John Newhouse has an interesting article in the May/June issue of Foreign Affairs entitled Diplomacy Inc. which compares the various foreign lobby and pressure groups that operate in the US including AIPAC and other members of the pro-Israeli Lobby, and the Indian, Armenian etc. lobbies. I have written previously on why AIPAC is so obsessed with Iran as part of the Iran-bashing industry.
Ironically, I remember a time not too distant in which anyone who even mentioned the phrase "Israeli lobby" was instantly branded an anti-semitic conspiracy theorist. Thanks to the war on Iraq, the pro-Israelui lobby and its techniques of influence-peddling has been "outed" and is subject to debate.
Anyway, this is what Newhouse has to say about what he considers is the "Model Lobby"
Although AIPAC characterizes its role as promoting financial assistance to Israel from the U.S. government, most of this appropriation has become routine and is rarely challenged. Where AIPAC devotes most of its energies is in defending Israel's hard line on the Palestinians to a U.S. audience and deflecting criticism in the United States of Israel's equally hard line on Hezbollah and, above all, Iran. Under the Bush administration, officials such as Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld were determined to support AIPAC in its efforts to align U.S. foreign policy with that of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his Likud Party--namely, in identifying Iran as not only a regional threat but also a global threat to peace and stability. In pressing for votes and support, AIPAC does not threaten members of Congress so much as it makes them worry about angry phone calls from wealthy constituents. Defying AIPAC can make life complicated for those in Congress who are looking toward their reelection.
Whether AIPAC will be able to sustain its dominant role is not clear, however. A growing number of Jewish Americans regard the lobby as a group of largely ethnocentric extremists and oppose its tactics. Support for Israel is becoming age-related--a recent poll conducted by New York University, for example, showed that more than two-thirds of the young, non-Orthodox Jewish students surveyed did not consider the situation with Israel and the Palestinians a high priority for the 2008 U.S. presidential election, whereas more than half of the Jewish Americans over the age of 65 who were surveyed did. Another poll, part of the Middle East Academic Survey Research and Exposition, conducted by the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, showed that an overwhelming majority--roughly four-fifths-of those U.S. academics polled regarded the Israel lobby as "negative" to "extremely negative" to U.S. interests. A slightly greater majority of those polled said they believed that the lobby's tactics expose the United States "to avoidable hostility in the Middle East."
Historically, the notable exception to AIPAC'S uniform hold on the Israel lobby has been the Israel Policy Forum. According to M.J. Rosenberg, the group's director of research and its key figure, the forum's mission is to encourage the United States to pursue an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the establishment of a two-state solution.
An alternative group calling itself J Street was launched in April 2008. J Street defines itself as "the political arm of the pro-Israel, pro-peace movement," with the purpose of ending the Arab-Israeli and Israeli-Palestinian conflicts peacefully and diplomatically and supporting a new direction for U.S. policy in the Middle East. It has a lobbying arm that operates on Capitol Hill, and its political action committee endorsed 41 candidates in the 2008 congressional elections and distributed $578,000 among them. Thirty-three of these candidates won, although the degree to which J Street may have helped is unclear.
Reactions to J Street have been mixed. Skeptics, of whom there are many, feel that its efforts will founder---the two major political parties have trained themselves to listen to AIPAC first and act accordingly. Although an increasing number of Jewish Americans take issue with Israel's position on the Palestinians and favor a two-state solution to the Palestine problem, AIPAC holds several advantages, the first of which is that hard-liners in the Jewish American community care much more about advancing their position than do those who lean toward a two-state solution. Second, a deep fear of Arab intentions still leads many Jews in the United States to be more comfortable with AIPAC'S politics. And lastly, and of no small importance, AIPAC is run by professionals who are rightly considered to hold black belts in the art of Washington politics.
This March, the clout of the Israel lobby and its allies on Capitol Hill was forcefully displayed by their successful derailment of the appointment of Charles Freeman to be chair of the National Intelligence Council. Freeman is among the most widely respected foreign policy analysts, and he has often taken exception to Israeli policies. In withdrawing from the appointment, Freeman wrote, "There is a powerful lobby determined to prevent any view other than its own from being aired.... It is not permitted for anyone in the United States to say so. This is not just a tragedy for Israelis and their neighbors in the Middle East; it is doing widening damage to the national security of the United States."
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