendentious, patently biased,” which puts the UN report into the State Department’s category of excessive criticism and strong anti-Israel sentiment.
Israel is getting away with its blatant use of the American government to silence its critics despite the fact that the Israeli press and Israeli soldiers have exposed the Israeli atrocities in Gaza and the premeditated murder of women and children urged upon the Israeli invaders by rabbis. These acts are clearly war crimes.
It was the Israeli press that published the pictures of the Israeli soldiers’ T-shirts that indicate that the willful murder of women and children is now the culture of the Israeli army. The T-shirts are horrific expressions of barbarity. For example, one shows a pregnant Palestinian woman with a crosshairs over her stomach and the slogan, “One shot, two kills.” These T-shirts are an indication that Israel’s policy toward the Palestinians is one of extermination.
It has been true for years that the most potent criticism of Israel’s mistreatment of the Palestinians comes from the Israeli press and Israeli peace groups. For example, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz and Jeff Halper of ICAHD have shown a moral conscience that apparently does not exist in the Western democracies where Israel’s crimes are covered up and even praised.
Will the American hate crime bill be applied to Haaretz and Jeff Halper? Will American commentators who say nothing themselves but simply report what Haaretz and Halper have said be arrested for “spreading hatred of Israel, an anti-Semitic act”?
Many Americans have been brainwashed by the propaganda that Palestinians are terrorists who threaten innocent Israel. These Americans will see the censorship as merely part of the necessary war on terror. They will accept the demonization of fellow citizens who report unpalatable facts about Israel and agree that such people should be punished for aiding and abetting terrorists.
A massive push is underway to criminalize criticism of Israel. American university professors have fallen victim to the well organized attempt to eliminate all criticism of Israel. Norman Finkelstein was denied tenure at a Catholic university because of the power of the Israel Lobby. Now the Israel Lobby is after University of California (at Santa Barbara,) Professor Wiliam Robinson. Robinson’s crime: his course on global affairs included some reading assignments critical of Israel’s invasion of Gaza.
The Israel Lobby apparently succeeded in convincing the Obama Justice [sic] Department that it is anti-Semitic to accuse two Jewish AIPAC officials, Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman, of spying. The Israel Lobby succeeded in getting their trial delayed for four years, and now Attorney General Eric Holder has dropped charges. Yet, Larry Franklin, the Department of Defense official accused of giving secret material to Rosen and Weissman, is serving 12 years and 7 months in prison.
The absurdity is extraordinary. The two Israeli agents are not guilty of receiving secrets, but the American official is guilty of giving secrets to them! If there is no spy in the story, how was Franklin convicted of giving secrets to a spy?
Criminalizing criticism of Israel destroys any hope of America having an independent foreign policy in the Middle East that serves American rather than Israeli interests. It eliminates any prospect of Americans escaping from their enculturation with Israeli propaganda.
To keep American minds captive, the Lobby is working to ban as anti-Semitic any truth or disagreeable fact that pertains to Israel. It is permissible to criticize every other country in the world, but it is anti-Semitic to criticize Israel, and anti-Semitism will soon be a universal hate-crime in the Western world.
Most of Europe has already criminalized doubting the Holocaust. It is a crime even to confirm that it happened but to conclude that fewer than 6 million Jews were murdered.
Why is the Holocaust a subject that is off limits to examination? How could a case buttressed by hard facts possibly be endangered by kooks and anti-Semitics? Surely the case doesn’t need to be protected by thought control.
Imprisoning people for doubts is the antithesis of modernity.
Paul Craig Roberts [email him] was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during President Reagan’s first term. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He was awarded the Legion of Honor by French President Francois Mitterrand. He is the author of Supply-Side Revolution : An Insider’s Account of Policymaking in Washington; Alienation and the Soviet Economy and Meltdown: Inside the Soviet Economy, and is the co-author with Lawrence M. Stratton of The Tyranny of Good Intentions : How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice. Click here for Peter Brimelow’s Forbes Magazine interview with Roberts about the recent epidemic of prosecutorial misconduct.
AIPAC is big trouble...
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Way back when,
I went to AIPAC's website just to check it out. I didn't register, leave a comment...nothing, all I did was read. A couple of days later, I started getting mail from them. They were reaching much further than I realized......
Thank you for posting this....to see cracks in the wall is encouraging.
**the soul would have no rainbow if the eyes had no tears**
**the soul would have no rainbow if the eyes had no tears**