AIPAC Is Coming to Town

The annual grovel begins
next week

PHILIP GIRALDI

• MARCH
15, 2016

• 1,600
WORDS

• 109 COMMENTS

•Here is the Wikipedia page on
Giraldi.

I am reluctant to write two weeks in a row about Israel’s
malignant influence over the United States but as the American Israel Public
Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is meeting in Washington for its annual Summit
beginning next Sunday some commentary would seem desirable. AIPAC’s website claims that
its “…mission is to strengthen, protect and promote the U.S.-Israel
relationship in ways that enhance the security of Israel and the United States.
Our staff and citizen activists educate decision makers about the bonds that
unite the United States and Israel and how it is in America’s best interest to
help ensure that Israel is safe, strong and secure.”

That is, of course, a self-serving bit of nonsense. U.S.
national security would be best enhanced by telling Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu to take a hike and never come back. AIPAC is a political
pressure group, not an educational foundation, which is purely a pretext
exploited to secure it tax exemption. It uses every means, fair and foul, to
influence and even intimidate the U.S. government and media to maintain the
fiction that Israel is somehow America’s “best friend” and “closest ally” even
though it is neither. Its objective is to maintain the flow of U.S. dollars
from the U.S. Treasury while keeping the firewall of political protection in
place to insulate Israeli politicians from the consequences of their own
actions.

This year AIPAC, which has an annual budget of $70 million and
more than 200 employees, is expecting 16,000 supporters and two thirds of
Congress. It will be featuring a keynote speech by Hillary Clinton, which should be fascinating.
As Hillary and her husband Bill already constitute a fully owned
subsidiary of the Israel Lobby and New York financial
services interests, which often amount to the same thing, her attendance might
be regarded as de rigueur. And she has already pledged to invite
Netanyahu to the White House during her first month in office while also
promising to move the Israeli relationship to a “new level,” a concept that is
both difficult to imagine and positively frightening in terms of what it might
portend. Will she move the entire U.S. government to Jerusalem? Or only the
Treasury Department?

Donald Trump will also be speaking at AIPAC, for the first time. Trump has rattled
Israel’s friends in the U.S. by calling for an even handed role by Washington
in Middle East peace negotiations and through his insistence that he does not need
the money from Jewish mega-donors to run his campaign and
“can’t be bought.” But he has also said “First of all, there’s nobody…that’s
more pro-Israel than I am. OK. There’s nobody. I am pro-Israel. I was the Grand
Marshall, not so long ago, of the Israeli Day Parade down 5th avenue. I’ve made
massive contributions to Israel. I have a lot of — I have tremendous love for
Israel. I happen to have a son-in-law and a daughter that are Jewish, OK? And
two grandchildren that are Jewish.” So one should assume that he will talk
fulsomely about his love of Israel but at the same time it has to be hoped that
he will assert his independence when it comes to policy affecting the United
States.

Netanyahu also regularly appears at AIPAC. Last year he used the
platform provided to harangue the American public and the inside the beltway
chattering class about the dangers posed by Iran while also exploiting the
opportunity to do some serious fundraising in New York. The visits also
frequently provide an opportunity to meet with and scold the President of the
United States or to address Congress on how the U.S. should conduct its foreign
policy. It is a given in Washington that Netanyahu will show up in the nation’s
capital personally to kick some butt at least twice a year but it is also
understood that Bibi will not fail to dish out some harsh criticism the rest of
the time by way of the media, his own patented form of international extortion.

Nothing illustrates the unbridgeable abyss between the
media/talking head vision of Israel promoted by the Israel Lobby and folks like
Hillary and the real thing more than the recent embarrassments and indignities
being delivered by the Netanyahu government, which AIPAC really represents.
Benjamin Netanyahu is, to everyone’s surprise, not coming to AIPAC this year
but will instead address the conference by video link. The visit was planned
but canceled at the last moment and, per Netanyahu, the fault is that of the
president of the United States who had reportedly said that hewould not be
available for a meeting due to the upcoming trip to
Cuba.

The Obama Administration was genuinely puzzled, partly due to
the fact that it first learned of the cancellation through a newspaper story
rather than from the Israeli Embassy or Foreign Ministry. It was also
astonished by the explanation given as it had indeed set up a presidential
meeting at Netanyahu’s request in spite of a very tight schedule. The White
House did not complain openly about the deliberate snub, but it was clear to
everyone involved that Netanyahu was yet again sending a message to the Administration
regarding who was in charge.

Netanyahu benefits from the fact that his tendency to ridicule
critics makes many in the media reluctant to challenge his behavior, but when
it became embarrassingly clear that he had been fibbing about why he was not
coming to Washington he immediately resorted to Plan B, stating that he did not
want to interfere in the
presidential primaries currently underway. No one believed
that argument either as Netanyahu has not hesitated to interfere in American
politics in the past, notably when he made clear that he would prefer a
Republican president in 2012 andappeared in ads in
Florida endorsing Mitt Romney.

The White House meanwhile resorted to its own Plan B when
confronted by a truculent Netanyahu. It first groveled a bit about how much it
loves Israel and then expressed hope that Vice President Joe Biden, who was in
the air on his way to Tel Aviv, would be able to calm the situation. Indeed,
the original objective of the Biden trip turned out to be the real reason for
the contretemps with Netanyahu. Netanyahu was miffed because the United States
has hesitated to provide him with a no-strings-attached long term agreement to
give Israel at least $5 billion dollars per year in military assistance, up
from the current $3 billion.

To be fair to Netanyahu, the demand for more “assistance” was no
secret. The Israelis had made it clear since they failed to stop the Iran
nuclear deal that they would feel a whole lot better if Washington were to give
them a lot more money. And it would have to be guaranteed cash, tied to a
security package that would run for at least ten years.

Biden had been sent to
help negotiate an agreement over the assistance, which had been stalled due in
part to Israeli expectations that they might do better with a GOP
Administration or Hillary if they wait a few months. Obama’s insistence that
any deal would require the Israeli government to forego lobbying directly to
congress for more cash also was a stumbling block. The President of the United
States has thereby found himself in a situation engineered by Netanyahu in
which he has to beg Israel to take more money with the only condition being
that it not make trouble with the nation’s legislature. In return for the
largesse, Israel would not be committed to do anything that would directly
benefit the United States.

In the event, Biden’s role as a negotiating intermediary was
unsuccessful and he wound up looking foolish so he too has decided to speak at
AIPAC where he will undoubtedly say many unctuous things that no one will
believe.

There are several things that can be done to address the wildly
asymmetrical situation with Benjamin Netanyahu and AIPAC. First, it must be
recognized that the United States and Israel are actually two separate
countries with very little in the way of common interests. The notion that they
have many mutual concerns is largely a myth. AIPAC, the principal purveyor of
the myth, is an agent of Israel and should be compelled to register with the
Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, which would require it to maintain
transparency in terms of who funds it. It should also be stripped of its tax
exemption as it is demonstrably not an educational foundation. Taking those two
steps would enable the American public to understand just exactly what AIPAC
represents.

Second, President Obama should cut off aid to Israel completely
since it is uninterested in there being any quid pro quo for
the billions that it receives. If Obama wants to be gracious, he can consider
renewing the subsidy if and when Israel rolls back its illegal settlements in
Jerusalem and on the Palestinian West Bank. If Israel is not interested in
peace and not willing to reverse policies that many believeconstitute war crimes then
it will not receive any support of any kind from the United States.

The annual reappearance of AIPAC in Washington should remind
everyone that there are those among us who regard any allegiance to the common
interests that should bind together all Americans as secondary at best. In the
case of Israel, billions in taxpayer money should not be regarded as a
convenient mechanism to bribe a foreign state to behave. It is past time to cut
the ties that bind to despicable rogues like Benjamin Netanyahu and to make clear
to Americans politicians that dual loyalty to a state that has been nothing but
trouble for the past twenty years will no longer be considered acceptable.