What follows is an excerpt from a long piece in the Jewish Journal of LA that demonstrates how there is really no line between AIPAC and most pro-Israel Jewish members of Congress, even liberal ones. Noticeably absent from this meeting between AIPAC lobbyists and the powerful California delegation was Bob Filner from Chula Vista who has taken a number of votes that went against the AIPAC line, including HR 867 which condemned the Goldstone Report (and who spoke honestly about the lobby’s financial leverage at J Street last fall).
Frankly, I think these members of Congress who are pushing for a confrontation with Iran are courting political suicide and maybe worse. Should they get their way and Iran is attacked either by Israel or the US, this time the finger of not just the Mearsheimers, Walts, and Blankforts will be pointing at organized American Jewry.
On Tuesday — traditionally the conference’s concluding day, when AIPAC members visit Capitol Hill to lobby their legislators — Los Angeles attendees were scheduled to gather en masse in the House of Representatives foreign affairs committee hearing room to meet Reps. Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks), Howard Berman (D-Van Nuys), Henry Waxman (D-Los Angeles), Jane Harman (D-Venice) and Adam Schiff (D-Pasadena). Earlier that morning, Senator Barbara Boxer was to address the group at the convention center.
In a session Monday that dealt with imposing sanctions on Iran, Sherman, a foreign affairs committee member, noted that all 10 of his addresses to AIPAC policy conferences have been on Iran.
Because time appears to be short for enacting sanctions to deter Teheran from completing development of nuclear weapons, the United States “now needs to put the pedal to the metal” rather than continue driving at five miles per hour, Sherman said. He urged AIPAC members to lobby for a sanctions bill “without any weakening” or “adulteration.”
JINSA has recently called out for an attack on Iran, and even backed voices calling for
reinstatement of the US Military draft; to them fighting Iran alongside Israel is part of the great war of civilization on global Muslim terror.
JINSA is Dick Cheney’s voice.
Clinton referred to conversations backstage with some friends in the organization. Its cultivation of relationships with lawmakers and federal government officials “is what impresses me so much about AIPAC” and bodes well for Israel-U.S. ties in the long term, Drucker said.
That is one reason for Drucker’s confidence that bilateral relations will withstand the administration’s displeasure over a Netanyahu government official’s announcement of plans to proceed with building 1,600 apartments in Jerusalem
I’m actually glad to see that Druckers “assurances” are based on “backdoor talks” that no one else can verify =P
A vet friend of mine reminded me that it was the rank and file that stopped Viet Nam, contrary to what most people believe, he said.
This Petraeus thing and Dr. Sobrasky’s articles have opened up one thing in the current military: a discussion about how much of a friend to the US Israel really is. And how strategic the friendship is.
If a view takes hold in our military at the troop level that Israel is (1) not worth the agita, that (2) the friendship is one way, and (3) that it ultimately harms the US, then the jig is up, and a release of the hold over evangelicals will be a consequence.
This game will not be played out in DC. AIPAC can diddle with the 535 congressmen all it wants. The congressmen do not have the power. The military does. And I’m sure there are some savvy people who know this and are taking note of it right now.
I’ve heard that too about Vietnam. When the grunts started fragging their commanding officers in large enough numbers, they had no choice but to end the war.