Real News: Israel and the American Elections | Occupy AIPAC! Muzzlewatch - AIPAC. This is a guest post by Souciant Magazine and Inter Press Service writer Mitchell Plitnick, formerly with Jewish Voice for Peace and B’Tselem: It’s a little hard to imagine. The self-proclaimed “most influential foreign policy lobbying organization on Capitol Hill,” an admittedly deserved sobriquet, is apparently afraid of what little old me might say about their conference. It’s hard to interpret what has happened in any other way, after my approved media credentials for AIPAC’s annual policy conference were rescinded without explanation just a few days before the event.
I applied for media access to the conference back in January. Soon after, I received an email from AIPAC’s then-media relations officer, Ari Goldberg, confirming acceptance of my application to attend as a reporter. So, it was no surprise that AIPAC credentialed me. More surprising was the revocation of those credentials with just a few days to go before the conference. Again, I’ll leave that for you to decide. instagram. Al Jazeera: What role does AIPAC play in US elections? | Occupy AIPAC!
The American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the most powerful pro-Israel lobby in the US, is holding its biggest annual conference yet with around 13,000 delegates in Washington. For all those bidding to become the next US president, it has become an essential campaign stop. The group has strong ties to the religious right and evangelical voters. And it is a very influential force in Washington politics. Demonstrators from the occupy movement held a small protest outside the event urging no war on Iran and no US tax dollars for Israel.
On Sunday, Barack Obama, the US president, took to the stage and told the audience that Israel had never had a better friend in the White House. But he did not support Israeli military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities – at least not yet. Three of the four Republican candidates bidding to unseat the US president addressed the conference on the biggest day of the nomination battle so far – ‘Super Tuesday’. Obama's Aipac speech – read the full text | World news. Thank you. Well, good morning, everyone. Rosy, thank you for your kind words. I have never seen Rosy on the basketball court. I'll bet it would be a treat. Rosy, you've been a dear friend of mine for a long time and a tireless advocate for the unbreakable bonds between Israel and the United States. I want to thank the board of directors. I'm glad that my outstanding young ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro, is in the house.
Every time I come to Aipac, I'm especially impressed to see so many young people here. Shimon was born a world away from here, in a shtetl in what was then Poland, a few years after the end of the first world war. In his life, he has fought for Israel's independence, and he has fought for peace and security. Shimon once described the story of the Jewish people by saying it proved that, "slings, arrows and gas chambers can annihilate man, but cannot destroy human values, dignity, and freedom".
For over six decades, the American people have kept that faith. Does AIPAC want war? Washington, DC - For all it has done to promote confrontation between the United States and Iran, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee has worked to avoid the public perception that AIPAC is openly promoting war. In AIPAC's public documents, the emphasis has always been on tougher sanctions. (If you make sanctions "tough" enough - an effective embargo - that is an act of war, but it is still at one remove from saying that the US should start bombing.) But a new Senate effort to move the goalposts of US policy to declare it "unacceptable" for Iran to develop a nuclear weapons capability - not a nuclear weapon, but the technical capacity to create one - gives AIPAC the opportunity to make a choice which all can observe.
If the Lieberman resolution becomes an ask for AIPAC lobbyists at the March AIPAC policy conference, then the world will know: AIPAC is lobbying Congress for war with Iran. The phrase "vital national interest" is a "term of art". This suggests two things. MJ Rosenberg: AIPAC's "War With Iran" Bill Passes House Committee. Wasting no time after its success in getting the administration to oppose Palestinian statehood at the United Nations, and still celebrating the UNESCO funding cut-off, AIPAC has returned to its #1 priority: pushing for war with Iran. The Israelis have, of course, played their own part in the big show. In the last few weeks, it has been sending out signals that it is getting ready to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities (and embroil the United States in its most calamitous Middle East war yet). But most observers do not believe an Israeli attack is imminent. (If it was, would Israel telegraph it in advance?)
The point of the Israeli threats is to get the United States and the world community to increase pressure on Iran with the justification that unless it does, Israel will attack. Naturally, the United States Congress, which gets its marching orders on Middle East policy from the lobby which, in turn, gets its marching orders from Binyamin Netanyahu, is rushing to do what it is told. The Israel Lobby Finds a New Face: Black College Students. When Vincent Evans arrived as a bright-eyed first-year at Florida A&M, the country’s largest historically black university, he knew he wanted to get involved in politics. So when an older student leader approached him one afternoon after a student government meeting to ask if he wanted an all expenses paid trip to D.C., Evans jumped at the opportunity. The trip, it turned out, was sponsored by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, the country’s most powerful pro-Israel lobbying outfit.
Israel is under growing attack from Palestinian and international activists who call the country a racist apartheid state. In response, its staunchest U.S. lobby is recruiting black students as moral shields to make the case for Israeli impunity. In his four years in college, Evans traveled to D.C. at least 10 times on AIPAC’s dime. “Within the program,” says Evans, “they make a concerted effort to reach out to HBCU and majority Hispanic schools.” AIPAC - The American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Occupy AIPAC! | Articles on AIPAC. Occupy AIPAC! | Home. AIPAC's Hold.
The Congressional reaction to Hezbollah's attack on Israel and Israel's bombing of Lebanon provide the latest example of the lobby's grip on US foreign policy. In early March, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) held its forty-seventh annual conference in Washington. AIPAC's executive director spent twenty-seven minutes reading the "roll call" of dignitaries present at the gala dinner, which included a majority of the Senate and a quarter of the House, along with dozens of Administration officials.
About the Author Ari Berman Ari Berman, a contributing writer for The Nation magazine and an Investigative Journalism Fellow at The Nation... Also by the Author The Roberts Court has made it far easier to buy an election and far harder to vote in one. Wisconsin and Ohio are the latest GOP-controlled states to limit access to the ballot. AIPAC not only lobbied for the resolution; it had written it. AIPAC: The unrivalled lobby. Not surprisingly, my recent piece on an ugly 1988 experience with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the Israeli government, and late New York Times newspaper columnist William Safire elicited some controversy. I knew it would. There aren't that many first-person accounts of encounters with the lobby (for obvious reasons) so my recollections of how it went down on Capitol Hill fill a vacuum. Hopefully, there will be more such accounts as those of us who dealt with the lobby in the 1980s move into a position (career-wise or financially) where we feel free to talk and write about it without any fear of retribution.
If I were 35, there is no way that I would challenge an institution which has a long history of preventing its critics from advancing professionally. I am not that brave - although the terrain is finally changing for the better thanks to the internet. In my description of an event that took place in 1988, I refer to AIPAC's then-executive drector, Thomas Dine. Obama gives up, AIPAC wins. On the surface it appears that president Obama has given up on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and, frankly, given the evidence, it is difficult imagining that there is something different beneath the surface. To wit: Special Envoy George Mitchell resigned, clearly angry at the lack of support his peace efforts received from the White House - and his resignation letter was about as curt and cold as any in recent memory.
The announcement of his resignation followed reports that the president's Thursday speech on the Middle East will, amazingly, say virtually nothing about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A day after Mitchell's resignation came news that the president had decided that he will speak at this month's AIPAC conference, the traditional setting for pandering to the Israeli government and, more significantly, to Israel-centred political donors.
This seeming decision to go "all AIPAC, all the time" would be jarring even if 2011 were not the year of the Arab Spring. Confessions of an AIPAC Veteran.