Antiwar.com
Picking on AIPAC
Philip Giraldi
Republicans and Democrats seek to outdo each other when it comes to praising
and defending Israel, particularly during election years. The mainstream media
likewise marches in lockstep, burying stories critical of Israel within a day
or two after they first appear. Even in the blogosphere, Israel has many
friends, at least some of whom are Israel Defense Forces soldiers fluent in
English tasked with presenting a rebuttal whenever a critic surfaces. Israel
has no shortage of allies, but most would agree that its principal supporter in
the United States is the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, known as
AIPAC.
AIPAC is generally regarded as one of the three most powerful lobbies in
Washington. Unlike most other major lobbies, which engage on a variety of
issues, AIPAC has only one objective: strengthening American support for the
state of Israel through creation of a "special relationship" between
the two countries. AIPAC’s support is uncritical, no matter what Israel does
and no matter what the impact on the U.S. might be. Because Congress and the
White House are fearful of confronting AIPAC, it enjoys a unique status. Even
though it acts as a foreign lobby, it has not been required to comply with the
Foreign Agents Registration Act. Not having to register is significant, as it
means that AIPAC’s sources of income and its disbursements are not a matter of
public record.
AIPAC has had a free ride in the media and the government for many years, but
that is beginning to change. A majority of Americans now favor a more
evenhanded approach to the Palestinian issue, even if the politicians have not
yet figured that out. Criticizing AIPAC and Israel’s actions has been largely
confined to so-called paleocons, libertarians, and traditional antiwar
leftists, groups that mainstream politicians feel they can safely ignore. Most
other Americans would call themselves supporters of Israel, though the support
is probably a mile wide but only an inch deep, since most Americans really
don’t care about what happens in the Middle East. Those calling themselves
Republicans are disinclined to criticize Israel and the Israel lobby for
ideological or theological reasons, while liberals, though normally opposed to
the sort of large-scale human rights violations taking place on the West Bank
and in Gaza, are particularly uncomfortable when called on to confront Tel
Aviv. This nervousness is partly due to fear that such criticism will lead to
bogus charges of anti-Semitism from the likes of Alan Dershowitz and Abe
Foxman, but it is also undeniably connected to an understandable desire not to
offend Jewish Americans. The Holocaust has also been exploited by the Israeli
government and AIPAC to create a sense of collective guilt and is invoked as
needed, particularly relating to the drive to disarm Iran.
Web sites like Antiwar.com that frequently criticize AIPAC’s disproportionate
influence over U.S. foreign policy are sometimes attacked for "singling
out" Israel and holding it to a higher standard than other regimes with
shaky human rights records. This complaint fails to take into account Israel’s
unrivaled ability to shape U.S. policies through AIPAC, something that despotic
regimes in places like Zimbabwe and Myanmar cannot do. Because of AIPAC’s
power, much criticism of Israel might more accurately be viewed as part of the
debate on a proper global role for the United States.
There are three major reasons why critics of the Israel lobby must continue
their fight to expose AIPAC and its activities. First is the fact that Israel’s
lobby is the real party of war in the United States. The Iraq war, which
continues to bedevil the U.S., would likely not have taken place without the
advocacy of Israel’s government and its friends in high places. The enabling
role of Israel in the march to war is not just an isolated or crank opinion. It
is a view shared by Gen. Anthony Zinni, Rep. Jim Moran, former senator Ernest
Hollings, and former executive director of the 9/11 commission Philip Zelikow,
among many others. If critics of the Israel lobby do not keep the heat on by
exposing the role of AIPAC and the Israeli government, there will almost
certainly be a war with Iran. The AIPAC-supported Iran Diplomatic Enhancement
Act of 2009 (HR 1905) making its way through Congress authorizes cutting off
imports of refined petroleum products to Iran, an act of war. Meanwhile in
Israel the most right-wing government in the country’s history is committed to
no compromise with the Palestinian majority that it rules over, and it
regularly threatens Iran, Syria, and Lebanon. Israeli Prime Minister Bibi
Netanyahu and AIPAC want the United States to attack Iran, and Congress has
been more than willing to support the effort. Only an informed public aware of
how AIPAC and Congress work together on behalf of Israel can stop the march to
war.
The second reason to criticize AIPAC is its completely false argument that U.S.
and Israeli foreign and security policies should be essentially the same. This
argument has been pushed by AIPAC and the various pro-Israel think-tanks with a
flood of "position papers" produced by the Lobby. The United States
under George Bush completely bought into Israeli policies regarding terrorism
and the Middle East, with AIPAC frequently drafting the bills coming out of
Congress supporting Israel and attacking countries such as Iran. Most recently,
a May 12 bipartisan draft letter by House Democratic Majority Leader Steny
Hoyer and Republican Rep. Eric Cantor emphasizing that Washington must be
"a devoted friend to Israel" was determined to have been drafted by
AIPAC.
AIPAC can make sure that only its friends become powerful in Washington. The
independent- minded Chas Freeman was derailed as head of the National
Intelligence Council because he was critical of Israel. Freeman knows, as does
anyone who has studied the issue, that the U.S. is a target of terrorism
largely because of the Israeli-crafted slant in foreign policy and uncritical
support of Israel in world forums. Israel is in fact the source of the two most
pernicious national security doctrines of the past eight years: the global war
on terror and democracy promotion. Washington’s "all terrorists are the
same" security paradigm, which conveniently consigns national-liberation
groups like Hamas and Hezbollah to the same category as al-Qaeda, was crafted
in Tel Aviv. Israel’s enemies thereby become America’s enemies, even when they
are not. The U.S. adoption of made-in-Israel counterterrorism policies also
guarantees that the war against so-called Islamofascism will go on forever.
Israel and AIPAC are also the chief promoters of former Israeli government
minister Natan Sharansky’s argument that the free world must insist on
promoting democracy for all oppressed people, a thesis that explicitly excludes
the Palestinians and is particularly ironic as it ignores that Israel is itself
an apartheid state. Sharansky admirers George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Condi
Rice transformed his book The Case for Democracy into the democracy-promotion
agenda, which has been embraced by interventionist Democrats and Republicans
alike. In reality, the democracy agenda has been a complete failure, only
serving to marginalize and destabilize Israel’s Muslim neighbors.
The third reason to oppose AIPAC is the corruption of the U.S. political system
by the Lobby’s money and power, resulting in a bought-and-paid- for Congress and
a rule of law for everyone except those guilty of crimes on behalf of Israel.
Even when one is caught red-handed and confesses to spying for Israel, it is
apparently no big deal, aside from the cost of a lawyer. Israel runs an
extremely aggressive espionage program inside the United States involving
hundreds of operatives and agents, but the only Israeli spy to be arrested,
charged, and imprisoned is Jonathan Pollard, and that was over 20 years ago.
Even Larry Franklin, the Pentagon "Iran expert" who spied for Israel
because he believed AIPAC would get him a better job on the National Security
Council, is not actually in jail in spite of his 12-year sentence. He is reportedly
free due to his service as a witness in the recently terminated AIPAC Steve
Rosen-Keith Weissman espionage trial.
Ben-Ami Kadish, former engineer at the Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey, who was
part of the same network that recruited Pollard, pleaded guilty to reduced
charges in December after supplying advanced nuclear and ballistic technology
to Israel. He was supposed to be sentenced in February. That did not take
place, and there have been repeated delays in his court appearance. He is now
supposed to be sentenced later this month, but prosecutors reportedly will not
demand any jail time. He will go free, as have Rosen and Weissman, after a
politically tainted prosecution that wasted millions of dollars and went
nowhere. It is undeniable that the two men passed information that they knew to
be classified to the Israeli embassy. Former government officials Kenneth
Pollack and David Satterfield, who were identified in the indictment as having
also passed classified information to AIPAC, were not even charged with a
crime. Pollack, formerly on the National Security Council, is the director of
research at the Saban Center of the Brookings Institution. The media suspended
its coverage of the AIPAC story two days after the dismissal of charges.
Another AIPAC favorite, Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), was caught on the phone
trading favors with an agent working for Israeli intelligence. Her misbehavior
has been completely free of consequence. A cooperative media dropped the story
five days after it surfaced, and neither Democrats nor Republicans seem
interested in one of their own who may have been spying for Tel Aviv. The only
congressional anger over the incident is being directed at the FBI, which is in
the hot seat for its alleged violation of Harman’s privacy through its
completely legal wiretap. Harman has even turned the incident into a joke,
running as part of a team called "Tapped Out" in an annual three-mile
race for members of Congress.
While some might argue that critics of AIPAC have gone too far, it is equally
possible to argue that they have not gone far enough. It is time for the
American people to demand that AIPAC be registered as a foreign lobby and cease
and desist from its interference in U.S. politics. Neither America nor Israel
is well served by having a United States Congress, White House, and media so
cowed by AIPAC that they will endorse anything the corrupt politicians in Tel
Aviv choose to do. It is time for Washington to return to a foreign policy
based on the United States’ national interest, not Israel’s.
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