For AIPAC, 2,000 Meetings a Year Pays Off

by Andrew Bast

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is the most influential foreign policy lobby in Washington. Considering the fact that Washington’s number one concern is the now five-year-old global War on Terrorism, AIPAC has serious clout with the helmsmen at the country’s steering wheel.

When AIPAC phones, bigwigs take the call. In 2004, President George W. Bush addressed the committee’s annual policy conference. In 2005, Hillary Clinton did the same and said, “As all of us know, our future here in this country is intertwined with the future of Israel and the Middle East.”

AIPAC boasts 100,000 members and considerable influence with Washington policymakers. The group claims to hold more than 2,000 meetings with Congress a year. Atop its agenda are: 1. Isolating the Hamas-Led Palestinian government; and—here the organization has played a significant, and at times possible criminal role (more on that later)—2. Stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Undoubtedly, AIPAC’s connections to Congress get results. Take the 2002 votes to support Israeli military action against the Palestinians: 352 to 21 in the House and an amazing 94 to 2 in the Senate. Surely, there are factors other than AIPAC’s lobbying to influence the voting, but AARP and the NRA don’t receive decisions like that. When recent hostilities fired with Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon, the Senate’s vote of confidence was unanimous. The Washington Post noted many of the lawmakers’ interest in securing election year votes, and, perhaps more importantly, donors.

Thousands of meetings a year pay off in more ways than one.

AIPAC has been called a “Leviathan among lobbies,” yet even the biggest sea monster is not impervious to the occasional spear. At the moment, AIPAC is embroiled in an intelligence scandal. Last October, Lawrence Franklin, a Defense Department analyst, pled guilty to divulging government secrets to several people,including an Israeli political officer. According to the Post, “Franklin’s account appeared to cast doubt on long-standing denials by Israeli officials that they engage in any intelligence activities in the United States.”

Only, AIPAC may have been in on it also. Prosecutors indicted two AIPAC employees: Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman. As the scandal unfolded, they were fired. According to reports, on June 26, 2003, Franklin took the pair to Tivoli Restaurant in Washington and relayed information he shouldn’t have. Earlier this month a federal judge threw out the duo’s appeal.

Yet, AIPAC’s work otherwise is entirely legal. However, there’s little oversight for lobbyists. If President Bill Clinton said, “AIPAC has done a magnificent job, better than anybody else lobbying in this town . . . You have been stunningly effective,” perhaps political machines that have stunning effects—as well as some adverse ones—in Washington demonstrate the need for scrutiny.

(Image from flickr.)

Comments

[Jon Osterman]

I think it's pretty clear the Israeli lobby is very powerful and is not truly concerned with what's good for the U.S. (what foreign lobby is?). However, it's not as if Bush and Cheney are these innocent pawns out to protect America but swayed into evil by AIPAC.
Let's get to the point: all this anti-AIPAC talk suggests that Israel is the main reason the U.S. is involved in the mideast and Iraq especially. This overlooks the fact that the oil lobby, which is way more connected to the administration than Israel is, has profitted most since the invasion of Iraq, with oil prices skyrocketing over the past few years. And let's not even get into private contractors like Haliburton who are making a fortune out of this war.
Israel certainly has a strong lobby and this should not be ignored, nor should the U.S. put any other country's interests above its own. Yet Israel should not become a scapegoat for America's problems.