While hundreds of progressives set to gather to support a new US foreign policy based on peace and justice at the historic “Move Over AIPAC” summit on May 21st, let’s take a look at who and what is being promoted at the AIPAC Policy conference itself.
Prime Minister Netanyahu. Need we say more? He’s the big speaker and his right-wing credentials are well-known. He has boasted in the past that he stopped the Oslo Accords even while pretending to support them. When he has said that “America is something that can easily be moved”; he was referring no doubt to US politicians that routinely pander to AIPAC. Despite Obama’s early insistence that Israel stop building settlements that prevent any chance for any kind of peace, the Netanyahu regime has pressed ahead with massive building of illegal settlements in the West Bank. President Obama, who wishes to raise a billion dollars for his re-election campaign, has said that Netanyahu is a “man of peace”. Netanyahu is expected to continue his deception at the AIPAC conference and a speech before the US Congress that same week.
Dan Senor, extreme neo-conservative is also a headliner. A White House advisor during the George W. Bush administration and served as Chief Spokesperson for the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Iraq under Paul Bremer. The CPA was so disastrously mismanaged and caused so much suffering for the people of Iraq the end result was a massive insurgency that resulted in thousands of US military deaths, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi casualties. Senor’s reputation is so bad, that when AIPAC had him headlining an event in Louisville, Kentucky at Jewish Hospital in 2007, it was forced to move that event due to strong protests of the doctors.
Ralph Reed, another headliner who will speak to the full gathering, is the “Christian Coalition” founder that worked to promote extreme-right politicians. He now heads “Faith and Freedom Coalition”. FFC has a big event coming up in June, with headliner Donald Trump. Reed is known as someone who follows the money, being a former close associate of convicted felon Jack Abramoff, (Abramoff was also a paid promoter of the now-defunct South Africa apartheid regime).
“Breakout sessions” during the conference include three different leaders from an outfit called “Foundation for Defense of Democracies”, a neo-conservative “Think Tank” that has been at the forefront of efforts to pressure the United States into aggressive military intervention in the Middle East. Iran, in particular, has long been a key focus of such efforts. Another such outfit well-represented at the conference is the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, or WINEP as it is popularly known. WINEP is actually a spin-off of AIPAC itself, and was founded by AIPAC staffer Martin Indyk in 1985. It is also known for its support of military action against Iran, and in 2008 distributed a paper called “The Last Resort”, supporting “preventative war” with Iran as a feasible option. More recently, a WINEP board member, Martin Kramer, got in a little hot water when he seemed to be advocating genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza.
AIPAC’s role in promoting anti-Muslim activism is seen in its welcoming of several key figures in the movement to target Muslims, both in America and abroad, as “threats to Civilization”. One that stands out is British author Douglas Murray known for his far-right anti-Muslim views, and heads the misnamed Centre for Social Cohesion. He will be co-leading a panel “Confronting Radical Islam” at the AIPAC event. It is Murray’s support for English Defence League, (EDL), an organization that is known for violent street protests and affinity for the fascist British National Party that is most disturbing. Murray welcomes the EDL as a “grassroots response from non-Muslims to Islamism ”.
That’s a brief survey of some of the people AIPAC will be working with to promote US support for the Israeli apartheid regime. It’s not surprising that an organization that is dedicated to promoting a system of racism and oppression by military force would by necessity be a haven of reactionary individuals and groups. What else could we expect?
It is up to us then to expose AIPAC for what it is, it is not merely supporting “good relations with Israel”, but it is supporting a deeply unjust system that makes peace impossible, and the only way to preserve such a system is by military force and brutal repression. That is why the “Move Over AIPAC” Summit and protests of the AIPAC Policy Conference is such an important development. This is our opportunity to demand an end to politicians pandering to this extremist group and instead support a US foreign policy where people and human rights matter. The organizers and endorsers Move Over AIPAC dare to believe it is possible for the US to have a foreign policy that is not the end result of a cold calculus of potential political contributions from the few, but to believe that someday it will be the fruit of rooting our policies that values a peaceful and just world for all of us.
---Jim Harris is a founder of the “Stop AIPAC” website that supports and documents protests of AIPAC around the country in support of peace in the Middle East.
Hophmi, remind me again how the Israeli lobby has absolutely nothing to do with right wing war mongery in the United States.
President Obama, who wishes to raise a billion dollars for his re-election campaign, has said that Netanyahu is a “man of peace”.
Bush had likewise annoited Sharon with the exact same “man of peace” words just before the the siege of Gaza started. Obama is looking more and more like a poor imitation of Bush.
>> Obama is looking more and more like a poor imitation of Bush.
Obama has proven to be an even bigger disgrace than Bush, starting the moment he pardoned Dumbya and the entire cabal of torture-happy neo-cons responsible for Afghanistan and Iraq.
Being in a darkened room full of adults who’re ALL lying to themselves and to each other would just make my head explode oh mercy!
International crime syndicate in Gotham (DC) much?!
Yes when evil meets absurdity, comic strips are born.
It should be noted that aipac is set to come out in full-force for the CUFI event in July, sending in 3 (count ‘em) big guys to sing along with Rev Hagee and headliner there Glenn Beck.
Appearing on the podium with Beck and Hagee is Jonathan Kessler, who serves as AIPAC’s Leadership Development Director. Also Malcolm Hoenlein, who is the Executive Vice Chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations (and sits on AIPAC’s executive committee). Jeff Mendelsohn serves as AIPAC’s National Outreach Director.
I would say, yes, aipac is certainly part of the right-wing war mongry and active racism in this country.
for strong stomachs:
CUFI 2011 Washington Summit
link to cufi.org
Main site:
link to cufi.org
They’re going after the Christian vote (a la Begin/Shamir) and hoping enough of them will defeat Obama. Hagee brags there are 70 million Christian Zionists, and that he’s the pied-piper. They know the progressives are multo-disenchanted with Obama, and figure none of them will come out like 2008, ditto the kids.
This is about defeating Obama and getting a hard-core Likudist into office in 2012.
Who isn’t at AIPAC? As far as I can tell, the Obama Administration isn’t. Is that normal, for the White House to completely miss AIPAC’s big confererence?
Bill, yes it is interesting that no one from the administration is among the confirmed speakers, but it may be they are just figuring out which one of them is going to do the deed… Obama or Hillary or Biden… snubbing it completely is very unlikely…it’s just not done. (yet)
AIPAC seems a little worried about that fact. Look at their schedule page; the most prominent face you see is Hillary Clinton.
I live in London and have seen the EDL at the Ahava protests. It’s very strange that even the zionist counter demonstrators associate with them because they’re blatant fascists. One of the most virulent, a man called Jonathon Hoffman got caught out lying when he accused a professional photo-journalist of photoshopping a picture of him with the EDL. He had to make an embarrassing apology.
link to azvsas.blogspot.com
In fact hilariously (or frighteningly – depends on how you look at it) the EDL “Jewish Division” were expelled for being “too extreme”. This is from an organisation commonly regarded in the Uk as far-right and the successor to neo-Nazi skinhead groups such as the NF (National Front) and BNP (British National Party).
link to thejc.com
You couldn’t make it up!
great report jim
Last week, Senator Mark Kirk introduced S.879, the first of a coming “slew” of new Iran sanctions bills that will be assembled into a “massive” Iran sanctions package at the end of the month, NIAC reports. While Kirk described his legislation as “the human rights component” of that broader package, the final legislation will likely focus primarily on the Iranian nuclear issue and include a host of new unilateral sanctions designed to isolate Iran economically. The package of new sanctions is being prepared in time for the AIPAC conference that begins on May 22 and will dispatch thousands of AIPAC members to lobby for new Iran sanctions on the Hill. While Kirk’s bill is presented as the “human rights component” of the broader sanctions effort, it includes provisions clearly aimed at advancing longstanding ideological battles regarding Iran policy that have little to do with improving human rights in Iran-specifically, chipping away at the President’s authority to conduct Iran policy and building roadblocks to prevent future opportunities to resolve the many disputes with Iran through diplomacy.