On bended knee

"But few remember what AIPAC executive director Howard Kohr told the New York Sun in January 2003: 'Quietly lobbying Congress to approve the use of force in Iraq was one of AIPAC's successes over the past year.' " 

"And in a New Yorker profile of Steven Rosen, AIPAC's policy director during the run-up to the war on Iraqi, it was stated that 'AIPAC lobbied Congress in favor of the Iraqi war' ".

So writes Pepe Escobar, an Asia Times correspondent, on the visit of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John McCain to a Wednesday morning meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

Here's my question:  Why is Barack Obama, the anti-war candidate for President, pandering to a pro-war, blatantly Zionist organization on the morning after notching an historic American first --a black man winning the Democratic nomination for President of the United States?  

The answer is clear, yet disappointing, even deflating, for those caught up in the euphoria of Obama's feat:  He wants the support of Jewish voters.  Or to put it another way, he wants to avoid alienating  one of the nation's most effective and feared lobbying groups.  As Escobar says:

"AIPAC should not be crossed. It rewards those who support its agenda, and punishes those who don't."

AIPAC's power is immense despite the fact that polling done in 2007 showed that 77% of American Jews opposed the war in Iraq.  That's well above the poll's average of 52% for all other Americans.

Obama's appearance at AIPAC and the comments he delivered --he made sure to avoid the mistake of his 2007 AIPAC speech when he mentioned the "plight" of the Palestinians-- effectively undercut his message of bringing change to Washington and, more significantly, promoting peace in the Middle East.

Standing solidly with Israel regardless of its policies --the Israeli housing minister recently announced plans for 1460 new housing units in Palestinian East Jerusalem-- is politics as usual in America.  It virtually assures that an Israeli -Palestinian peace agreement will remain a pipe dream.

Unless, as President, Obama changes his mind, bucks the AIPAC lobby, and forces Israel to honor the borders agreed to in 1967.  We can only hope. 

Comments

[Marian]

I felt a little deflated when I heard this today, too. I wonder why Arabs are the only group whose human rights are ok to ignore today?

I know change in the Middle East is still possible. I think Obama is our best hope for true peace in the region. The road to get there will be a tricky one to navigate.

[Anne]

Terry-
I really appreciate your post. I came to this site hoping you would address this issue. These were my thoughts exactly when I heard about Obama's AIPAC speech. I appreciate that you point out that AIPAC does not even represent the majority of Jewish voters.
So what do we as ordinary citizen's do? Is it worth trying to work in the Dem. Party to change this?

[Terry]

I really don't know if it's worth working within the party to try to change things. (Precinct meetings can be frustrating.) Change from within can be glacially slow.

It seems to me that the Dems (and the R's) are mostly about winning elections anyway, not about the issues. That's why the federal House, with a 30+ majority, can't get much of a progressive agenda going. Too many of the House Dem's are extremely conservative.

Maybe the left-leaning Dem's should break away and form their own party --the Progressive Democrats-- and run on a truly progressive platform. They can always caucus with the more conservative Dem's.

[Harry Kershner]

Terry: You correctly acknowledge that far more U.S. Jews than U.S. non-Jews opposed the Iraq invasion. You should also know that more Jews than non-Jews favor a peaceful, two-state solution to the Palestinian crisis. Therefore, your suggestion that Obama made his pernicious comments because, "He wants the support of Jewish voters" is foolish.

There are far more powerful interests at work in U.S. Middle East policy than "the lobby" or "the Jewish vote". Israel is perceived by those who make policy, the true elites, to be a strategic asset in the new "grand game", the attempt to control the remaining fossil fuel supply. So Obama's pandering is most importantly a message to them.

While AIPAC is an ultra-rightwing and regressive organization, it is not the reason our policy-makers (including Obama, Clinton and McCain) support militarism in Iraq or elsewhere, and it's foolish for anyone to say so.

The tendency of some "leftists" to explain U.S. foreign policy as the outcome of the devious and cabalistic machinations of powerful Jews is an old and pathetic ruse. Why are we destroying Iraq and threatening Iran? It's the oil, stupid.

Read Chomsky's "Fateful Triangle". And support Ralph Nader, who is the only progressive candidate running for president.

[Harry Kershner]

I incorrectly said "more U.S. Jews" when I meant "a higher percentage of U.S. Jews". Jews are, of course, a very small minority in the U.S., less than Muslims, African-Americans or Latinos. Even in New York, we are a minority.

[Terry]

Perhaps I attribute too much power and influence to AIPAC, Harry, but it's clear that our presidential candidates beieve otherwise. Why else would a supposed anti-war candidate like Obama say what he said at the AIPAC meeting? He has to know that such policies will dead-end the peace process.

Anyway, thanks for the comments. I urge progressive readers to sign the Jewish Voice for Peace petition to Sens. McCain and Obama not to "pander to AIPAC at the expense of peace."

[Harry Kershner]

Terry asked: "Why else [other than the dominance of right-wing Jews] would a supposed anti-war candidate like Obama say what he said at the AIPAC meeting?"

You apparently didn't read what I had to say. I said, "Israel is perceived by those who make policy, the true elites, to be a strategic asset in the new 'grand game', the attempt to control the remaining fossil fuel supply. So Obama's pandering is most importantly a message to them."

Why you are unable to understand this is a real problem. Here's what Joseph Massad (Blaming the Lobby), Palestinian Associate Professor of Modern Arab Politics and Intellectual History at Columbia University, who has been viciously attacked by the lobby, has to say:

"...when and in what context has the United States government ever supported national liberation in the Third World? The record of the United States is one of being the implacable enemy of all Third World national liberation groups, including European ones, from Greece to Latin America to Africa and Asia, except in the celebrated cases of the Afghan fundamentalists' war against the USSR and supporting apartheid South Africa's main terrorist allies in Angola and Mozambique (UNITA and RENAMO) against their respective anti-colonial national governments. Why then the US would support national liberation in the Arab world absent the pro-Israel lobby is something these studies [e.g., Mearsheimer and Walt] never explain."

Obama is not an "anti-war" candidate. He has never expressed a principled objection to the invasion of Iraq, i.e., condemnation on the grounds that aggression is a crime, in fact the "supreme international crime," as the Nuremberg Tribunal determined. Furthermore, he would not be calling for nuclear options to be "on the table" for Iran if he were "anti-war", nor for increases in military spending.

Please read Chomsky's "Fateful Triangle". Chomsky has been making the same point that I'm trying to make to you for the past 40+ years. When things start going badly in Euro-based society, the same scapegoats are always chosen. Do you also believe that right-wing Cuban-Americans are responsible for the U.S. torture of Cuba for the past 50+ years?

[darrelplant]

Obama's an anti-war candidate?

[Terry]

Note that I refer to Obama as a "supposed" anti-war candidate. I've long questioned his bona fides on the war issue.