Israel Lobby (AIPAC) WROTE Congressional Legislation!!!!!


AIPAC's Dangerous Grip on Washington

By Ari Berman, TheNation.com. Posted July 31, 2006.

The congressional reaction to Hezbollah's attack on Israel and Israel's
retaliatory bombing of Lebanon provide the latest example of why AIPAC's
lock on US foreign policy in the Middle East must be examined
In early March, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) held
its forty-seventh annual conference in Washington. AIPAC's executive
director spent twenty-seven minutes reading the "roll call" of dignitaries
present at the gala dinner, which included a majority of the Senate and a
quarter of the House, along with dozens of Administration officials.

As this event illustrates, it's impossible to talk about Congress's
relationship to Israel without highlighting AIPAC, the American Jewish
community's most important voice on the Hill. The Congressional reaction to
Hezbollah's attack on Israel and Israel's retaliatory bombing of Lebanon
provide the latest example of why.

On July 18, the Senate unanimously approved a nonbinding resolution
"condemning Hamas and Hezbollah and their state sponsors and supporting
Israel's exercise of its right to self-defense." After House majority leader
John Boehner removed language from the bill urging "all sides to protect
innocent civilian life and infrastructure," the House version passed by a
landslide, 410 to 8.

AIPAC not only lobbied for the resolution; it had written it. "They
[Congress] were given a resolution by AIPAC," said former Carter
Administration National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, who addressed
the House Democratic Caucus on July 19. "They didn't prepare one."

AIPAC is the leading player in what is sometimes referred to as "The Israel
Lobby" -- a coalition that includes major Jewish groups, neoconservative
intellectuals and Christian Zionists. With its impressive contacts among
Hill staffers, influential grassroots supporters and deep connections to
wealthy donors, AIPAC is the lobby's key emissary to Congress. But in many
ways, AIPAC has become greater than just another lobby; its work has made
unconditional support for Israel an accepted cost of doing business inside
the halls of Congress. AIPAC's interest, Israel's interest and America's
interest are today perceived by most elected leaders to be one and the same.
Christian conservatives increasingly aligned with AIPAC demand unwavering
support for Israel from their Republican leaders. (In mid-July, 3,000-plus
evangelicals came to town for the first annual "Christian United for Israel"
summit.) And Democrats are equally concerned about alienating Jewish voters
and Jewish donors -- long a cornerstone of their party. Some in Congress are
deeply uncomfortable with AIPAC's militant worldview and heavyhanded
tactics, but most dare not say so publicly.

"The Bush Administration is bad enough in tolerating measures they would not
accept anywhere else but Israel," says Henry Siegman, the former head of the
American Jewish Congress and a Middle East expert at the Council on Foreign
Relations. "But the Congress, if anything, is urging the Administration on
and criticizing them even at their most accommodating. When it comes to the
Israeli-Arab conflict, the terms of debate are so influenced by organized
Jewish groups, like AIPAC, that to be critical of Israel is to deny oneself
the ability to succeed in American politics."

There are a few internationalist Republicans in the Senate and progressive
Democrats in the House who occasionally dissent. Representative Dennis
Kucinich and twenty-three co-sponsors have offered a resolution calling for
an immediate cease-fire and a return to multiparty diplomacy between the
United States and regional powers, with no preconditions. But even the
resolution's supporters admit it isn't likely to go anywhere. Another bill
introduced by several Arab-American lawmakers that stressed the need to
minimize civilian casualties on both sides was "politically swept under the
rug," according to Representative Nick Rahall, a Lebanese-American Democrat
from West Virginia who voted against the House resolution. Dovish
American-Israeli groups, such as Americans for Peace Now, have largely
stayed out of the fight.

The latest hawkish Congressional activity is primarily intended to show
voters and potential donors that elected officials are unwavering friends of
Israel and enemies of terrorism. "It's just for home consumption," said
Representative Charlie Rangel, a powerful New York Democrat who signed on to
Kucinich's resolution. "We don't have the support of countries that support
us! What the hell are we going to do, bomb Iran? Bomb Syria?" His
colleagues, said Rahall, "were trying to out-AIPAC AIPAC."

Discussion in Congress quickly widened beyond Israel to include a broader
policy of confrontation toward the entire Middle East. Congressmen sent a
flurry of "dear colleague" letters to one another, hoping to pressure the
Administration into tightening sanctions on Syria and Iran, Hezbollah's two
main state sponsors. Former Middle East envoy Dennis Ross addressed a packed
AIPAC-sponsored luncheon on the Hill, where, according to one aide present,
Ross told the room: "This is all about Syria and Iran ... we shouldn't be
condemning Israel now." Said Representative Robert Andrews, a Democrat from
New Jersey and co-chair of the Iran Working Group, which this week hosted an
official from the Israeli embassy: "I concur completely with that approach."

Democrats, as they did during the Dubai ports scandal, used the crisis to
score a few cheap, easy political points against the Bush Administration.
The new prime minister of Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki, found himself engulfed in a
Congressional firestorm after he denounced Israel's attacks on Lebanon as an
act of "aggression." Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chair Rahm
Emanuel, who volunteered in Israel during the first Gulf War, called on
Maliki to cancel his planned address before Congress. Asked Senator Chuck
Schumer, who skipped Maliki's July 26 speech: "Which side is he on when it
comes to the war on terror?" Howard Dean one upped his colleagues, labeling
Maliki an "anti-Semite" during a speech in Palm Beach, Florida.

Ironically, during the 2004 campaign Dean called on the United States to be
an "evenhanded" broker in the Middle East. That position enraged party
leaders such as House minority leader Nancy Pelosi, who signed a letter
attacking his remarks. "It was designed to send a message: No one ever does
this again," says M.J. Rosenberg of the center-left Israel Policy Forum.
"And no one has. The only safe thing to say is: I support Israel." In April
a representative from AIPAC called Congresswoman Betty McCollum's vote
against a draconian bill severely curtailing aid to the Palestinian
Authority "support for terrorists."

Not surprisingly, most in Congress see far more harm than reward in getting
in the Israeli lobby's way. "There remains a perception of power and fear
that AIPAC can undo you," says James Zogby, president of the Arab American
Institute. He points to the defeats of Representative Paul Findley and
Senator Charles Percy in the 1980s and Representatives Cynthia McKinney and
Earl Hilliard in 2002, when AIPAC steered large donors to their opponents.
Even if AIPAC's make-you-or-break-you reputation is largely a myth, in an
election year that perception is potent. Thirty-six pro-Israel PACs gave
$3.14 million to candidates in the 2004 election cycle. Rahall said his
opponent for re-election issued his first press release of the campaign
after Rahall voted against the House resolution. "Everybody knew what would
happen if they didn't vote yes," he says.

AIPAC continues to enjoy deep bipartisan backing inside Congress even after
two top AIPAC officials were indicted a year ago for allegedly accepting and
passing on confidential national security secrets from a Defense Department
analyst. "The US and Israel share a lot of basic common values. The vast
majority of the American people not only support Israel's actions against
Hezbollah but also the fundamental US-Israel relationship, and the
bipartisan support in Congress reflects that," says AIPAC spokesman Josh
Block. Rosenberg, himself a former AIPAC staffer, puts it another way: "This
is the one issue on which liberals are permitted, even expected, by donors
to be mindless hawks."

By blindly following AIPAC, Congress reinforces a hard-line consensus:
Criticizing Israeli actions, even in the best of faith, is anti-Israel and
possibly anti-Semitic; enthusiastically backing whatever military action
Israel undertakes is the only acceptable stance.

Recent Gallup polls show that half of Americans support Israel's military
campaign, yet 65 percent believe the United States should not take sides in
the conflict. But it's hard to imagine any Congress, or subsequent
Administration, returning to the role of honest broker. What the region
needs now, according to Brzezinski, is an American leader brave enough to
say: "Either I make policy on the Middle East or AIPAC makes policy on the
Middle East." One can always dream.

Ari Berman is a contributing writer for The Nation and a Ralph Shikes Fellow
at the Public Concern Foundation. He's currently based in D


.

Relevant Pages