Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, September-October 2008, pages 52-53

Israel and Judaism

AIPAC’s Role in the 2008 Election Coming Under Increasingly Critical Scrutiny

By Allan C. Brownfeld

The role of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)—and of the larger organized American Jewish community—in the 2008 presidential election campaign is coming under increasingly critical scrutiny.

USA TODAY reports that, “Jewish voters made up about 3 percent of the electorate in 2004, according to surveys of voters as they left polling places. But high turnout among Jewish voters in November could make a difference for McCain or Obama in battleground states.”

“If it turns out to be a close election, the Jewish vote could make the difference,” said M.J. Rosenberg, director of policy with the Israel Policy Forum. Rosenberg notes that Jewish voters could make a difference in Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

At its annual meeting in June, AIPAC, which presents itself as reflecting the views of American Jews, was addressed by a host of political leaders of both parties, including Senators John McCain and Barack Obama.

“Once a year, the Israel lobby in Washington known as AIPAC holds its annual convention where anyone who is anyone in the political world comes to render fealty, rather than homage,” wrote Arnaud de Borchgrave, editor-at-large of The Washington Times. “It has become a political rite of passage, like a medieval contract for exchanging goods and services...Anyone who doesn’t pass the litmus test can forget about becoming president of the United States, or senator or even congressman...The lobby, reputedly Washington’s most powerful (though this is disputed by the National Rifle Association and the AARP), ensures that anything Israel wants or needs gets quick action on the Hill. That covers anything from $3 billion a year for the next 10 years for modern weaponry to soft loans for building the $2.5 billion physical barrier between Israelis and Palestinians, and under the radar the steady expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank.”

Both Senators McCain and Obama told AIPAC exactly what it wanted to hear. The latter went so far as to declare that “Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided.” The reaction to Obama’s statement was negative throughout the Middle East. Moreover, it is in opposition to long-standing U.S. policy, which holds that the status of Jerusalem is to be negotiated between Israelis and Palestinians. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas responded, “This statement is totally rejected. We will not accept a Palestinian state without having Jerusalem as the capital.” Even some Israeli analysts suggested that Obama had staked out a position beyond that of current leaders. Within 24 hours, Obama backtracked, saying that the final status of Jerusalem “is going to be up to the parties to negotiate.”

“It would be hard to imagine a more naked exhibition of political power.”

The AIPAC meeting also featured bellicose anti-Iran statements. Leading neoconservative Richard Perle urged that Iran be placed on the terrorist hit list. Senator McCain told the AIPAC audience that, if elected president, he would drastically ramp up financial pressure on Iran’s rulers by targeting the country’s gasoline imports and imposing sanctions against its central bank. Senator Obama presented an equally firm position concerning Iran. According to The Wall Street Journal, “AIPAC and other Jewish-American organizations have identified Iran as a threat to Israel’s existence...Both Republicans and Democrats view Jewish Americans as key swing voters in the presidential election.”

Journalist and blogger Philip Weiss, <www.philipweiss.org>, who is writing a book about Jewish issues, attended the AIPAC meeting and reported on it for The American Conservative. In his article, “Looking Into The Lobby,” he writes that Senator Obama’s speech “became the annual example the conference provides of a powerful man truckling. Two years ago, it was Vice President Cheney’s red-meat speech attacking Palestinians. Last year, it was Pastor John Hagee’s scary speech saying that giving the Arabs any part of Jerusalem was the same as giving it to the Taliban. Obama took a similar line. He suggested that he would use force to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons, made no mention of Palestinian human rights, and said that Jerusalem ”˜must remain undivided,’ a statement so disastrous to the peace process that his staff rescinded it the next day...It would be hard to imagine a more naked exhibition of political power: a convention of 7,000 mostly rich people, with more than half the Congress in attendance, as well as all the major presidential candidates, the prime minister of Israel, the minority leader, the majority leader and the speaker of the House. Yet there is precious little journalism about the spectacle in full. The reason seems obvious: the press would have to write openly about a forbidden subject, Jewish influence. They would have to take on an unpleasant informative task that they have instead left to international relations scholars in their 50s—Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, authors of last year’s book The Israel Lobby.”

For more than 30 years, Weiss declares, AIPAC has supported Israel’s policy of expanding into the West Bank and has had a dramatic impact upon U.S. policy: “In 1975, when President Ford wanted to reassess Mideast policy over Israeli intransigence, he was cut off at the knees by an AIPAC letter signed by 76 senators. Then in 1989, when James Baker went before AIPAC and told them to give up their idea of a Greater Israel including the West Bank, George H.W. Bush received a letter of anger signed by 94 senators. In both instances, AIPAC was hewing to the Israeli government line and nullifying American policymaking...They have passed on their full powers of judgment to the Israeli government. In that sense, the Zionists in that hall might best be compared to Communists in the ”˜30s and ”˜40s, who also abandoned their judgment to a far off authority...”

In Weiss’ view, “The great sadness here is that American Jewry is the most educated, most affluent segment of the public. Yet on this issue there is little independent thinking. The obvious question is whether they don’t have dual loyalty. As a Jew, I feel uncomfortable using the phrase, given its long history, but the facts are inarguable. Leon Wieseltier of The New Republic speaks of everything ”˜we’ should do to make peace with the Palestinians, then corrects himself to say what Israel should do. Speaker after speaker says that Israel is in our hearts. People who emigrate to Israel are applauded, and when the national anthems are played, one cantor sings ”˜The Star Spangled Banner,’ but the ”˜Hatikvah’ has two cantors belting it out, with the audience roaring along. Maybe most revealing, I heard a right-wing Israeli politician sharply criticizing Olmert’s policy in the West Bank. Think of the scandal it would cause if American politicians went abroad and criticized the president’s foreign policy. It’s no scandal here because AIPAC is a virtual extension of Israel.”

More Catholic Than the Pope?

Ironically, AIPAC, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and other Jewish groups often take positions more extreme than those taken by the government of Israel itself. As The Forward editorialized, “There’s something almost comical in the timing of announcements...that Israel had achieved diplomatic breakthroughs with foes on its northern and southern fronts. The word came out during the very week that Republicans were mounting their fiercest attacks yet on liberals who favor negotiating with those same enemies. Once again, Israel’s self-appointed defenders in this country were out peddling notions of what’s good for Israel that bear little resemblance to what Israel actually wants. Liberals, thrown on the defensive, were absurdly forced to pledge, in the name of Israel’s defense, that they would never do precisely what Israel itself is doing. Through it all, the main target was the Jewish voter, who is apparently presumed too dumb to know the difference.”

Often when political candidates address Jewish forums, they assume that the way to appeal to Jewish voters is to take the most extreme possible position on behalf of Israel. This, of course, is the idea promoted so effectively by AIPAC. The fact is, however, that most American Jews do not share this perspective at all. In a survey of American Jewish opinion conducted by the American Jewish Committee, respondents were asked about the issues that will determine their presidential vote this year. A strong plurality of 42 percent picked either “economy and jobs” or “health care,” the two domestic choices offered. By contrast, only 36 percent picked one of the three Middle East-related options, the war in Iraq (16 percent), “terrorism and national security” (14 percent) or “support for Israel” (6 percent).

The notion that Jewish voters are waiting for a stamp of approval from self-proclaimed “leaders” of a “pro-Israel” seal of approval on particular candidates bears no relationship to reality.

A Variety of Views

Even those Jews who focus on U.S. Middle East policy share a variety of views, hardly those represented by AIPAC. Recently, a new political action and lobbying group known as JStreet and JStreetPAC has been established to counter the influence of organizations such as AIPAC. In a full-page ad in the June 23 New York Times, JStreet declared: “When Israel goes to war, supporters rally. When Israel negotiates, why the deafening silence? A new cease-fire has been brokered between Israel and Hamas. Israel and Syria are quietly resuming diplomatic contacts. Israel is offering talks with Lebanon, and Israeli and Palestinian leaders are negotiating to establish two states living side by side in peace and security. These efforts may or may not succeed. But they are designed to enhance Israel’s security, the region’s stability and to bring peace closer. And they deserve our support. If Israel had gone to war this week, established pro-Israel organizations would have rallied to its side. There would have been ads, press releases, fundraising appeals and political speeches. Let’s have the courage to support Israel loudly and clearly when it pursues security through diplomacy.”

David Kimche, a former director general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry and a supporter of JStreet, outlined the need for an alternative in The Jerusalem Post: “AIPAC has become more militant than the Israeli government. Its messages reflect more the oppositionist Likud doctrine than the moderate stance of Prime Minister Olmert. Moreover, whereas...some 80 percent of the Jewish voters traditionally cast their votes for the Democrats, AIPAC is geared to an extreme right-wing agenda, often more in line with the Jewish neo-cons than with the majority of American Jews.”

Jeremy Ben-Ami, JStreet’s executive director, says of AIPAC that, “They have to promote another agenda. Our agenda is that we believe the security of Israel, the survival of Israel, depends in large measure on whether or not it can resolve these conflicts peacefully with its neighbors. This is also in America’s best interest.”

Many prominent Israelis view AIPAC as a negative and counterproductive influence and have joined JStreet’s advisory council. One of these is Daniel Levy, who was part of the Israeli delegation to the January 2001 Taba Summit. “The mainstream pro-Israel camp,” he states, “has decided so brazenly to throw its lot in with neoconservative ideologues within this administration and with the far right dispensationalist Christian Zionists, and this unholy triangle has pulled things so much to the right-wing direction that we are desperately in need of a corrective...I think other groups that care about this issue feel more comfortable expressing a sensible position on the Middle East when there is also a very credible and hopefully very loud Jewish voice saying, ”˜This is the most pro-American and pro-Israeli position you can take’...just like you can be a pro-American patriot and be against bombing Iran and staying in Iraq for l00 years.”

Samuel Freedman, a Columbia University journalism professor and columnist for The Jerusalem Post, declares that, “There are plenty of good reasons for an alternative to AIPAC. American Jewish opinion is indeed too variegated to be represented by one and only one voice on Israel issues. A lobby that gave its podium to the bigoted pastor John Hagee and has had several of its officials implicated in a scandal involving classified information needs a competitor to keep it honest.”

As the 2008 campaign proceeds, AIPAC’s role should continue to be carefully examined. It is abundantly clear that its claim to represent American Jewish opinion is false. It is also beyond question that the vast majority of Jewish voters cast their ballots on the basis of a variety of issues, domestic and foreign, not on the single issue of U.S. Middle East policy. To the extent that AIPAC’s influence is diminished, the chance to develop a constructive U.S. policy which leads both Israelis and Palestinians to a meaningful peace is enhanced.

Allan C. Brownfeld is a syndicated columnist and associate editor of the Lincoln Review, a journal published by the Lincoln Institute for Research and Education, and editor of Issues, the quarterly journal of the American Council for Judaism.