30 Shares 0



30

0







In September 2006, President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela gave a memorable speech at the United Nations General Assembly. Before he began the speech he said that he could smell the sulfur behind the podium, because the devil had spoken there the day before. He was referring of course to President George W. Bush. Borrowing Chavez’ metaphor, in March of 2016, there was an offensive smell hanging over Washington DC. It wasn’t sulfur and it wasn’t caused by the devil George Bush, it was the unmistakable smell of BS and it was caused by the AIPAC convention.

The one place in Washington DC that was monotonous, predictable, and spread great amounts of BS during the AIPAC convention, was the AIPAC convention itself. The rest of the capital was bustling with activity. Activists from around the country, activists from Australia and from Europe, and of course activists from Palestine came to join hands and protest the AIPAC phenomenon. Whites, Blacks, Latinos, Arabs, Jews, all were there to participate in the protests, marches, speeches, spoken word and civil disobedience that took place around the city. Compared with all of this, the predictable, mind numbing speeches given at the convention by Hilary Clinton, Donald Trump and the others, one almost feels sorry for the attendees.

Even the one source of possible entertainment was ruined: “Trump entertainment” was replaced by a prepared speech that Trump read from a teleprompter. House Speaker Ryan began full of boyish energy and then made a sobering promise that as long as he is the House Speaker, no legislation that “divides our countries” would be allowed, “to come to the house floor for consideration.” Ted Cruz opened solemnly with “God bless AIPAC,” and stated that, “Palestine has not existed since 1948.” Of course we know that, and coming from Cruz this is quite an admission: there was a Palestine and today Israel sits on its ruins. He also said that as president he would make sure that no federal funding is given to anyone who supports BDS. Issac Hertzog, the “liberal” Israeli politician who heads the Israeli opposition, explained to the attendees that Israel should build a wall around the Muslim villages near Jerusalem. Sounds like he is adopting Trump’s ideas. He also said that Israel must disengage from the Palestinians because of the current wave of terror and at the same time proceed towards the two-state solution. Yaaawn!

As I watched the attendees marching into the Verizon Center in downtown Washington DC, it was like watching thousands and thousands of sheep being led to graze, mindlessly regurgitating, tripping over members of Code Pink who were blocking the sidewalk. All around protestors were calling to dump Trump, shutdown AIPAC and free Palestine, but these, pathetic looking attendees answered the call to march. Like addicts, comfortably numb going to get their fix. And indeed the fix came: one speech following another, they all followed the same pattern: “We love Israel,” (applause) “Iran deal is bad”, (applause) “anti-Semitism is plaguing us,” “Palestinian – terrorism – BDS must all be destroyed,” (applause) “oh, and let me tell you about my first trip to Israel in 1972, and how I cried when I saw Jerusalem” (applause), etc., etc., etc., and the AIPAC attendees like junkies in an opium den, inhaling the sweet drug.

As we on the outside marched through downtown DC, I walked alongside my friend Iyad Burnat from Bil’in, Palestine, and he and I watched in disbelief the thousands who were behind us, DC police blocking traffic to allow this unprecedented show of support for Palestine to proceed, block after block all the way from the White House to the DC convention center. Palestinian writer and poet Susie Abulhawa was there. Black Lives Matter representatives were there, people from Ferguson and Baltimore came. I saw New Black Panthers there holding their party flag alongside the Palestinian flag. I saw my friend Jeffery Hass, a veteran activist lawyer who represented the Panthers in the late 60’s in Chicago and wrote the terrific book “The Assassination of Fred Hampton.” The book describes the life and times and the untimely death of Fred Hampton who was killed by the Feds. Liberty survivors were there and Veterans For Peace. Ray McGovern spoke among many, many others.

Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss led Neturei Karta, the ultra-orthodox Jewish group, at the protest. In his short speech, Rabbi Weiss made reference to the Holocaust, a reference that was far stronger, more sincere and certainly more truthful than anything ever said by the Zionists on this issue. He told the crowd that the Nazis killed his family in Auschwitz, “they died because they were Jewish […] and these evil doers who want to take the land, want to take it in the name of my grandparents. How dare you? How dare you?” he cried.

It is worth mentioning here that there is a great deal of misunderstanding about the Ultra Orthodox Jewish communities, and the first thing to know is that there are many, many different factions and communities of ultra orthodox Jews. Many people think that they are the source of Zionism, and not realizing that the opposite is true people wonder why they show up at events supporting Palestine. Historically, all the ultra orthodox factions opposed Zionism, and as a child I recall that during the Israeli Independence Day while we were celebrating in the streets of Jerusalem, people in the ultra orthodox neighborhoods in Jerusalem would make huge bon fires and burn the Israeli flag. Gradually, the Zionist institutions and the State of Israel lured some of the Ultra Orthodox groups with money and political power until they dropped their opposition to Zionism and accepted the State of Israel. But Neturei-Karta, whose name comes from Aramaic and means "Guardians of the City,” maintains its rejection of the so-called Jewish state.

And speaking of rejections, although the one Jewish candidate in this race is also the one who rejected AIPAC’s invitation, he did give a speech on Israel that was just as numbing as the others. While Bernie Sanders did break the mold, so to speak, by not showing up to the convention, he repeated the same overused and meaningless mantra “Israel’s right to exist is absolute” ignoring the fact that this means that denying Palestinian’s their rights is also absolute. One may realistically expect that by the next election cycle AIPAC will no longer be the darling it is today, and that this mantra will fade like an old, useless photograph. The protests calling to shut down AIPAC are likely to grow in size and volume; BDS, even with the attempts to de-legitimize it will grow, and being associated with Israel will become embarrassing even for American politicians. It’s also safe to assume that Americans will grow tired of giving Israel a blank check and getting so little in return.

Trying to explain to a Palestinian friend what it is about AIPAC that is so terrible, I put it this way: “after Israel will burn your children in front of your very eyes, and then kill you, and people ask, “but why did you kill him, he was a good Palestinian?” AIPAC will explain and even prove that you and your children are all Muslim terrorists and that if Israel killed you it means you deserve to die. Then they will remind the world that you are a terrorist because you served time in an Israeli prison. Then they will go on to applaud the Israeli security machine and bring Israeli army generals and former chiefs of the Mossad and the Shabak to talk about how all they ever really wanted was peace.” If Hugo Chavez were still alive he would perhaps insist that the odor from the AIPAC convention is actually sulfur too.