Freezing rain and dangerously icy sidewalks on Sunday afternoon didn’t deter protesters gathered outside the Washington Convention Center, where a sit-in was staged to block one of the entrances to the annual AIPAC conference underway inside.
Demonstrators sat cross-legged, linked arms and held up their hands clad in red gloves, while wearing masks made with cutouts of Netanyahu’s face.
“Stop using our tax money to bomb Palestinians,” one of them shouted, while a hundred or so protesters huddled on the front steps chanted, “Stop the killing, stop the hate.”
They waved Palestinian flags, signs urging an end to policies of Apartheid in Israel, and others calling for diplomacy with Iran, as well as a large banner with a painting of an Israeli flag splattered with blood.
Police gave the sit-in participants a first warning to clear the doorway, and then a second, before arresting them.
The event took place only hours before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu landed in D.C., and was part of a series of counter-Israeli lobby actions organized by Code Pink, a feminist, anti-war activist movement well known to the Washington establishment.
“This is part of a much, much longer term campaign to diminish the stranglehold that AIPAC has on US foreign policy and open up our Congress to a diversity of voices that are now reflected more by the American people, and especially American Jews, like myself, who don’t feel like AIPAC represents us,” said the group’s co-founder Medea Benjamin.
At least 35 members of Congress – mostly Democrats, and some high-profile senators – have chosen to forego Netanyahu’s scheduled speech to a joint session at the Capitol on Tuesday, citing concerns about diplomatic protocol (he was not invited by the White House) and the need for a peaceful nuclear deal with Iran, which Netanyahu aims to thwart.
Benjamin said the boycott of the speech is “the beginning for opening up the space for Congress people to be more honest about their true feelings about Israeli policies.”
“These are divisions that are not going to go away, and they’re only gonna get bigger, and AIPAC’s gonna have to define itself, whether it’s really in the interest of the US national security, or it’s in the interest of the Netanyahu, right-wing, Israeli security state,” she stressed.
According to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, nearly half of registered voters in the US said they did not approve of House Speaker John Boehner’s unilateral invitation for Netanyahu to speak to Congress.
Benjamin said the numbers show a “huge rift.”
“The divisions are good, I think, in terms of creating more space for negotiations [with Iran] to go forward, and creating more space for peace in Palestine,” she said.
The Israel lobby, she added, “has become more of a Republican organization and it’s losing its bipartisan reputation, and that’s making a lot of AIPAC supporters question whether AIPAC really is representing the Jewish voice or it’s representing the Republican voice, because most Jews are Liberal, and most Jews are actually Democrats.”
But while Code Pink mobilizes lobbyists as well as protesters in a bid to counter AIPAC’s efforts in Washington, a unified, well-funded and recognized alternative voice has yet to exist.
“We have to change the atmosphere” and the conversation surrounding Israel, because “that’s all we can do,” a former CIA counterterrorism expert argued Sunday evening at a meeting sponsored by Code Pink, and designed to examine AIPAC’s strategies.
“We don’t have a leading figure [and] we don’t have a leading institution” to counter one of the most influential political lobbies in the U.S., Philip Giraldi told a crowd at Busboys & Poets in D.C.
He explained, however, that exposing AIPAC’s core makeup of Israeli “foreign agents,” and highlighting its role in training U.S. law enforcement in Israeli methods practiced “on Palestinians” is the most effective way to “change [Americans’] perception.”
Giraldi also pointed to AIPAC’s donor list – something the group keeps secret, despite spending millions of dollars on shaping U.S. policies.
“Israel is a militarized society… [and] the U.S. is moving in that direction,” Giraldi said, emphasizing the need to convince Americans that Israel does not benefit them as taxpayers and engaged citizens, rather than focusing solely on how Palestinians are treated – something he described as “disgraceful.”
But both Giraldi and his co-panelist, Israeli writer and activist Miko Peled, agreed that AIPAC’s power is slowly fading.
“[They’re] fighting a losing battle,” Peled said.
“They’re fighting students on campuses… churches… the BDS movement, which by all standards is legitimate and principled,” he added.
“Iran’s never posed a threat just like Gaza’s never posed a threat,” Peled said. “The only threat,” he argued, “is to the narrative” spread by AIPAC.
“Congress members who attend Netanyahu’s speech will one day hide from it. They will be shamed,” Peled said.
“The way change happens is when enough people stand and demand it, and right now, we need more people, more Americans, to stand up and say we don’t want to live in a state of perpetual war, or want to see perpetual violence in the Middle East,” Benjamin said.
“One of the important elements of that is to have a more nuanced relationship with Israel, and not continue to support Israel’s crimes like the attacks on Gaza, the oppression of Palestinians, the use of U.S. tax dollars to commit these kinds of crimes,” she added. “So I hope more Americans will open their eyes and recognize that it’s in their interest to see our policy change.”
Code Pink is planning more protests for Monday evening at the Convention Center, as well as Tuesday afternoon on Capitol Hill.
All five members who were arrested for staging the sit-in were released Sunday night.
Medea Benjamin is fabulous for constantly fighting the good fight. I stopped reading Wonkette after they dissed her.
I am all for protesting AIPAC. But the protests described in this article raise two issues:
The protester’s hashtag, #ShutDownAIPAC strikes me an anti-democratic. A more appropriate slogan would be to “end the occupation,” or if they wanted to be tougher, “end apartheid.”
I noticed that many protesters wore Palestinian flag badges, and others carried Palestinian flags. That also strikes me as peculiar because the Palestinian flag suggest a Palestinian state alongside Israel. But I bet many of the protesters are for one state in all of Israel-Palestine. Any suggestion on resolving this apparent contradiction?