A petition has been started urging Bernie Sanders to reject the invitation from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, to speak at the leading rightwing Israel lobby group in ten days. Max Blumenthal writes:
AIPAC has invited Bernie Sanders to participate in its 2016 Policy Conference in Washington DC. Voice your support for justice and equality in Israel-Palestine and urge Bernie to reject this invitation. As the main arm of the pro-Israel lobby in the United States, AIPAC has sworn to promote the racist, militaristic, and anti-democratic policies of the most right-wing government in Israel’s history. Its conference this year will feature Islamophobes, anti-immigrant activists, and religious extremists. With his promise to seek a “level playing field” on Israel-Palestine, Bernie does not belong on the same stage as these figures. Urge him to reject AIPAC’s invitation and support justice in the Holy Land.
This represents an effort to politicize Israel support inside the Democratic Party. The base cries out for such a discussion; but Bernie Sanders has not really picked up the ball.
Of course Hillary Clinton will be addressing the AIPAC policy conference, and her presence there alongside Benjamin Netanyahu’s demonstrates the intersectionality (we used to say overlap) of Clintonism and neoconservatism. Countless neocons will stud the office chairs at AIPAC, including Bill Kristol, who purged “the Arabists” from the Republican Party; Dan Senor, an adviser to Marco Rubio; and Bret Stephens, the Wall Street Journal’s flash columnist.
And you will see many Clintonites on AIPAC’s list of speakers. Among them: Ann Lewis, a longtime Clinton adviser; Dennis Ross, the Israel supporter and White House ornament whom Hillary Clinton brought into the Obama administration in 2009 to correct Obama’s tilt toward the Arab world that was so alarming Israel (he is also the cochair of the Jewish People Policy Institute; which opposes intermarriage); Mark Penn, a Clinton pollster; NY Congresswomen Grace Meng and Nita Lowey, who have endorsed Clinton; and Bakari Sellers, a former South Carolina legislator who has become a highly articulate spokesperson for Clinton on CNN.
Much as Kristol purged the “Arabists” from Republican ranks, Ann Lewis worked with AIPAC to purge writers who were critical of Israel from a Clinton-linked thinktank– the Center for American Progress. There really is no foreign-policy difference between Kristol demiurge of the neocons and Lewis the Democratic enforcer except a temperamental one. They are both strong Israel supporters. And approved writers from the cleansed Center for American Progress will be at AIPAC this March: Alan Makovsky and Vikram Singh.
As you seek to absorb these facts (and we approach the tenth anniversary of the publication of The Israel Lobby, by Walt and Mearsheimer), consider that: Clinton’s former State Department consigliere Philippe Reines started a foreign policy consulting shop with former Obama officials Jeremy Bash and Andrew Shapiro that has former Bush aide Eric Edelman as another principal; the outfit consults Republicans and Democrats. Edelman is on the Rubio team and has formed a consultancy with neocons Senor and Robert Kagan. Reflect that Kagan has indicated recently that he’s voting for Hillary Clinton.
Bottom line: the Israel lobby and the neoconservatives are the establishment, the establishment is very happy with Hillary Clinton, and Clinton promised that she will bring Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House in her first month in office, in the wake of his slaughtering 500 children in Gaza. Why Bernie Sanders is avoiding this low-hanging fruit, even as he reaches for the high-hanging fruit of Clinton’s friendship with Henry Kissinger, is a mystery.
A compromise will be found. Bernie will arrange a meeting with J Street or a similar lobby organisation which also protects Jewish Apartheid but does it in less strident terms(much like the labor party in Israel).
Of course, it is possible that he will go to AIPAC(although I’d doubt it), and if he does, there will be a revolt against him among the grassroots.
Israel is a big issue among the journalistic left, just look at how engaged Greenwald has been lately. The intercept today is bascially the house organ of the progressive base. The nation is trying to catch up. TNR is a joke to everyone(but less of a joke than it was before, when it was a racist neocon rag).
I also doubt Huffpost will sit silently on the issue.
Remember: in 2008, Obama pandered so much to AIPAC that he promised “Jerusalem will remain undivided”(read: permanent Jewish apartheid of Palestinians). He later kinda-sorta walked back those comments, but it was nevertheless a revealing moment.
So if Bernie calls it quits on AIPAC, that’s a huge evolution from 2008. But J Street isn’t enough, it’s still pro-Apartheid but with better PR. They won’t even allow Palestinians into the debate, which isn’t surprising, because they know they would get butchered in one.
“Why Bernie Sanders is avoiding this low-hanging fruit, even as he reaches for the high-hanging fruit of Clinton’s friendship with Henry Kissinger, is a mystery.”
Absolutely right. Avoid this conference?? Hell, it’s his ticket to the White House, if he had the guts. And the perfect impetus has been handed him: Netanyahu’s latest steaming dump to the face of Barack Obama — turning down (!!) an invitation to the White House — via the press — as Biden is landing in Israel!!
Sanders should go, all right, and read the room the riot act. “This won’t take long,” he should start. “No one should be more outraged by the conduct of Israel, its treatment of this president especially, than American Jews; no one should be more outraged than the people in this room.” Steam should be coming from his ears.
But the speech we could all write he’ll never give. Because he’s part coward, part fraud, and because the tribe in him would never allow it.
Hopefully someone will send this off to Bernie:
AIPAC_JSTREET REPRESENT THE END OF YOUR CAMPAIGN
This kind of special interest influence betrays everything. It’s the red line.
Bernie will attend that conference and associate himself with JStreet and the rest of the Zionist cabal only if he never really intended to run for President.
Phil Weiss,
I have no idea how one can be against AIPAC without opposing *at least as vehemently* the Labor and “liberal” Zionists and their J-Street and other organs.
Doing that is nothing but Zionist propaganda.
In fact, it is propaganda for the most bloodthirsty branch of Zionism: the one that started the invader state , the one that made the Nakba and the major wars.
Labor/liberal Zionists are the most threatening enemy.
Sanders belongs to them, without any discussion. Go through his record of voting and precise statements (no the vague generality you guys seem to relish), watch him defending the genocidal massacre in Gaza.
I signed the petition mentioned in Phil’s post asking Bernie not to speak at the AIPAC conference, mentioning that I voted for him in the Maine Democratic caucuses. That and $3.50 may get you a cup of coffee.
Anyway, I hope the petition receives a lot more than the 2500 signatures sought.
Bernie would do better to attend, and participate in, the competing Washington Report on Middle East Affairs conference at which Phil is speaking on March 18 at the National Press Club :
http://israelsinfluence.org/