Friends of Israel
The lobbying group AIPAC has consistently fought the Obama Administration on policy. Is it now losing influence?
On
July 23rd, officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee—the powerful lobbying group known as
AIPAC—gathered in a conference room at the Capitol for a closed meeting with
a
dozen Democratic senators. The agenda of the meeting, which was
attended by other Jewish leaders as well, was the war in the Gaza Strip.
In the century-long conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians,
the previous two weeks had been particularly harrowing. In Israeli
towns and cities, families heard sirens warning of incoming rockets and
raced to shelters. In Gaza, there were scenes of utter devastation, with
hundreds of Palestinian children dead from bombing and mortar fire. The
Israeli government claimed that it had taken extraordinary measures to
minimize civilian casualties, but the United Nations was launching an
inquiry into possible war crimes. Even before the fighting escalated,
the United States, Israel’s closest ally, had made little secret of its
frustration with the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“How will it have peace if it is unwilling to delineate a border, end
the occupation, and allow for Palestinian sovereignty, security, and
dignity?” Philip Gordon, the White House coördinator for the Middle
East, said in early July. “It cannot maintain military control of
another people indefinitely. Doing so is not only wrong but a recipe for
resentment and recurring instability.” Although the Administration
repeatedly reaffirmed its support for Israel, it was clearly
uncomfortable with the scale of Israel’s aggression.
AIPAC
did not share this unease; it endorsed a Senate resolution in support
of Israel’s “right to defend its citizens,” which had seventy-nine
co-sponsors and passed without a word of dissent.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/the-political-scene
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