Tag Archives: AIPAC

How Obama Beat The Lobby

6 Mar

I am not one for admitting I am wrong but sometimes the evidence is so overwhelming that I have to say it. I was wrong.

I have been repeatedly wrong when I said that the Israel lobby could not be defeated unless and until the President of the United States confronted it directly. In that situation, I always knew the United States would prevail. But I did not understand that a deft president could beat the lobby through indirect means – by quietly using his authority to prevail.

That is what happened when the Obama administration first nominated and then achieved the confirmation of Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense.

There, of course, are those who accept the line put out by the lobby, most notably its main component AIPAC, that it was neutral on Hagel.

That is just silly. If AIPAC was neutral, it could have ended the whole battle against him by issuing a statement that it recognized a president’s right to choose his own cabinet. That might not have stopped Republican groups like Bill Kristol’s Emergency Committee For Israel or Sheldon Adelson’s Republican Jewish Coalition from pursuing its smear campaign against Hagel but it would have stopped the very mainstream American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League from joining the attack. AIPAC’s public silence on a campaign waged by its closest allies demonstrated what it wanted: Hagel’s defeat. So did the fact that it supplied the anti-Hagel senators with the “information” it used to bludgeon him with at his kangaroo court of a confirmation hearing.

President Obama outsmarted the lobby by ignoring it. He knew that if he could get Sen. Chuck Schumer to endorse Hagel, then the game would be over. That is because he, as a Jew and New York’s senior senator, is the de facto head of the lobby’s forces in Congress.

A reflexive lobby man, Schumer might have been expected to oppose Hagel and thereby give a signal to his fellow Democrats that doing so was the only safe position. Had he done that some Democrats would have feared not opposing Hagel. With most Republicans already on record as opposing his nomination, just a shift of a few Democrats would have killed the nomination. Schumer’s announcement in support of Hagel guaranteed that not a single Democrat would oppose him.

So what convinced Schumer to stand with Obama on Hagel? My friends on Capitol Hill, who without exception correctly predicted Schumer’s position, tell me that it was made clear to him that he could not oppose Obama on Hagel and still expect to become leader of Senate Democrats when Harry Reid retires. No threats were made because none needed to be made. Schumer was simply led to understand that he was not getting a pass on this one. Add to that the unprecedented public campaign supporting Hagel. This time the lobby did not have the field to itself. With veterans’ organizations, former Secretaries of State and Defense, and retired generals speaking out in support of the former Nebraska senator, the lobby was out-flanked.

And so Hagel was confirmed. The lobby was defeated. And its friends are devastated.

In a Jewish Tablet piece called, “How AIPAC is Losing” the militant lobby supporter Lee Smith asks “just how powerful is AIPAC if a man who refers to it as the ‘Jewish lobby’ and has defiantly claimed that he is not an “Israeli senator” is slated to be our next secretary of Defense?”

And, most significantly, how much influence does the lobbying organization actually exercise if it can’t carry the day on the single issue that’s been at the very top of its agenda for over a decade: stopping Iran from getting nuclear weapons.

Despite an operating budget of more than $60 million, on the most crucial issue facing Israel’s security, AIPAC has lost the policy debate. The winners include those who believe you can’t stop a nation from getting the bomb if it’s determined to do so, those who think the Iranians have a right to nuclear weapons, and those who argue the Iranians can be contained—among them, our new Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel.

In other words, the lobby is not all-powerful. A determined president can defeat it, a lesson Obama will bear in mind in the future, particularly in reference to the lobby’s singular focus on war with Iran.

But will Hagel’s presence make a difference? Who knows? But we do know this: a win is a win. And so is a defeat.

I was wrong. The lobby can be beaten. Obama scared it into public silence and then defeated it. Nice work, work that will only become easier as younger Jews, and the non-Orthodox 90%, continue to abandon a lobby that is at variance with their liberal worldview. Ethnic chauvinism is on the rise in Israel (along with its twin, racism) but not here. Israel’s “demographic problem” can be solved by withdrawing from the occupied areas. The same can’t be said of AIPAC’s problem. Like the Republican Party, its base is growing smaller and narrower every day.

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AIPAC Goes Public: It Intends To Exempt Israel From Sequester

5 Mar

The great Congressional Quarterly reporter Jonathan Broder has gotten AIPAC to go on the record with its plans to exempt Israel from sequestration. (I can’t provide link as CQ is by subscription only.)

He writes of the “battalions” of AIPACers who descended on Congress today to demand “tighter sanctions against Iran, relief for Israel aid from automatic spending cuts, and a new designation of the Jewish state as a ‘major strategic ally,’ a status that would help insulate Israel from any further aid cuts.

At the top of their agenda is convincing lawmakers to support a new Iran bill (HR 850) from House Foreign Affairs Chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif., and supported by ranking Democrat Eliot L. Engel of New York, that would extend existing sanctions targeting Iran’s energy and financial transactions to include an even broader range of its commerce with the rest of the world. Several senators are working on a measure which is expected to be even more expansive.

The grassroots lobbyists also asked lawmakers to find some way to shield the $3.1 billion in annual U.S. aid to Israel from the automatic across-the-board spending cuts that took effect on March 1. Under the sequester, Israel stands to lose $155 million. Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid.

Broder quotes an AIPAC official who says,  “We are saying that an alternative should be found to sequestration because it is bad policy. We believe it is essential for American and Israel security interests that the assistance be maintained and not reduced.”

Broder quotes House Foreign Affairs Committee chair. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, as seeking ways to exempt Israel but notes (here is a shocker) Brad Sherman (D-CA) disagrees:  “An exemption for Israel would raise questions. If there’s one exemption, what other exemptions will there be?”

So AIPAC  is demanding an exemption for Israel. And Brad Sherman thinks such an exemption would raise questions. (Knowing Brad, he is probably too busy plotting war with Iran to care about this issue).

What does it all mean?  There will be an exemption for Israel if it can be pulled off in the dark. Don’t count the lobby out. This is their specialty.

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Israeli Government, AIPAC Worry About A Backlash If Israel Is Exempt From Sequester: Let’s Create It

5 Mar

Check out this piece in the Jerusalem Post. It notes my prediction that AIPAC could suffer a “backlash” if  aid to Israel is exempted from sequestration but says that the lobby is “doubling down” on achieving it. 

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which opened its annual policy conference on Sunday, will take to Capitol Hill Tuesday for a morning of lobbying, including a push to provide Israel with its full $3.1 billion in military aid for 2013 and 2014, as well as $211m. in additional funding for the Iron Dome missile-defense system. AIPAC will also promote legislation designating Israel a “major strategic ally,” a new alliance status that may help it keep its aid.

 

The lobbying agenda did not reference funding for joint missile defense programs, which the Pentagon will consider when divvying up its budget cuts. The other two lobbying agenda items will be devoted to legislation on Iran, one in the House, and one in the Senate.

It then added: “Some critics worried that attempts to exempt Israel from painful budget cuts while the rest of the US was forced to absorb them would cause a political backlash.”

It is clear from the article that Israelis are worried about that backlash, almost as much as AIPAC is untroubled by it. It is hard to believe, but it’s a fact, that AIPAC and its associated lobbying organizations are far more hard line than even the Netanyahu government. AIPAC relishes going to war with a U.S. President because it is a show of macho power and helps fundraising efforts. The Israeli government, which has skin in what AIPAC considers a game, is more cautious. (Ultimately, the Long Islanders of AIPAC are safe regardless of what happens to Israel; they can always find another hobby. Israelis can’t.)

In any case, we need to exploit the nervousness Israel seems to be feeling about AIPAC’s sequester exemption. The special treatment for Israel that AIPAC is demanding is a metaphor for the whole US-Israel relationship but even more for AIPAC’s stranglehold over US policy. 

Naturally J Street is not opposed to exempting Israel as the Post article points out. It has red lines: its biggest one is never ever to seriously oppose AIPAC on anything. (Sometimes I wonder if AIPAC created J Street as a safe alternative to itself. It has turned out that way).

In any case. Let’s exploit the sequestration issue to (1) prevent AIPAC from taking money away from needy people here to give to the Israeli military and (2) to point out what AIPAC is. You fill in that blank. I’ve said it enough!

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AIPAC Pandering: The Democrats Are Much Worse Than Republicans

4 Mar

It’s hard to watch the AIPAC conference for more than a few minutes at a time. For me, the worst part is the pandering (and lying) by Democratic politicians eager to raise money for their next campaign.

So far, Joe Biden has been the worst. He is heavily funded by the Adler family of Miami Beach (he even brought President Obama to their home for a fundraiser), one of the big AIPAC families. Here is Biden talking about how the head of the Adler klan and another AIPAC mogul gave him his “formal education” on the Middle East. (Not to mention all that money.

And, of course, Biden (like John Kerry) knows better than his AIPAC speeches indicate. I have talked to him about Israel and Palestine.He can name the top Palestinian leaders in Fatah and Hamas and tell you the differences between their respective positions. He believes Israel needs to end the occupation and talk to Hamas. He would not dare say it publicly, although he has said  it so often privately that it is amazing the media never reports it.

But Biden does what he thinks he has to because, for politicians like him (that is, pretty much all politicians), nothing is more important than keeping donors happy. Call him a hypocrite but he cries all the way to the bank.

The Republicans are different. Supporting the occupation and threatening war with Iran come naturally to them. They don’t need lobby money for their campaigns and they don’t get Jewish votes anyway.  (This is not to say that they don’t like Sheldon Adelson’s money, just that as the pro-business party, they don’t need it). They support Netanyahu because they believe that the west needs to crush the Muslim world. They do not feign Islamophobia. It’s them.

The good news is that as the country gets “browner,” as the black, Latino, and Asian vote continues to grow (and moves into the Democratic party), the lobby will have a harder time keeping the Democrats in line. No matter how many free trips AIPAC gives up-and-coming minority politicians. it  cannot keep up with the disdain progressive voters  feel for Likud Israel.  Combine them with the Democratic party’s large left and soon the Democrats tip…toward justice. That means playing the role of honest broker and peace maker, not bloviating Israel lover.

Does this mean the Jews will go to the Republicans. No way. Only 5% of Jews vote with Israel in mind. But the big money controlled by the lobby will. As will the whole AIPAC crowd that puts Israel’s interests above America’s.

AIPAC knows this is happening. They know  its future is with the GOP. Happily, America’s future isn’t, which means the lobby will soon be on the permanently losing side.

As for Israel, the decline of AIPAC is only good news. It needs peace with the Palestinians. It does not need empty rhetoric from empty politicians. As the segregationist left the Democrats for the GOP after LBJ’s civil rights laws, so will the AIPAC crowd go to the Republicans. It is inevitable.

And it’s good news. Biden’s bloviating for Israel will soon be history.

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Watch AIPAC Get Israel Exempted From Sequestration

9 Feb

On March 1, if the White House and Congress do not reach a deal, the automatic budget sledgehammer known as the “sequester” will cut $1.2 trillion out of government spending, equally divided between domestic programs and the military.

These cuts would be devastating but, at this point, they could very well happen.

Here is my question? Will AIPAC succeed in getting an exemption for Israel programs, the largest item by far on the foreign aid side?

Already AIPAC’s cutouts on the Hill are getting ready to save Israel’s aid. At the Hagel confirmation hearing last week, Sen. Kristen Gillibrand (D-NY)  who combines Chuck Schumer’s zealousness in serving AIPAC with utter ignorance of foreign policy, asked Hagel point blank if he would ensure that Israel’s aid would be kept at current levels if the sequester takes place.  Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) has chimed in on the devastating effects sequestration would have on poor Marylanders and on Israel.

Our commitment to Israel and its security is unprecedented and unwavering. U.S. security assistance to Israel in the annual foreign aid and defense appropriation bills are the most tangible manifestation of American support to one of our strongest allies. These critical funds are especially vital during this time of tremendous turmoil in the Middle East, particularly as Iran is aggressively working to acquire a nuclear-weapon capability. Indeed, our military and intelligence cooperation with Israel has never been closer.

Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, and, in this time of turmoil, we count on Israel as a strong, stabilizing force in that region. With the on-going civil war in Syria, an uncertain government in Egypt and the growing threat of a nuclear Iran, America’s support for Israel must continue.

This is not the time to financially cripple our own nation or that of our allies. Too many nations are watching for any weakness in our national resolve or lack of support for our allies. I believe sequestration would be a self-inflicted wound that would not only endanger our nation’s economic recovery, but also jeopardize our prestige and influence in the world.

The usual AIPAC blah blah,

It is hard to believe that AIPAC would dare exempt Israel from cuts that are going to impact every American or that it will exempt the IDF from cuts that will affect the US Armed Forces. Or that it will preserve the largest item in the foreign aid budget intact thereby forcing proportionately larger cuts on USAID programs to combat hunger, illiteracy and poverty in Asia, Africa and the Americas.

On the other hand, AIPAC is shameless and so are their wholly owned subsidiaries in Congress.

Let’s keep an eye on this. Letting AIPAC know that we are watching might prevent its latest run on the bank.

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Imagine: No Israel Lobby

8 Feb

I was watching John Brennan’s Senate hearing and suddenly the words to the John Lennon song Imagine came into my head, with a slight twist.

Imagine there’s no lobby

It’s easy if you try

No memorized talking points

No need to lie.

I’m in good company when I contemplate a world without AIPAC. Upon his election as prime minister in 1992, Yitzhak Rabin told the lobby that Israel would be better off without it and that it did more harm than good. He wanted AIPAC out of the way  because he was planning a peace initiative with the Palestinians and knew that AIPAC would try (as it did) to thwart his efforts.

Of course, Rabin’s effort to eliminate AIPAC failed. He was, after all, only the prime minister of Israel. And AIPAC is AIPAC, an institution dedicated to preserving its own power, not Israel’s security. Rabin was dedicated to working with the United States government to advance peace not to organizing billionaires to thwart US goals.

The reason I was contemplating an alternate universe without the Israel lobby was that I was struck by the contrast between a Congressional hearing (Brennan’s) in which Israel was not an issue, hence no lobby involvement, and one in which there seemed to be no other issue, Chuck Hagel’s.

In fact, neither hearing should have been about Israel. Although both the heads of the Department of Defense and the CIA have some involvement with Israel (the CIA director actually more), Israel is not a major concern of either one. Nonetheless, the Hagel hearing was almost entirely about Israel while Brennan’s was about actual CIA policies, largely drone strikes and interrogation practices.

I admit that I am overstating my case when I say that absent the Israel lobby there is no need for a public official to lie. I believe that most public officials lie when they consider it necessary to defend themselves, the bad policies they have implemented or their superiors. For some, lying is an autonomic response to pretty much any question.

One small example: did you ever see an executive or legislative branch official refuse to answer a question by saying that he hasn’t read a particular report. That is almost always a lie. If a reporter knows about it, the official in question has almost surely does too. And just because the lobby was not looking over Brennan’s shoulder when he testified about drones and torture, there is no way he was always telling the complete truth.

But most of the time Brennan and the senators were free to engage in a serious discussion of the issues based on what both the nominee and the legislators believe is best for the United States. Although, depending on one’s view, either Brennan or the senators (or both) were terribly wrong, it would be hard to argue that their positions were dictated by a lobby and that lobby’s ability to deliver campaign funding.

The Hagel hearing, on the other hand, wasn’t really a hearing at all. For the senators it was just an opportunity to audition in front of current or potential donors.

It was like getting a speaking role at the AIPAC annual conference, an opportunity to demonstrate that a legislator was 100% for whatever the lobby is for.

The worst thing was that a hearing about leading the Pentagon barely touched on any of the issues that affect America’s military. So eager were the senators to suck up to the lobby by proclaiming undying devotion to Israel that they barely mentioned the 1.5 million Americans on active duty and all the problems they face. Nor was there much interest expressed in the current war in Afghanistan or our continuing role in Iraq. Or about when the use of military force is warranted and when it isn’t.

No, it was all about Israel, actually not so much Israel as the Israel lobby. What, other than the desire to please the lobby, could have made Sen. Kristen Gillibrand (D-NY) ask for Hagel’s commitment that Israel’s aid package would be exempt from sequestration cuts, unlike all the programs that actually affect her constituents?

But her pandering to AIPAC was typical, replicated by such other lobby devotees as Lindsey Graham (R-SC) who histrionically read from a lobby script attesting to the lobby’s non-existence – and demanded that Hagel apologize for ever suggesting that there is such a thing as the (gasp) “Jewish lobby.” Graham, no special fan of Israel, is concerned about a challenge from a Tea Party candidate in 2014 and is eager to raise money from AIPAC-associated donors to help him withstand the challenge

Of course, Gillibrand is from New York but that barely matters any more. She, like her Republican colleagues — Graham, Ted Cruz of Texas, Roy Blunt of Missouri, David Vitter of Louisiana and Mike Lee of Utah, — was playing for money not votes, national money. Although the Republicans know that that lobby donors are unlikely to support right-wing Republicans, they also know (as Jesse Helms discovered) that enthusiastic pandering to AIPAC will make it harder for their Democratic opponents to raise money. Not when, to use AIPAC’s term, the Republican incumbent is a “staunch supporter” of Netanyahu.

In short, the Hagel hearing was a nauseating spectacle.

By comparison, but only by comparison, the Brennan hearing was a textbook example of American democracy at its best. Sure, there were lobbyists in the room but they didn’t write the script. Yes, some of the positions Brennan and some of the senators took are truly appalling. And some senators made no sense at all.

Nonetheless, the Brennan hearing was not a fundraiser. It was about issues, even principles and morality. The difference, of course, was the absence of the lobby.

Imagine.

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ADL Screams “Anti-Semitism” Over Kevin Spacey/Netflix Series

3 Feb

POSTSCRIPT: The Anti-Defamation League is now calling “House of Cards” anti-Semitic, proving, yet again, that when it comes to the lobby YOU CAN’T MAKE THESE THINGS UP!  

My original post from Sunday, updated:

You have to check out this new series.

It is big. It stars Kevin Spacey who also directed it. Additionally, it is the first film produced by Netflix, which is itself a huge deal, and is available instantly at its site for free streaming.

Here is the amazing part. I don’t think I’m revealing any spoilers because this is only a small part of the plot but, if you are sensitive about such things, stop reading.

So…Kevin Spacey plays the Democratic whip of the House of Representatives. A new president has just been elected, who has promised to appoint Spacey’s character Secretary of State. However, he reneges and gives the job to someone else. The guy who gets the job is fine, even from Spacey’s viewpoint, but Spacey is mad and has to block him to hurt the president.

But the guy is clean. What to do?

Spacey’s staffer comes up with a Williams College editorial on Israel, published when the Secretary of State nominee was editor-in-chief of the college paper. The editorial calls the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza illegal.

Spacey figures that should be enough to destroy the would-be secretary’s chances EXCEPT it turns out that he did not write the editorial, another student did. Spacey dispatches a corrupt, drug addicted Congressman (really) to visit the guy who wrote the article and convince him to say that it was, in fact, the Secretary of State nominee who was responsible.

The guy doesn’t want to do it. He says that, even as a student, the Secretary-designate was a total wuss who would never take any controversial stands.

So the doped up Congressman bribes him with pot and cocaine and, voila, he changes his mind. He will go public with the fact that it was the Secretary guy who opposed the occupation.

Spacey gives the story to the Washington Post and then the Secretary nominee is confronted by the real George Stephanopoulos on his Sunday show who nails him for having criticized Israel 30 years ago!  The addled nominee laughs!

Spacey calls the head of the Anti-Defamation League (not played by the real Abe Foxman) to inform him that the Secretary-designate disrespected Israel while in college. The Foxman character rushes to CNN to announce that he will stop the anti-Semite from being confirmed. Spacey, watching the television, smiles, looks at the camera and says, “This is too easy.”

The nominee is forced to withdraw.

All the forces of corruption win!

Exaggerated? Nope, as the Hagel assault demonstrates. (Note Carl Levin’s decision to postpone the confirmation vote, no doubt trying to please the lobby as he contemplates running for another term).

This is how the lobby operates. This is how Congress operates.

Kevin Spacey, bless you.

Hey, lobby, lots of luck bringing Spacey or Netflix to their knees!

 

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Praise The Lord: AIPAC Is Losing

15 Jan

The news that Sen. Chuck Schumer will support the Hagel nomination means that Hagel will almost certainly be confirmed as Secretary of Defense.  It does not mean that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is not opposing the appointment. It means that, at long last, it has been defeated.

It is obvious why AIPAC  is so insistent that it is not trying to prevent former senator Chuck Hagel from becoming the Secretary of Defense. As investigative journalist Max Blumenthal put it in a piece published yesterday:

AIPAC has good reasons to keep its fingerprints off the public campaign to demonize Hagel. For one, AIPAC thrives on its ability to influence lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, requiring it to avoid alienating the key congressional Democrats who rubberstamp the anti-Palestinian resolutions and Iran sanctions legislation it routinely authors. If AIPAC waded into the Republican-led crusade against Hagel in a public way, it might enrage some of its most reliable Democratic allies in Congress, generating unnecessary acrimony that might complicate future lobbying initiatives.

The other reasons Blumenthal enumerates are AIPAC’s fears of contributing to the bad feelings between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu stemming from Netanyahu’s open preference for Mitt Romney in the recent U.S. election.

And then there is AIPAC’s complicated legal status stemming from the fact that, unlike other lobbies for foreign governments, it is not registered as such with the Department of Justice. If it was, its activities would be severely circumscribed. Seeming to lay low, while orchestrating events from behind a screen, makes sense.

AIPAC does not have to issue directives from its headquarters in Washington to convey its desires.

In fact, it usually doesn’t. It never likes to leave fingerprints and still manages to get what it wants because policymakers, media people, etc., know what its preferences are without public pronouncements. This even applies to what AIPAC considers its most significant annual achievement: passage of the $3.5 billion Israel aid package and making sure that there are no strings or conditions attached.

Between 1993 and 1995 I worked for a member of the House Appropriations Committee. That is the body that writes the legislation that provides the money after its Subcommittee on Foreign Operations submits its recommendations which are then quickly approved and, after adoption by the full House and Senate, go to the president for his signature.

Here is how it works. AIPAC provides each staffer on the subcommittee with legislative “language” that spells out precisely what it wants for Israel and the amount of dollars it wants for each provision. The language helpfully arrives in electronic form so the staffer does not have to do anything but drop it into a letter that each legislator writes to the chairman of the committee. Each staffer receives the same “wish list” from AIPAC ensuring that each member of the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations will be requesting the same thing.

Invariably there are extra items to be requested, above and beyond the usual provisions, which  AIPAC hands out as gifts to members of the committee it particularly favors. That member will be the only one asking for this “goody” for Israel and can then claim credit for it. That credit can then be cashed in the form of contributions from donors associated with the lobby for the legislator’s next campaign

The key point is that this is all done in the dark. No member of the Appropriations Committee would ever admit that all they do in crafting the Israel aid package is drop in Israel’s request, as composed and delivered by AIPAC. If a current staffer ever made the mistake of stating publicly that this is how it is done, she would not be a staffer for long. The bottom line is that AIPAC’s direct role is kept secret. In fact, I don’t think anyone has ever described this process until right now.

Achieving passage of the Israel aid package is AIPAC’s most public initiative. Nonetheless, it pretends that the aid legislation simply arises from the will of Congress and the president as a popular manifestation of admiration for Israel.

Needless to say, it does the same thing on its other signature annual achievement: piling sanction after sanction on Iran. It does the same with its lesser efforts like all those resolutions supporting Israel’s wars on Gaza, condemning Palestinian actions and commending Israeli prime ministers for their supposed efforts to achieve peace or combat terrorism. All these arise from AIPAC’s offices, are delivered to Capitol Hill and then are passed with hardly a dissenting voice, all without AIPAC claiming credit for itself. In fact, it invariably hails Congress for doing the work it itself actually did.

So don’t fall for the ridiculous idea that AIPAC is not behind the effort to defeat Chuck Hagel. It almost never operates in the daylight, why would it start now?

Remember, I was the fortunate recipient of the 1982 memo from Steve Rosen, then AIPAC’s deputy director (and subsequently fired by AIPAC after being indicted on an espionage charge) that said the following. Rosen sent it to me on my very first day working at the organization.

It read, in its entirety: “A lobby is like a night flower: It thrives in the dark and dies in the light.”

That is the reason it is operating against Hagel in the dark. Would you expect it to shine a flash light in its self?

No, AIPAC lost. Here is another sign. President Obama is now saying that Netanyahu’s conduct indicates that “ Israel doesn’t know what its best interests are.” It appears that Netanyahu and AIPAC are facing a nightmare: a second term Democratic president who isn’t afraid of the lobby. Stay strong, Mr. President. 

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Obama Crushes AIPAC

9 Jan
In 1983 or thereabouts, during my four year stint at AIPAC, the powerful organization that is the main component of the pro-Israel lobby, I asked Tom Dine, its executive director, if a president of the United States could ever successfully challenge Israel’s behavior even in cases when U.S. national security interests were clearly at stake.

My question related specifically to the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza that began in 1967 and which seemingly made an Israeli-Palestinian agreement impossible. It also was, as it is now, the primary source of Arab and Muslim anger against the United States.

The reason for my question was my fear that the power of the lobby was such that a president could not prevail against it.

Even matters that did not directly affect Israel like U.S. arms sales to allies like Jordan and Saudi Arabia, would meet massive resistance from Israel, the lobby and its huge chorus of supporters in Congress.

How, I asked Dine, could the United States get ever get Israel to actually yield occupied territory if it became clear that the Arabs were ready for peace, as in fact became the case after the 1993 Oslo agreement between Israel and the PLO?

Dine responded that although he hoped the day would come when Israeli leaders (and hence the lobby) would be ready for “compromise,” he did not think a president could make Israel do anything it didn’t want to do given the power of the organization he led and “our friends in Congress.”

But then he added a caveat: “Of course, if a president pushed hard enough, and told the American people that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was damaging U.S. interests and that he had a plan to end it, he would prevail.”

He elaborated: “By that I mean AIPAC would have no choice but to support him. We can never defeat a president who reaches over the heads of AIPAC and Congress and invokes his prerogatives as president of the United States or, even more, the national interest.

The logic behind Dine’s thinking was simply that American Jews would never allow themselves to be perceived as putting Israel’s interests over America’s because (1) that would be bad for Jews and (2) American Jews are Americans before they are anything else.

It is fine to strongly support the Israeli government even when it is at odds with the U.S. government – but only up to a point. The point is when that support clearly contradicts U.S. interests, as defined by the president.

That is why the lobby was so outraged when Reagan administration officials suggested the lobby’s opposition to an arms sale to Saudi Arabia represented the wrong answer to the question of “Reagan or Begin?” That little phrase – “Reagan or Begin” – won the battle for the administration.

That is why any criticism of the lobby that even hints at the lobby’s putting Israel’s interests above America’s produces such fury, hence the recent hysteria over the use of the term “Israel Firster.”

American Jews will not tolerate the suggestion that they are anything but good Americans. Fighting a president over a national security issue is simply not sustainable.

Although a president’s choice for Secretary of Defense is not in really a national security issue, it does get to the question of an American president and his security prerogatives. After all, the Department of Defense personifies U.S. national security. Once President Obama made clear that he would nominate Hagel, the game was over.

Of course, the lobby claims that it actually did not fight to prevent the naming of Hagel. That is just silly. As someone who worked at AIPAC, in Congress and the State Department for 20 years, I know more than most that, when it comes to the Israel issue, nothing happens without the lobby’s involvement.

AIPAC is, like most professional lobbies, highly protective of its role. Its associates and friends, widely quoted in the media as demanding that Hagel not be appointed, would never have been so aggressive without AIPAC’s go-ahead. That is how it works. It always has.

Frankly, I am surprised that the president went ahead over the lobby’s opposition. I am well-known for my belief that it could not be beaten, although I have always offered the caveat that it would be if a president fought back hard.

Obama did, and Chuck Hagel will almost surely be the next Secretary of Defense.

That is good news but far less significant than the implications for peace. As Dine told me all those years ago, if a president pushes for a peace agreement that advances U.S. interests while not harming Israel’s, he will prevail.

That means that he can insist on an end to the occupation and the creation of a viable Palestinian state in the lands Israel has occupied since 1967. As long as Israel’s security is not put at risk (and no president would put it at risk), the president will prevail. This is especially the case because an end to the occupation (with security guarantees for Israel and the new state) would advance Israel’s security not damage it.

The lobby will not be able to block a president determined to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on terms fair to both sides. It is like the father of modern Zionism, Theodor Herzl, said: “If you will it, it is no dream.”

It is, as Obama demonstrated with Hagel, just a matter of will.

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AIPAC Salutes Itself For Senate Passage of Its Iran War Bill 90-1

24 Sep

On Friday night, the Senate passed by a 90-1 vote an AIPAC drafted resolution telling the president that containment of a nuclear Iran is not an option. If  Iran passes Binyamin Netanyahu’s “red line,” the United States must go to war.

As a US President, Barack Obama oppose automatic wars. He wants to keep all his options open. But the Senate gets its orders from AIPAC and AIPAC gets its orders from Netanyahu….

Here is AIPAC’s press release celebrating its belief that war is closer.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Marshall Wittmann, mwittmann@aipac.org
September 23, 2012

Senate Sends Bipartisan Message on Preventing Iranian Nuclear Weapons Capability

Resolution spearheaded by Sens. Graham, Lieberman and Casey rejects policy of containment

WASHINGTON — AIPAC applauds the Senate for rejecting a policy of containment of an Iranian nuclear weapons capability and calling for an increase in sanctions against the world’s leading state sponsor of terror.

The resolution (S. J. Res. 41) passed with overwhelming bipartisan support (90-1) and affirms that “it is a vital national interest of the United States to prevent the Government of Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability.” It notes that, as President Obama has said, the window for diplomacy is closing and urges increased economic and diplomatic pressure on Iran to come into full and sustained compliance with UN Security Council resolutions.

With each passing day the Islamic Republic is inching closer to a nuclear weapons capability. Just last month the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) published a report detailing the tremendous progress Iran has made in its quest for nuclear weapons. Since May, the regime has doubled the centrifuges at its nearly impregnable Fordow facility from 1,064 to 2,140. It has produced 418 pounds of 20-percent enriched uranium—nearly doubling the quantity since January. And Iran has produced more than 15,000 pounds of low-enriched uranium, enough to fuel five bombs if further enriched.

AIPAC praises the efforts of Sens. Graham (R-SC), Lieberman (I-CT) and Casey (D-PA), as well as the 80 additional cosponsors, to get this resolution passed. The House in May passed H. Res 568, which similarly rejected containment as a policy for dealing with Iran. It was overwhelmingly passed in a bipartisan vote 405-11 with 330 cosponsors.

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Consistently ranked as the most influential foreign policy lobbying organization on Capitol Hill, AIPAC is a bipartisan American membership organization that seeks to strengthen the relationship between the United States and Israel. For more than 50 years, AIPAC has been working with Congress to build a strong, vibrant relationship between the U.S. and Israel. With more than 100,000 members across the United States, AIPAC works throughout the country to improve and strengthen that relationship by supporting U.S.-Israel military, economic, scientific and cultural cooperation.

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