US Mideast Policy is for Sale. The Highest Bidder? AIPAC

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Washington DC Conference Examines the Israeli Lobby – the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee

 

 

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On April 10, 2015, right in time to view the cherry blossoms waiting for an American Spring, the National Press Club building in Washington D.C. was the site for a heavily attended conference attempting to address vital questions about the size and growth of the Israeli lobby, which receives the largest share of the U.S. taxpayer-funded aid. Mainstream media blacked out this day-long event on a critical aspect of US foreign policy and C-SPAN withdrew its coverage this year in a 180 degree turn from their last years’ position. The event was organized by the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.


Titled “The Israel Lobby: Is it Good for the US? Is it Good for Israel?”, the conference had presenters ranging from the Princeton Professor emeritus of international law and the former UN Special Rapporteur for Palestinian territories, Richard Falk to former American Israel Public Affairs Committee staffer M. J. Rosenberg, who said, "Middle East policy in the US is determined by the highest bidder. The highest bidder is AIPAC. What that means is that democracy in the US is itself a myth." He wrote the manual for the AIPAC called Myths & Facts. Most Congressmen support Israel because of the financial benefits they get from AIPAC donors, said Rosenberg sharing his insight on the power of AIPAC dollars from his time as a congressional staffer.


Congressman Nick Rahall from West Virginia, sharing what he called the ‘perfect example’ of how he thinks the lobby is controlling the strings in the Congress, pointed out the invitation to the prime minister of Israel to address Congress without State Department okay, without White House okay, and two weeks before a domestic political campaign in the State of Israel. “Inviting the prime minister to come and give a political speech before the Congress of the United States two weeks before his toughest re-election in his life,” he said.


Israeli newspaper Haaretz columnist, Gideon Levy referred to the US as the “United States of Israel,” and said, “many times when someone looks at the relations between Israel and the United States, one might ask, who is really the superpower between the two?” He declared that the two-state solution is dead, drilling in the point that the Israeli occupation was going “deeper and deeper,” systematically dehumanizing Palestinians.


The charge of anti-Semitism is a powerful tool used to silence who speaks against the interests of the state of Israel was a motif in almost every speaker’s speech. Big lobbies are in control of public policy, they are the power that makes big decisions, destroying true representative government, said former Illinois Congressman Paul Findley.  He received a standing ovation for his suggestion to limit campaign spending with an amendment —one that declares no contributor can send money into a constituency unless they are domiciled in that constituency.


Dr Alice Rothchild, author of “Broken Promises, Broken Dreams” Stories of Jewish and Palestinian Trauma and Resilience. She spoke on silencing of Jews who speak up about Israeli occupation as a self hating Jew. She chronicled attempts to silence her and the screening of her film, “Voices Across the Divide”.

One panel highlighted the influence of the lobby on US college campuses. Amani Al-Alkhatahtbeh, a recent graduate, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee media specialist related anecdotes from her term as the Opinion Editor at the Daily Targum, Rutgers University’s daily newspaper, and trustees, which decided that criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic. Ahmad Saadaldin spoke about his university’s chapter of Students for Justice for Palestine. Dima Khalidi, the founder and Director of Palestine Solidarity Legal Support (PSLS), and a lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) shared the stories of many students who have been affected by campaign mounted against them to silence and punish them on their views on Palestinian movement. “Dissent is curbed,” she stated. PSLS got 240 requests in 2014 for help for legal advice and reports of repression from academics, faculty and students. She brought up the smear campaign which ruined the career of Steven Salaita tenured professor of the American Indian studies program of  in reaction to his tweets on the Gaza War.


Dr. Jack Shaheen, the award-winning author of Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People and Guilty: Hollywood’s Verdict on Arabs After September 11 documents stereotypes of Arabs and Arab-Americans in Hollywood and the U.S. media. He made connections between Hollywood and the Israeli lobby. He noted that audiences should critically view the way Palestinians. Muslims, and Arabs are portrayed in films and TV, ‘consider Homeland – an Islamophobic series for grown-ups. Most viewers are unaware that Homeland’s bash-the-Arabs programmes are based on an Israeli series, Hatufim, and that Homeland was created by an Israeli producer Gideon Raff, and produced by another Israeli called Avi Nir.”


“There are a couple of myths American filmmakers, television producers, as well as some Israelis perpetuated. One was the land without people, that there are no Palestinians. Two, Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. And, three, the only Palestinians that exist are terrorists,” shared Shaheen.


Guests from a variety of professional backgrounds mingled with CIA veteran Paul Pillar, professor at Georgetown University, and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, former members of Congress, Findley and Nick Rahall (D-WV)  and an Israeli general’s son, Miko Peled.


An Edward R. Murrow quote that resonated with many present was, “What we do not see is as important, if not more important, than what we do see.”

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