Visiting New York, Israeli journalist Noam Sheizaf writes at 972 that AIPAC and other Israel lobby organizations are “cheerleaders of the occupation,” and they don’t really brook dissent among the American Jewish leadership, even when they brag about that dissent.
Recently, I met a friend who works with the US office of an Israeli NGO. He told me of a conversation he once had with a top AIPAC official…
“We appreciate the work that you are doing in Israel,” the AIPAC guy told my friend. “We often give it as an example of the fact that Israel is indeed a thriving democracy. But you shouldn’t have opened a US office, and you shouldn’t be lobbying on the Hill.”
I am not sure what words exactly the AIPAC man used but, according to my friend, his message was clear enough: even Israelis shouldn’t criticize Israeli government abroad.
Attacks by AIPAC on Jewish and Palestinians activists are very common, but what I found interesting in this anecdote is the way AIPAC views Israeli NGO and opposition groups: not as a party that raises legitimate concerns that should be addressed, but as a tool in their PR effort.
This approach was demonstrated again when the head of The Israel Project (TIP), Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, was asked by an Israeli reporter about her organization’s view on the Loyalty Oath issue, which caused a political storm in Israel last week. “We didn’t put out a press release,” was all Mizrahi would say, according to JTA’s report.
