From: Portside Moderator [mailto:moderator@PORTSIDE.ORG]
Sent: Monday, March 14, 2011 6:45 PM
To: PORTSIDE@LISTS.PORTSIDE.ORG
Subject: AIPAC's Newest Strategy
AIPAC's Newest Strategy
March 10, 2011
MJ Rosenberg
http://politicalcorrection.org/fpmatters/201103100007
There are three reasons why monitoring AIPAC (the
American Israel Public Affairs Committee) is a valuable
use of time for anyone following events in the Middle
East.
The first is that AIPAC faithfully reflects the
positions of the Netanyahu government (actually it
often telegraphs them before Netanyahu does).
The second is that AIPAC's policies provide advance
notice of the positions that will, not by coincidence,
be taken by the United States Congress.
And third, AIPAC provides a reliable indicator of
future policies of the Obama administration, which gets
its "guidance" both from AIPAC itself and from Dennis
Ross, former head of AIPAC's think tank, the Washington
Institute for Near East Policy, and now the president's
top adviser on Middle East issues.
The next few months, as AIPAC prepares for its annual
conference (May 22-24), will be especially fruitful for
AIPAC watchers. The conference is a huge event,
attended by most members of the House and Senate, the
prime minister of Israel, and either by the president
or vice president of the United States. It is also
attended by thousands of delegates from around the
country and by candidates for Congress who raise money
for their campaigns at the event. This year, the
leading Republican candidates for president will also
be in attendance, all vying for support by promising
undying loyalty to the AIPAC agenda.
The conference actually begins long before it convenes
at the massive Washington Convention Center. Right now,
AIPAC's top officials are deciding which policies are
the most important to be conveyed to the hundreds of
officials who will be in attendance. Those policies
will constitute AIPAC's agenda not just for the
conference but for the next 12 months (see last year's
AIPAC policy book here).
In recent years, AIPAC's main message has been about
Iran and its view of the dangers posed by the Iranian
nuclear program. Speaker after speaker at various AIPAC
conferences over the past decade (including, most
histrionically, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu) has
invoked the Holocaust when discussing the possibility
of an Iranian nuclear weapon.
These speakers laid the groundwork for AIPAC's
presentation of legislation imposing "crippling
sanctions" on Iran -- along with the declaration that
the military option remained "on the table" if
sanctions failed to end Iran's nuclear program. Most of
the sanctions legislation enacted by Congress and
signed into law by the president originated at AIPAC.
But this year Iran will have to compete for attention
with AIPAC's worries about the democratic revolutions
that are sweeping the Arab world. For AIPAC, as for
Netanyahu, those revolutions have already turned 2011
into an annus horribilis and the year is not even half
over.
Early indications are that the main theme that will
dominate the conference will be that Israel, once
again, has "no partner" to negotiate with. This is an
old theme, but one that receded as the Israeli right
came to view the Palestinian Authority (led by Mahmoud
Abbas and Salam Fayyad) as not only partners but as
collaborators in maintaining the status quo.
As Al Jazeera's Palestine Papers demonstrated, Abbas
and Fayyad rarely said "no" to the Netanyahu government
-- which made them the only kind of partners acceptable
to the Netanyahu-Lieberman-Barak troika.
But, fearing that it might be next to fall to
democracy, the PA started showing some spine recently.
It refused to yield to U.S. and Israeli demands that it
shelve the United Nations Security Council Resolution
condemning settlements. It absolutely refuses to
negotiate with Israelis until Israel stops gobbling up
the land they would be negotiating over. And, most
disturbing of all to Netanyahu and company, it says
that it intends to unilaterally declare a Palestinian
state this summer.
Netanyahu, who needs the illusion of movement to ensure
that there isn't any, is suddenly feeling the heat.
Even Angela Merkel, Germany's chancellor and a staunch
Israel backer, both supported the U.N. resolution
condemning settlements and told Netanyahu, in a
well-publicized February 24 phone call, that the
Europeans are sick and tired of him. Haaretz reported:
Netanyahu told Merkel he was disappointed by Germany's
vote....
Merkel was furious. "How dare you," she said...."You
are the one who disappointed us. You haven't made a
single step to advance peace."
A shaken Netanyahu immediately put out the word that he
is getting ready to announce his own plan to end the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He told political allies
that he has to act fast to deter pressure from the
so-called Quartet (composed of the United Nations, the
United States, the European Union, and Russia). It is
due to meet later this month to set out the parameters
for a final agreement. In advance of that meeting,
British Foreign Minister William Hague said that the
territorial basis for any agreement must be the pre-'67
borders, the last thing Netanyahu wants to hear.
Reports from Israel indicate that Netanyahu's plan
rules out any withdrawal to the '67 lines, offering
instead a Palestinian state within temporary borders
and only a very partial settlement freeze (no freeze in
East Jerusalem at all).
Knowing that the PA can no longer afford to even
consider such an offer, Netanyahu has decided to
preemptively label Israel's old friends in the
Palestinian Authority as extremists, with the goal of
ensuring that both Congress and the Obama
administration back his plan. His hope is that with the
United States safely in his corner, any Quartet
initiative will be blocked. As always, his goal is to
maintain the status quo, which requires U.S.
acquiescence in his schemes. Thus far, the tactic has
worked.
Hence, the new AIPAC approach: smear the PA. By the
time the AIPAC conference ends, the "there is no
partner" mantra will have returned to its position as
one of Israel's greatest hits -- a true golden oldie.
Check out a few of the messages AIPAC has sent out over
Twitter these past few days (the message is old but the
technology is new):
AIPAC: PA doesn't want a terrorist organization to be
called a terrorist organization, instead wants unity
gov with it
AIPAC: PA seeks to isolate Israel to gain statehood;
Obama admin plans to block the effort, calling it a
"strategic mistake"
AIPAC: Palestinian Authority to Israel: No.
By contrast, this is a typical AIPAC tweet before the
Palestinian Authority started pushing back.
AIPAC: Can direct talks with PA President Abbas lead to
a peace agreement in a year? "Yes, I think so," says
Israeli PM Netanyahu
The bottom line is this. The Europeans, the United
Nations, and, it is safe to say, the entire world
(except the United States) fear that the Palestinian
Authority is on the verge of collapsing and, along with
it, the whole notion of a peace process. These same
forces are determined to re-start negotiations, which
will require seeing Israel actual freeze settlements,
at the very least. It seems to understand that a PA
that is perceived as Israel's lackey (which is
precisely how it is perceived) will not survive. It has
no faith whatsoever in the good intentions of the
Netanyahu government.
The Israeli government, understanding all this, is
determined to put the onus back on the Palestinians to
forestall any pressure. Most important of all, it is
terrified that the Palestinian Authority will go ahead
with its plan to unilaterally declare a state this
summer, the only PA plan in years that actually has
real momentum. It needs the United States to block that
plan by any means necessary, including a full cut-off
of U.S. (and even international) aid to the
Palestinians (this at a time when Defense Minister
Barak is requesting another $20 billion in aid to
Israel from the United States). Stopping a Palestinian
unilateral declaration of independence dead in its
tracks is now Netanyahu's number one goal. And getting
Obama to go along with him (which shouldn't be too
difficult with the 2012 election looming) is the way he
intends to do it.
That is why we are about to see a new Netanyahu plan.
It is why AIPAC is busy denigrating the PA. And it is
why AIPAC will soon have the United States Congress
saying, practically in unison, that "there is no
Palestinian partner." That will be followed by the
demand that the Obama administration support the
Netanyahu plan, which will be labeled the most generous
offer in history.
At this rate, the Israeli government and its lobby will
soon be back to its old mantra (1948-1977) that "there
is no such thing as the Palestinian people" at all.
All this to preserve an ugly and deadly status quo. So
far, this tactic has worked every time. Don't bet
against it winning again. As so often, a winning
strategy for AIPAC and Netanyahu is a losing strategy
for Israel and the United States.
The Palestinians, on the other hand, would do well to
work on achieving some kind of unified strategy and to
stick with the idea of a unilateral declaration. As
David Ben-Gurion would tell them, self-determination
often requires going it alone.
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