A couple weeks back, I criticized Americans for Peace Now for remaining on the executive board of AIPAC; and Dan Fleshler responded to me on his blog, in a post called "Are Pro-Israel doves part of the ‘lobby’?"
Weiss does not understand what AIPAC’s “Executive Board” is. Calling
APN a “member” of the Executive Board makes it seem like the group is
part of a very important decision-making body. That is not accurate.
What follows may seem like a pedantic riff on AIPAC’s structure, but
the devil is in these details:Every group in the 50-member Presidents Conference has a seat on the
Executive Board, as Weiss notes. Besides APN, other dovish groups at
that table include Ameinu, the Religious Action Center and the Union of
Reform Judaism.That sounds impressive, since in most not-for-profit groups, the
“Executive Board” is a small, decision-making body, the people who
oversee the staff. The “Board of Directors” is generally much larger
and has less influence. But the reverse is true in AIPAC’s case: the
“Board of Directors” is much smaller and, along with the staff, has the
real power.It didn’t used to be that way. In the 1980s, AIPAC became much more
of an autonomous entity that didn’t answer to the American Jewish
community. Its leaders wanted AIPAC to answer to AIPAC. As a result,
the clout of AIPAC’s Executive Board –and the Jewish organizations on
that board–was gradually and deliberately diminished. This was
accomplished by expanding the Executive Board to include large numbers
of individual, major donors to AIPAC. They now make up the majority of
the Executive Board, not the Jewish groups.The main function of the AIPAC Executive Board is to vote on general
policy prescriptions during their policy conferences. Those broad
policies sometimes do help to nudge AIPAC in one direction or another,
but their impact is minimal on the day-to-day operations. Members of
the Board also get briefings (at least twice a year, I believe) in
Washington on AIPAC’s lobbying strategies and priorities.So APN, as a group, has little say in what AIPAC does. But even if
APN sits at only a few of the power tables, that at least gives it the
opportunity to speak truth to power, and to know what our ideological
adversaries are up to. Think of it as the Zionist equivalent of Log
Cabin Republicans.As Mearsheimer and Walt note, when AIPAC has pushed for legislation
meant to impose Draconian restrictions on aid to the Palestinian
Authority, APN and a few other groups have fought and sometimes
succeeded in eliminating at least some of the most odious provisions.
For that to happen, an organization needs to be plugged in. Membership
on the Exec. Board does help in that regard. There are many other
examples.The only way for APN to “resign” from AIPAC’s Exec. Board is to
leave the Conference of Presidents. There may come a time when it makes
sense to leave both. That time has not come. There are a lot of reasons
for maintaining at least some connections with the Jewish communal
establishment.
I have a few responses to Fleshler. First, thanks for the info. Fleshler notes that I’m new to the issue, and he’s right. There’s a lot I don’t know. And hats off to Fleshler, who has been working tirelessly and often on his own against the occupation for many years. Having said that, I disagree with him about "when it makes sense to leave." The bottom line for me in Israel policy is what I saw in the Occupied Territories. The separate roadway system, the religious girls stoning Arab girls who were going to school… the settlements are, as poet David Shulman writes, evil. The settlers are driving Palestinians off the land and getting the Israeli army and American political system to back them. I want no part of this, emphatically. Any other country that carried on such a policy would merit American sanctions. But Israel is immune to such considerations, partly because the "Jewish communal establishment" has stayed together against all outsiders. At some level, even APN is afraid to break the power of the lobby. Fleshler’s insistence that we can do more good on the inside than the outside seems to me an effort to rationalize the fear of presenting a non-unified voice to the American political establishment–a fear about what non-Jews would do if we suddenly began squabbling. Consider that objectionable legislation Fleshler refers to. Why wouldn’t APN’s opposition be more meaningful or even effective if it set up its own camp?
I say, squabble. It would be a powerful blow against political support for the settlements if APN broke with the Conference of Presidents, saying it wanted nothing to do with a body that has supported such hateful activity.
