[News] Why is the Peace Movement Silent About AIPAC?

[Anti-Imperialist News]

http://www.counterpunch.org/walsh04172007.html

April 17, 2007


Capuano and Kucinich Come Clean About the Lobby


Why is the Peace Movement Silent About AIPAC?

By JOHN WALSH

"AIPAC!" was the forceful one-word answer of Congressman Michael 
Capuano when we asked him, "Why was the Iran clause forbidding war on 
Iran without Congressional approval taken out of the recent 
supplemental for the Iraq war funding?" I nearly fell out of my chair 
at his reply - not because this was news but because of who had just 
said it. Capuano is a close ally of Nancy Pelosi, her fixer and 
enforcer. That was last Friday morning when a small delegation from 
Cambridge and Somerville, MA, were visiting the Congressman, known 
for his bluntness, as part of the nationwide UFPJ (United For Peace 
and Justice) home lobbying effort during the Congressional recess.

Later that day, Dennis Kucinich made an appearance at Harvard, where 
he was asked the same question, the reason for removing the Iran 
provision. "AIPAC," I volunteered out loud. Kucinich looked my way 
and said, "Exactly." Again my chair almost failed to contain me.

A few weeks earlier we had gone to the offices of Senators Kennedy 
and then Kerry to discuss the war. (My intention was to call their 
attention to 
<http://www.FilibusterForPeace.org/>www.FilibusterForPeace.org to 
which the Kennedy aide was sympathetic and the Kerry aide predictably 
hostile.) I raised the question of AIPAC directly with Kerry's aide, 
inquiring about its hawkish influence on Kerry and other Senators. 
Suddenly the aide was quite engaged. Leaning forward, he said: "That 
will never be discussed publicly. That will never be discussed 
publicly." Clearly even Kerry's office is unhappy with the pressure 
that comes from AIPAC.

It is widely acknowledged that the reps and senators are ticked at 
AIPAC, and their hostility seems to be growing these days. With 
upwards of 60% of their campaign contributions coming directly or 
indirectly from the Israel Lobby, the Democratic congressmen are not 
free to respond to their antiwar base. This opens them to an antiwar 
electoral challenge on the Left or Right from forces not subservient 
to AIPAC. And that could cost them their next election, a little 
thing which has them very worked up. Capuano's cry of "AIPAC" was no 
simple outburst of candor but a cri de coeur for his career.

So here we have even Congressmen and Senator's aides complaining 
publicly about AIPAC. AIPAC is being outed all over the mainstream 
media, largely thanks to the door opening work of Mearsheimer and 
Walt. AIPAC is skewered routinely by Justin Raimondo on Antiwar.com 
and by Alex Cockburn and many others here on CounterPunch. But there 
remains no anti-AIPAC campaign within the mainstream antiwar 
organizations, like UFPJ or Peace Action. (Even one supposed 
Congressional ally of the peace movement was announced as a celebrity 
guest at the recent colossal AIPAC meeting in Washington, where half 
the Congress shows up and Dick Cheney is a regular speaker. What gives?)

I have been told by leaders of the peace movement that AIPAC is a 
distraction from the main thrust of the antiwar movement. And so we 
should not engage it; AIPAC is to be immune. But with all due respect 
to the sentiments of that leadership, immunity for AIPAC is a 
prescription for disaster. To use a military analogy, which I do not 
especially like, suppose that we were trying to take a hill in 
Germany in 1944. And suppose we said that we would not attack one 
pillbox, which kept devastating our forces. Leave just that one 
pillbox alone! The result would be devastating; we would be cut down 
with every succeeding attempt at advance. So it is with AIPAC which 
campaigns relentlessly for war on Iraq, war on Iran, war on Syria, 
war on Lebanon and the slow genocide of the Palestinian people. AIPAC 
constantly puts the peace movement on the defensive while it is free 
to be on the offensive all the time.

AIPAC is not just an issue for Jewish Americans or the Jewish wing of 
the peace movement like Jewish Voice for Peace; it is a major force, 
although not the only one, driving the U.S. to wars in the Middle 
East. AIPAC is no less a force for war than is the Republican 
National Committee. In fact it is worse, because it sinks its teeth 
into the foreign policy establishment of both parties, perhaps the 
Dems more so than the Republicans. If the peace movement is to be 
worth its salt, then it must take action against AIPAC. (It is 
marathon season here in Boston and my friend, Israeli expatriate 
Joshua Ashenberg, tells me that the foregoing thought harbors a 
logical error. As he says: "A 'movement' that does not work against 
AIPAC is NOT a peace movement by definition. It will not help if I 
call myself a marathon runner, while I never ran a marathon.")

In the Boston area, AIPAC appears to be especially powerful, and so 
we have a special responsibility to take it on. At the recent AIPAC 
conference in Washington, the delegates from Boston/New England were 
the most hawkish toward Iran. Just before the last election a 
notorious ad in the Boston Globe, cheering on the Israeli bombing of 
Lebanon, was engineered by the Jewish Community Relations Council, an 
arm of AIPAC here. Every major political figure in MA signed the ad, 
including our "liberal" governor, Deval Patrick, and supposed 
peacenik Congressman Jim McGovern. Only Conressmen Capuano and 
Delahunt withheld their signatures. In addition AIPAC appears to 
raise a lot of money in our neck of the woods.

So I have a modest suggestion. On Sunday, April 29, beginning at 6 
pm, AIPAC has its annual fundraising dinner at the Westin Hotel in 
Copley Square in Boston. (Last year a good table for 10 went for a 
modest $10,000.) Show up at 5 pm to protest the machinations of 
AIPAC. Which peace organizations in our area will be there? Which 
ones will promote the rally? And which will maintain their silence?

* American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)

John V. Walsh can be reached at 
<mailto:John.Endwar at gmail.com>John.Endwar at gmail.com.


The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20070417/7d144d66/attachment.htm>