AIPAC Wall Beginning to Crack
by Ira Chernus
Truthout/Perspective: June 9, 2009
For years, AIPAC (The American Israel Public Affairs Committee) has helped
to stonewall the Middle East peace process by building a solid wall around
the Israeli government, protecting it from criticism in the US. Senators and
representatives have feared the wrath of AIPAC come Election Day, even in
states and districts where the Jewish vote is negligible. Whatever they may
have thought privately about Israel's policies toward the Palestinians,
they've remained silent.
I got a first-hand glimpse of the process shortly after last year's
election, when I talked to an aide of a newly elected House member. The new
member, who represents a district with hardly any organized Jewish
community, knew very little about the Middle East when the campaign began.
The representative had been "educated" on the issue, the aide told me, by a
handful of wealthy Democrats - none from the member's district, all generous
contributors to the campaign, and all staunch supporters of the AIPAC line.
That's how it works, all over the country.
Or at least that's how it used to work. Now, for the first time, there are
signs of a crack in AIPAC's vaunted political edifice. The wedge issue is
the Obama administration's public demand that Israel stop all new
construction in its West Bank settlements, including what the Israelis call
expansion to accommodate "natural growth."
Though Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu heads the right-wing Likud
party, settlement expansion is hardly a partisan matter in Israel. It has
continued at a more or less unbroken pace for years, regardless of which
party headed the government. And Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, leader
of the opposition Labor Party, is equally staunch in demanding the right of
"natural growth."
What's new is the serious objection being voiced in the US government, not
merely by the president and his administration, but by members of Congress,
including John Kerry, who heads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and
several prominent Jewish lawmakers, such as Carl Levin, chair of the Senate
Armed Services Committee; Howard Berman, chair of the House Foreign
Relations Committee; and influential representatives Henry Waxman and Robert
Wexler.
When they met recently with Netanyahu, they made him "very, very aware of
the concerns of the administration and Congress," according to one
Congressional aide. They pressed Netanyahu on the need to stop building in
settlements and rejected his call for Palestinian reciprocity on terrorism
as a precondition.
(Another sign of the change: A Congressional delegation visiting Israel
actually discussed, in private, the possibility of prohibiting Israel from
using American weapons in the West Bank.)
After so many years of AIPAC dominance, it would be too much to expect all
Democrats to back Obama on the settlements question. There are still plenty
in Congress who toe the AIPAC line.
"We are applying pressure to the wrong party in this dispute," said Rep.
Shelley Berkley. "I don't think anybody wants to dictate to an ally what
they have to do in their own national security interests," said Rep. Gary
Ackerman. Though he allowed that there's "room for compromise," his version
of compromise sounds very much like the Israeli government's version: "I
think that most people could understand somebody having a child and their
child living with them, as long as it's not a ruse to expand" the
settlements.
But the fact that there is any debate at all on this issue in Congress marks
a sea change in Washington, brought about by a perfect storm of converging
factors.
Most obviously, there is the administration's tough public stance on the
settlement expansion. It's not easy for Democrats in Congress to buck a very
popular president of their own party, especially when he's making an
argument based on national interests and national security.
Less obviously, there is a remarkable change in attitude among American
Jews. Well, it's less obvious to those who get all their information from
the mass media, where this change is far too little reported. But to those
of us who have been working in the once-tiny American-Jewish peace movement,
the growth of that movement all around us is nothing short of astounding.
It was already evident a couple of years ago. In the last two years, the
thin stream of dissent has grown steadily broader and higher. At the rate
it's going, it could well become something close to a torrent sooner than
anyone might imagine.
Two-thirds of American Jews say they want the US to play an active role in
moving Israel toward peace, even if it means the US publicly disagreeing
with, and exerting pressure, on the Israelis. That's according to a poll
conducted last summer by J Street, the pro-Israel, pro-peace lobby now
widely seen as the counterweight to AIPAC. Contributions to J Street are
growing at a rate faster than AIPAC's. In last year's election, of 41
candidates endorsed by J Street for their pro-peace positions, 31 were
winners.
Working closely with J Street is the grassroots Jewish-American peace group,
Brit Tzedek v'Shalom, which now claims some 45,000 members and pledges of
support from over 1500 rabbis and cantors. Just a few months ago, that
latter number was less than 900, another indicator of how fast the Jewish
community is changing.
But numbers tell only part of the story. Inside the Jewish community, there
is an intangible but unmistakable new mood of open discussion, and even
debate, about Israeli policies. Politicians, whose job is to sense those
intangible moods, are beginning to pick it up. More and more of them realize
that the leaders of Jewish organizations who still parrot the AIPAC line may
dominate the mass media, but they can no longer dominate their own
rank-and-file.
And those organizational leaders are surprisingly muted in their support for
Netanyahu on the settlements issue. "Even the most conservative institutions
of Jewish American life don't want to go to war over settlement policy,"
said David Twersky, who was until recently the senior adviser on
international affairs at the American Jewish Congress.
The convergence of a changed presidential administration and a changing
Jewish community opens up room for legislators to be influenced by a third
factor: common sense. These politicians are smart enough to realize that
Netanyahu's demand to accommodate "natural growth" is just what
Representative Ackerman fears: a ruse to expand the settlements.
According to Israel's own Central Bureau of Statistics, some 40 percent of
the growth in settlement population comes not from "natural growth" (the
excess of births over deaths), but from new immigration. Since those new
immigrants need not only new bedrooms, but new kitchens, living rooms,
dining rooms, as well as all the expanded public services that adults
require, it seems likely that well over half of the new construction is to
accommodate them and not for "natural growth."
What's more, as Israeli columnist B. Michael pointed out, when a family in
Israel proper has another child or a couple gets married, their government
does not provide them with new living space. They just move to new quarters,
if they can afford it; if they can't, they make do with the space they
already have. Why should the settlers be treated any differently?
Indeed, since the settlers are living in their current homes illegally by
most interpretations of international law, there is all the more reason that
they should be expected to move back to Israel proper, where there is plenty
of housing to accommodate them.
"What the hell do they want from me?" Netanyahu reportedly complained after
his talk with Obama. In the weeks and months ahead, we can expect a growing
chorus in the US Congress to echo the changing views of American Jews and
answer: We want you to heed the president's call to stop settlement
construction completely, comply with international law, and open the door to
serious negotiations with the Palestinians toward a two-state solution.
Every time that answer is heard publicly, it widens the crack in AIPAC's
wall and brings us closer to the day when that wall, inevitably, crumbles.
Ira Chernus is professor of religious studies at the University of Colorado
at Boulder.
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