Palestinian in Exile

Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) made a very big mistake, at least as far as the Democratic leadership in the House is concerned. He told the truth about AIPAC's unhealthy influence on American politics:
In an interview with Tikkun, a California-based Jewish magazine, Moran said the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is "the most powerful lobby and has pushed [the Iraq] war from the beginning. I don't think they represent the mainstream of American Jewish thinking at all, but because they are so well organized, and their members are extraordinarily powerful -- most of them are quite wealthy -- they have been able to exert power." [...]
"The problem with addressing the groups who have argued strongly in favor of a long-term American military presence in the Middle East is that they raise arguments that are not related to the point," Moran said. "I would like to have a reasonable, objective discussion about AIPAC's foreign policy agenda. But it's difficult to do that because any time you question their motives, you are accused of being anti-Semitic."
And for that transgression, House Majority Leader, Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md) has decided Moran needs to be taken to the woodshed:
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) went after fellow Democrat Jim Moran of Virginia Tuesday, calling on him to retract his comments about the Israel lobby.
“His remarks were factually inaccurate and recall an old canard that is not true, that the Jewish community controls the media and the Congress,” Hoyer said at a news conference in the Capitol.
First of all, Moran never said the Jewish community controls the media and Congress, so Hoyer is the one lying. What Moran said was that AIPAC, the ultra conservative pro-Israeli lobby which doesn't represent the views of the majority of Jewish Americans, is the most powerful lobby in Washington which pressed for, and has continued to support, President Bush's war with Iraq, a statement which is factually true.
Indeed, AIPAC is so powerful that it was able to force Speaker Nancy Pelosi to remove language from legislation earlier this year that would have specifically required President Bush to get authorization from Congress before attacking Iran even though the majority of Americans oppose another war in the Middle East.
To take an example from these past few months of the Israel Lobby exercising its power, liberals in the House of Representatives in the spring of 2007 sought to include in the defense-funding budget an amendment that would require specific authorization from Congress before the Administration could use the defense budget monies for a military strike at Iran. The amendment failed. Most liberals in the U.S. today oppose preventive wars in general and a military strike against Iran in particular. So who supports such a move? The answer is: the right wing government of Israel and its champion in the U.S., the Israel Lobby.
Practically no one thinks it would be a smart idea (much less legally justified) for American forces to attack Iran outside of Joe Lieberman and Dick Cheney, and AIPAC obviously. Yet Pelosi was forced to back off a simple statement that merely reflects the mandates of the Constitution because AIPAC wants to leave President Bush every opportunity to attack Iran without any hindrance by Congress.
But dare to speak the truth about AIPAC's influence on American foreign policy as it relates to Iraq, and they will quickly send the House Majority Leader out to verbally attack you. And why are Democrats doing this on behalf of a group that is fundamentally opposed to their party on most issues? It's simple really. They are scared to death of AIPAC, as this story by Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of TIKKUN MAGAZINE, and a proponent of a progressive "middle path" approach to Israeli-Palestinian relations illustrates:
When Tikkun held its 2004 conference in Washington to ask Congress to support our Resolution for Middle East Peace, we brought hundreds of people from around the U.S. to speak to their elected officials. every Member of Congress tried to explain why House Democrats are too fearful of what AIPAC might do in response. But then they began to tell specific stories from their own experience of the threats they had received from the Israel Lobby people about being labeled as “anti-Israel.” They told stories of it being impossible to convene a private meeting of Democrats who would want to challenge the Israel Lobby because when they had tried that they had found that every name of the attendees was in the hands of AIPAC lobbyists within an hour of the conclusion of that meeting and many of the attendees had been subject to immediate and intense pressure as though they had decided to abandon Israel (which they had not, nor is that what Tikkun calls for). And what they told rang true: that AIPAC and the Israel Lobby had a large constituency of single-issue voters who would support a challenge to them in their next primaries, or possibly even in the general elections, should they not retain AIPAC’s approval. A perfectly legitimate tactic by AIPAC, but used in this instance to support very bad policies.
So much for electing Democrats to change the course. They say one thing to us, but when push comes to shove, they will follow AIPAC's lead. Which is why we are still in Iraq, why the inauguration of a Democratic President in January, 2009 doesn't necessarily insure a withdrawal of US forces from Iraq, and why Congress will likely stand impotently by if Bush decides to give the order to attack Iran.

What to expect that was then ...this is now

The American leadership is determined to hold the international conference soon." "President Bush has proven how steadfast he can be and will not withdraw his plans for a conference." "President George Bush announced during the press conference that he is demanding an immediate freeze on construction in the settlements and warned that if the government of Israel ignores his demand, he will not hesitate to reduce economic aid to [America's] small friend." "We are the United States and this is the foreign policy of the United States." "So long as I am president, I will continue working for what I believe is in the best interest of the United States ... I am completely convinced that this is wholly beneficial for the peace process."

These are all statements I took from the Haaretz archive. The president mentioned was Bush Sr., and the conference was held in Madrid as planned, in late October 1991. Even though it was a presidential election year, Bush insisted that negotiations over the future of the occupied territories did not mesh with efforts to expand the occupation. The * president forced Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir to choose between America's foreign policy and Israel's settlement policy. Shamir chose the settlements; Jewish organizations protested; "Israel's friends" in Congress applied pressure; but Bush did not give in. He froze the $10 billion worth of loan guarantees that Israel had requested to fund the absorption of new immigrants from the Soviet Union.

What about today?
It has been six weeks since the address in which George W. Bush announced his decision to invite Israel, the Palestinians and Arab states to a meeting that would be dedicated to furthering the idea of a Palestinian state. It seems that the contradiction between the two-state vision and the reality on the ground in the territories still exists. The fact is that even the current president Bush demanded that Israel stop expanding settlements. He even demanded that it evacuate the illegal outposts - a relatively new contribution to the list of euphemisms. Back when Bush Sr. was in the White House, every type of Israeli construction in the occupied territories was seen as a violation of international law. But mere statements are not enough. George W. Bush also said that Israel must "reduce its presence in the territories." Or, to use less watered-down language, Israel must finally carry out its recycled promise to reduce the number of internal checkpoints in the West Bank. So he said it. Big deal.

During his July 16 speech, Bush did not make do with general talk about a "vision" and a "political horizon." He did not hesitate to relate to the "core issues." The president said that negotiations on borders, refugees and Jerusalem must begin, and that the borders should be based on both the lines of the past and the reality of the present, with agreed changes. So he said it. What has happened since? Autumn (the general time set for holding the international, or regional, conference or "meeting") is nearing and there are still no invitations, no hall, no date, no guest list and no agenda.

Were it not for the fact that the U.S. is the most powerful country in the world, and that this summit is meant to alter the regional balance of power between moderates and extremists, it would be possible to laugh. Even Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns told Roger Cohen of The New York Times last week that Iran and its allies in Iraq, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip are waiting for the summit to fail. Burns expressed concern that in light of the trend toward radicalism in the Middle East, this could be an opportunity that will not recur.

And what is his boss doing so that this opportunity will not end like its predecessors done? If nothing unexpected occurs, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will drop by the region for a few hours in a couple of weeks. She will presumably accept the recommendation made by her counterpart, Tzipi Livni: "to lower expectations." As if anyone had expectations. After that will come the holiday season, the United Nations General Assembly and the meeting of donor countries.

Then secretary of state James Baker crisscrossed the region seven times between March and October 1991 in order to prepare the ground for the** Madrid summit, which was mainly the inaugural ceremony of fruitless negotiations between Israel and the Arabs. At that time, no one mentioned issues like the Temple Mount, the Palestinian refugees and territorial exchanges. The Americans have not learned the bitter lesson of the failure of the second Camp David summit and the intifada that followed it: Peace summits are not child's play. They are like playing with fire.


*That was the stand a United States of America President took, which was known to all as “How love for your country is not always what you need to win elections”.

**At the first day of Madrid Summit the Zionist party and the friends of Israel in Spin had managed to influence the Spanish regional governor to present the Arabic delegates with a gift, “the statement of surrender by the Arabic back during the 100 year Arabic occupation of what was could Andalusia then”