This spring, Move over AIPAC will mobilize as “Occupy AIPAC,” returning to Washington D.C., to protest the Israel lobby’s national conference. AIPAC is known for strong-arming Congress into giving $30 billion to Israel over the next decade. This year it is promising to crank-out “thousands” of “business attire” political soldiers to increase funding for Israel, despite a U.S. recession.

At $500 per ticket, conventioneers can participate in AIPAC’s National Policy Conference, March 4-6. Move over AIPAC is preparing to counter the Israel lobbyists’ appointments with Congress, during its gathering outside the Convention Center, March 2-6.

Move over AIPAC has re-branded itself as “Occupy AIPAC,” reflecting the growing connections activists are making between the 1 percent and the Israeli occupation. This connection moved from idea to practice when activists from the Palestine Solidarity Network organized a demonstration against one of AIPAC’s Northern California conferences. Similarly, activists in New York staged a “mic-check,” at a Birthright event, at which Occupy voices challenged the Israel lobby.

Occupy AIPAC organizers note:

With the Occupy movement that has swept the country demanding social and economic justice, many have concluded that AIPAC—the powerful pro-Israeli government lobby that distorts U.S. policy in the Middle East— is a mandatory ‘occupy target’.

Furthermore, a few months ago, Mondoweiss‘ Alex Kane interviewed Kale Lasn, the man from Adbusters who made the original call to occupy Wall St., and Lasn pushed the movement to adopt the Palestinian cause. Lasn advocated creating the tag-line, or hashtage “#Occupy AIPAC”:

The people who feel that American foreign policy has been distorted by the neocons, by the media and by AIPAC, it’s time for us to stop arguing about it and start going on the offensive.

Occupy AIPAC has left the sphere of a social network hashtag and is now a five-day event. Registration for the conference is open and the program schedule is also posted online.

P.S.: Occupy AIPAC also includes an evening performance by author/architect Suad Amiry. In a rare blend of comedy and sophistication, Amiry’s Sharon and My Mother In-law (2006), records the absurdities that occurred while living under siege in Ramallah with her mother in-law.