30 aug 1993
(This is the final part of a four-part series on the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC, examining the sources of its power and the roots of its current internal political problems.)
AIPAC’s recent problems (the forced resignations of three of its top officers and a series of embarrassing press exposes) are themselves symptoms of deeper problems plaguing the organization and the organized American Jewish community. These underlying sources of the lobby’s problems can be grouped into four categories.
1) Strains between AIPAC and the Jewish community.
2) Ideological strains within the Jewish community.
3) The arrogance of power and money.
4) Long-term problems resulting from the changing political climate in the U.S.
1) The Jewish Community and AIPAC
More than an independent organization, AIPAC was originally designed to be a lobby for Israel that could provide guidance and information to the other Jewish organizations in the U.S. It was to be a coordinating center. On its expanded Executive Board sit the heads of the major Jewish organizations—an expression of this intended relationship. This is how it was supposed to be.
Increasingly, however, as AIPAC grew, it began to see itself as a separate entity,—in fact as the “voice of the Jewish community in Washington.” And it is this self-characterization that has caused some tension within the Jewish community.
Tempers flared, for example, in the 1980’s when the Reagan Administration held a meeting with AIPAC’s leaders at the White House. The Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations immediately protested to the Administration that they and not AIPAC represented the American Jewish community.
Once again in 1988, leaders of the U.S.’s three most important Jewish organizations (the American Jewish Congress, the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith) blasted AIPAC as being out of step with “the consensus of the organized Jewish community” on key Middle East issues.
What the three mainstream Jewish groups were protesting was AIPAC’s heavy-handed lobbying on issues such as opposition to a Kuwaiti arms sale, efforts to shut down the PLO’s U.N. office, and a preemptive effort to deny Yasir `Arafat a visa to speak at the U.N. The groups were concerned that AIPAC acted in every instance without consultation and used tactics they found objectionable.
In a revealing essay written in the mid-1980’s and published by the American Jewish Committee, a prominent Jewish sociologist criticized the lobby, charging that the lobby had created the dangerous perception that the Jewish community was a single issue (i.e., pro-Israel) constituency. This, the paper argued, and the lobby’s heavy-handed use of money in politics could, in the long run, reduce Jewish political influence and the support given by other groups to Jewish causes.
So it is that, today, as AIPAC is facing internal political problems, there are not many tears being shed within the leadership of the other mainstream Jewish political organizations. When outsiders attack the group, American Jews will support it (as Bush discovered in 1991). But when AIPAC faces its internal Jewish critics, American Jewish organizations are not willing to provide the same type of support.
2) The Arrogance of Big Money
There is also another dimension to this problem that warrants attention. As AIPAC developed political action committees (PACs) and grew dramatically in size during the 1980’s, it’s need for money and major contributors also grew. From a $1 million annual budget in mid-1970’s to a $7 million budget (plus accumulated PAC contributions of $5 million) in 1988, to a budget of almost $15 million (plus $5 million in PAC contributions) in 1992—this growth has also adversely affected the lobby.
As one former AIPAC staff member, who is now a political columnist, recently wrote, with a multi-million dollar budget AIPAC is no longer satisfied with $25 memberships and $100 donations. And given its enormous need for funds, it is not enough for the group to be led by a group of savvy staff and a board of seasoned political operators. Now AIPAC must rely on the $50,000 and $100,000 donors.
In order to lure them into the organization, these major contributors have been placed on the AIPAC board. The former AIPAC staff member says that this big money group (including people like the recently resigned President David Steiner and Regional Vice President Harvey Friedman) are a source of AIPAC’s problems. They have “big egos” and lack political judgment, he says, and they are arrogant and heavy-handed in their dealings with politicians and other Jewish organizations.
One prominent Jewish newspaper editorialized last month that the way for AIPAC to solve its problems would be for the leaders of major Jewish organizations who still sit on the expanded board of the lobby to assert themselves and retake control of the organization. If that were to happen, however, most observers agree that there would be an intense power struggle between the established Jewish community leadership and the “big money” leadership—and both would be hurt.
While this struggle between egos and different political philosophies is a characteristic of all ethnic politics and certainly has existed in the past within the Jewish community, the fact that the struggle is now so public is new.
3) The Ideological Strain within the Jewish Community
What is significant is not only that the internal debate is public, but also that it is so strident. One long-time observer of American Jewish politics said,
“In the past there was a difference between the way Americans Jews and Israelis debated their differences. Israeli political culture is brutal, American Jews have been more gentle by comparison. Now, the civility which characterizes the internal American Jewish debate is gone—and that will have an impact on the community.”
The problem, however, is not only that of a difference between the style of the big money egos and the more liberal political operators. It is also an ideological split within the Jewish community and, to some extent, between many of the so-called leaders of the Jewish community and the mass base of American Jews.
An Israeli Knesset member, Dedi Zucker, recently noted that after 15 years of trips to Israel where American Jewish leaders were made to feel like “big shots,” and after repeated visits by Likud officials to the U.S., American Jewish leaders have become “brainwashed.” An American Jewish official agreed, saying,
“American Jews were used to four consensus issues: no PLO, no yielding on the Golan, Jerusalem is ours, and no return to the pre-`67 borders.”
These were the issues for which AIPAC and most other Jewish organizations lobbied Congress for 15 years. Now they are faced with a new government in Israel that is at least willing to make some concessions—and some of those same Jewish leaders are finding it difficult to accept the change.
This is one source of the tensions that exists between AIPAC and the Labor government in Israel. AIPAC grew comfortable with Likud—it could easily mobilize its members to support Israel’s stand against a threat. It is more difficult to support peace with Arabs—especially after being brainwashed by Likud to see peace with the Arabs as either impossible or undesirable.
It was this tension that caused Rabin to rebuke the lobby. He became wary, as one Jewish observer put it, of “the Diaspora dictating policy to the Zionist state—especially when the Diaspora was supporting the opposition (Likud) and making embarrassing losses for Israel (the loan guarantees).”
After the upheavals of the past year, AIPAC has a new president: Steve Grossman. In Grossman, Labor has an AIPAC president they like, and they are working overtime to support him.
But the problems haven’t ended because even with Grossman, AIPAC is still not in line with Labor’s policies—that accounts for the firing of Harvey Friedman. And there are many other Harvey Friedmans still in the lobby’s governing body. A Jewish analyst suggested that Grossman may only be a liberal Democratic figurehead elected by the board to help the group “save face.” A true test of Grossman’s ability to lead will come in the near future as the lobby looks to hire a new executive director.
There is still another dimension to this problem that warrants investigation, which is the fact that the leadership of AIPAC and many other American Jewish organizations are themselves, for the most part, out of touch with the political views held by most American Jews.
A survey done in 1989 of American Jewish public opinion showed that 76% agreed that “Israel should make territorial compromises in the West Bank and Gaza in return for credible peace guarantees.” 67% agreed that “Arab sovereignty in the occupied territories was desirable.” Yet, these were most certainly not the positions lobbied for by AIPAC, other Jewish organizations, or their leaders.
This gap between the opinions of the constituency and the leaders has given birth to a new Jewish organization, Americans for Peace Now (APN)—which is today one of the fastest growing groups in the American Jewish community. APN supported George Bush’s position on the loan guarantees to Israel, supports “land for peace” as the way to a Middle East peace and as a group can note that many more of its members secured positions in the Clinton Administration than did AIPAC-supported candidates.
4) Long-term Problems
It appears that many of AIPAC’s board members would prefer to see Likud return to power. They are uncomfortable with the prospects for peace—they don’t trust peace, they don’t understand peace and they don’t know what they’ll do as a lobby if there is peace.
Since AIPAC’s raison d’etre has always been to secure U.S. foreign aid for the Jewish state there is trouble brewing on that front as well.
While U.S. aid to Israel is secure for this year, that is not true for the years to come. Senator Patrick Leahy, the powerful chairman of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on Foreign Operations (the committee responsible for determining foreign aid), is pushing hard to end the earmarking provision that guarantees Israel’s aid levels. Leahy had already incurred the wrath of AIPAC two years ago when he supported and pushed for George Bush’s position on the loan guarantees. Leahy also had been a big recipient of pro-Israel PAC money, but as a result of his loan guarantee stand, he was “punished” when he ran again in 1992 and received virtually no support from those PACs. But he won without their support and continues to push legislation that AIPAC doesn’t support.
The concerns that Leahy and other members of Congress share are the tremendous pressure they are under to both cut spending and to find new resources to support new democracies that desperately need U.S. assistance. There is a growing mood to cut aid to Israel and other major recipients of U.S. aid in order to free some additional funds for Russia, Eastern Europe and African aid programs. If pressure continues to build for such cuts, AIPAC will find it difficult to win.
An additional problem that the lobby will face are new provisions in campaign finance reform which, if they pass, will significantly reduce the role that Big Money plays in election campaigns. The proposed new legislation is not perfect, but it will make it more complicated for the pro-Israel and other PACs to maintain their high visibility and the impact they currently have in politics.
***
Can the Lobby Survive?
When I asked a prominent Jewish American columnist whether AIPAC would survive its current troubles, he replied, “When a star dies, it takes the earth a very long time to find out about it.”
Since some of AIPAC’s power is a result of a blind fear felt by many members of Congress, change will not come about simply because the lobby is internally divided or weakened. The continued response of many elected officials toward AIPAC’s initiatives is automatic and without concern for the merits or implications of their votes. If the lobby wants something, elected officials still feel that the path of least resistance is to give it what it wants.
AIPAC may be down, but it not out. Despite internal problems, it retains the power of money and access, so its influence will continue to be felt in Washington. But its long-term prospects are dependent upon the outcome of several “ifs.” AIPAC needs time to regroup.
The first task facing AIPAC today is the hiring of a new executive director. This will not be a simple task, since the decision threatens the internal cohesion of the lobby.
Tom Dine, the recently “fired” executive director of the lobby had been with the organization for a decade. He oversaw the growth of the group from a medium-sized lobby to the strong but internally-divided power it is today. Dine was one of the few people in Washington with instant access to virtually everyone. He had worked in all three branches of the government; and though a Democrat, he was also respected and feared by Republicans.
The current acting director, Howard Kohr, is not a person of Dine’s stature. Kohr is a Republican and is not feared by Democrats. He is seen as a Likudnik—and is not viewed favorably by Laborites. But he is favored by the “big money” members of AIPAC’s board. If they get their way and the liberal president, Steve Grossman, is forced to keep Kohr, the decision may open anew the internal debate between the lobby and the more liberal members of the Jewish community. However, if Grossman is allowed his way and finds a replacement more to his liking, this, too, may increase friction within the board and could, moreover, alienate the “big money” members AIPAC needs to keep itself going.
Current tensions are already taking their toll on AIPAC. Fundraising is down by $2 million and several staff members have been let go. While the group’s budget will still be quite high (estimates are the it will be about $12 million)—it may yet suffer an additional decline in support.
The lobby will survive. It will also continue to face internal conflicts and will not regain the undisputed power it wielded during the Reagan years. How much of that power it does regain is dependent upon several factors, the “ifs” mentioned above.
If peace is not achieved, and if real campaign finance reform is not passed—AIPAC will find the time it needs to regroup and regain some of its former strength.
If Likud succeeds in ousting Labor in Israel, or if Rabin continues his “iron fist” policies in the Occupied Territories and creates deeper tensions in the Middle East, and if there is no effective U.S. challenge to a hard-line Israel, once again AIPAC will find the time it needs to regain its strength. AIPAC can only flourish in a political climate in which there is either no peace, or no tension between Israeli policy and the U.S. Administration and Congress.
At this point, the lobby could not possibly resist a strong challenge from the President, or a legislative initiative from a strong Congressional or Senate Committee Chair. But, since prospects for such a challenge seem slight, the lobby will most probably not have to face such an immediate confrontation.
AIPAC is still strong, but the group is in a fragile state. While the fallout from its internal disarray has not yet been reflected in political decisions taken by Congress or the Administration, any future blowups or an extreme challenge could weaken its power substantially.
It is ironic that, at this point, a real push toward a comprehensive Middle East peace, a genuine challenge of Israeli policies by the Administration, a strong push in Congress to change U.S. foreign aid programs to provide support for new democracies around the world, or an honest move toward genuine campaign finance reform—any of these challenges would not only enhance the prospects for a real democratic political debate in the U.S. and result in a more balanced U.S. Middle East policy that would promote peace and U.S. interests, but would also weaken the hold that the destructive lobby has on politics in Washington.
Arab Americans could play a more effective role as catalysts to help bring about this needed change, but that is a discussion that must await another article.
(This concludes the four-part series of articles about AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.)
AIPAC’s recent problems (the forced resignations of three of its top officers and a series of embarrassing press exposes) are themselves symptoms of deeper problems plaguing the organization and the organized American Jewish community. These underlying sources of the lobby’s problems can be grouped into four categories.
1) Strains between AIPAC and the Jewish community.
2) Ideological strains within the Jewish community.
3) The arrogance of power and money.
4) Long-term problems resulting from the changing political climate in the U.S.
1) The Jewish Community and AIPAC
More than an independent organization, AIPAC was originally designed to be a lobby for Israel that could provide guidance and information to the other Jewish organizations in the U.S. It was to be a coordinating center. On its expanded Executive Board sit the heads of the major Jewish organizations—an expression of this intended relationship. This is how it was supposed to be.
Increasingly, however, as AIPAC grew, it began to see itself as a separate entity,—in fact as the “voice of the Jewish community in Washington.” And it is this self-characterization that has caused some tension within the Jewish community.
Tempers flared, for example, in the 1980’s when the Reagan Administration held a meeting with AIPAC’s leaders at the White House. The Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations immediately protested to the Administration that they and not AIPAC represented the American Jewish community.
Once again in 1988, leaders of the U.S.’s three most important Jewish organizations (the American Jewish Congress, the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith) blasted AIPAC as being out of step with “the consensus of the organized Jewish community” on key Middle East issues.
What the three mainstream Jewish groups were protesting was AIPAC’s heavy-handed lobbying on issues such as opposition to a Kuwaiti arms sale, efforts to shut down the PLO’s U.N. office, and a preemptive effort to deny Yasir `Arafat a visa to speak at the U.N. The groups were concerned that AIPAC acted in every instance without consultation and used tactics they found objectionable.
In a revealing essay written in the mid-1980’s and published by the American Jewish Committee, a prominent Jewish sociologist criticized the lobby, charging that the lobby had created the dangerous perception that the Jewish community was a single issue (i.e., pro-Israel) constituency. This, the paper argued, and the lobby’s heavy-handed use of money in politics could, in the long run, reduce Jewish political influence and the support given by other groups to Jewish causes.
So it is that, today, as AIPAC is facing internal political problems, there are not many tears being shed within the leadership of the other mainstream Jewish political organizations. When outsiders attack the group, American Jews will support it (as Bush discovered in 1991). But when AIPAC faces its internal Jewish critics, American Jewish organizations are not willing to provide the same type of support.
2) The Arrogance of Big Money
There is also another dimension to this problem that warrants attention. As AIPAC developed political action committees (PACs) and grew dramatically in size during the 1980’s, it’s need for money and major contributors also grew. From a $1 million annual budget in mid-1970’s to a $7 million budget (plus accumulated PAC contributions of $5 million) in 1988, to a budget of almost $15 million (plus $5 million in PAC contributions) in 1992—this growth has also adversely affected the lobby.
As one former AIPAC staff member, who is now a political columnist, recently wrote, with a multi-million dollar budget AIPAC is no longer satisfied with $25 memberships and $100 donations. And given its enormous need for funds, it is not enough for the group to be led by a group of savvy staff and a board of seasoned political operators. Now AIPAC must rely on the $50,000 and $100,000 donors.
In order to lure them into the organization, these major contributors have been placed on the AIPAC board. The former AIPAC staff member says that this big money group (including people like the recently resigned President David Steiner and Regional Vice President Harvey Friedman) are a source of AIPAC’s problems. They have “big egos” and lack political judgment, he says, and they are arrogant and heavy-handed in their dealings with politicians and other Jewish organizations.
One prominent Jewish newspaper editorialized last month that the way for AIPAC to solve its problems would be for the leaders of major Jewish organizations who still sit on the expanded board of the lobby to assert themselves and retake control of the organization. If that were to happen, however, most observers agree that there would be an intense power struggle between the established Jewish community leadership and the “big money” leadership—and both would be hurt.
While this struggle between egos and different political philosophies is a characteristic of all ethnic politics and certainly has existed in the past within the Jewish community, the fact that the struggle is now so public is new.
3) The Ideological Strain within the Jewish Community
What is significant is not only that the internal debate is public, but also that it is so strident. One long-time observer of American Jewish politics said,
“In the past there was a difference between the way Americans Jews and Israelis debated their differences. Israeli political culture is brutal, American Jews have been more gentle by comparison. Now, the civility which characterizes the internal American Jewish debate is gone—and that will have an impact on the community.”
The problem, however, is not only that of a difference between the style of the big money egos and the more liberal political operators. It is also an ideological split within the Jewish community and, to some extent, between many of the so-called leaders of the Jewish community and the mass base of American Jews.
An Israeli Knesset member, Dedi Zucker, recently noted that after 15 years of trips to Israel where American Jewish leaders were made to feel like “big shots,” and after repeated visits by Likud officials to the U.S., American Jewish leaders have become “brainwashed.” An American Jewish official agreed, saying,
“American Jews were used to four consensus issues: no PLO, no yielding on the Golan, Jerusalem is ours, and no return to the pre-`67 borders.”
These were the issues for which AIPAC and most other Jewish organizations lobbied Congress for 15 years. Now they are faced with a new government in Israel that is at least willing to make some concessions—and some of those same Jewish leaders are finding it difficult to accept the change.
This is one source of the tensions that exists between AIPAC and the Labor government in Israel. AIPAC grew comfortable with Likud—it could easily mobilize its members to support Israel’s stand against a threat. It is more difficult to support peace with Arabs—especially after being brainwashed by Likud to see peace with the Arabs as either impossible or undesirable.
It was this tension that caused Rabin to rebuke the lobby. He became wary, as one Jewish observer put it, of “the Diaspora dictating policy to the Zionist state—especially when the Diaspora was supporting the opposition (Likud) and making embarrassing losses for Israel (the loan guarantees).”
After the upheavals of the past year, AIPAC has a new president: Steve Grossman. In Grossman, Labor has an AIPAC president they like, and they are working overtime to support him.
But the problems haven’t ended because even with Grossman, AIPAC is still not in line with Labor’s policies—that accounts for the firing of Harvey Friedman. And there are many other Harvey Friedmans still in the lobby’s governing body. A Jewish analyst suggested that Grossman may only be a liberal Democratic figurehead elected by the board to help the group “save face.” A true test of Grossman’s ability to lead will come in the near future as the lobby looks to hire a new executive director.
There is still another dimension to this problem that warrants investigation, which is the fact that the leadership of AIPAC and many other American Jewish organizations are themselves, for the most part, out of touch with the political views held by most American Jews.
A survey done in 1989 of American Jewish public opinion showed that 76% agreed that “Israel should make territorial compromises in the West Bank and Gaza in return for credible peace guarantees.” 67% agreed that “Arab sovereignty in the occupied territories was desirable.” Yet, these were most certainly not the positions lobbied for by AIPAC, other Jewish organizations, or their leaders.
This gap between the opinions of the constituency and the leaders has given birth to a new Jewish organization, Americans for Peace Now (APN)—which is today one of the fastest growing groups in the American Jewish community. APN supported George Bush’s position on the loan guarantees to Israel, supports “land for peace” as the way to a Middle East peace and as a group can note that many more of its members secured positions in the Clinton Administration than did AIPAC-supported candidates.
4) Long-term Problems
It appears that many of AIPAC’s board members would prefer to see Likud return to power. They are uncomfortable with the prospects for peace—they don’t trust peace, they don’t understand peace and they don’t know what they’ll do as a lobby if there is peace.
Since AIPAC’s raison d’etre has always been to secure U.S. foreign aid for the Jewish state there is trouble brewing on that front as well.
While U.S. aid to Israel is secure for this year, that is not true for the years to come. Senator Patrick Leahy, the powerful chairman of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on Foreign Operations (the committee responsible for determining foreign aid), is pushing hard to end the earmarking provision that guarantees Israel’s aid levels. Leahy had already incurred the wrath of AIPAC two years ago when he supported and pushed for George Bush’s position on the loan guarantees. Leahy also had been a big recipient of pro-Israel PAC money, but as a result of his loan guarantee stand, he was “punished” when he ran again in 1992 and received virtually no support from those PACs. But he won without their support and continues to push legislation that AIPAC doesn’t support.
The concerns that Leahy and other members of Congress share are the tremendous pressure they are under to both cut spending and to find new resources to support new democracies that desperately need U.S. assistance. There is a growing mood to cut aid to Israel and other major recipients of U.S. aid in order to free some additional funds for Russia, Eastern Europe and African aid programs. If pressure continues to build for such cuts, AIPAC will find it difficult to win.
An additional problem that the lobby will face are new provisions in campaign finance reform which, if they pass, will significantly reduce the role that Big Money plays in election campaigns. The proposed new legislation is not perfect, but it will make it more complicated for the pro-Israel and other PACs to maintain their high visibility and the impact they currently have in politics.
***
Can the Lobby Survive?
When I asked a prominent Jewish American columnist whether AIPAC would survive its current troubles, he replied, “When a star dies, it takes the earth a very long time to find out about it.”
Since some of AIPAC’s power is a result of a blind fear felt by many members of Congress, change will not come about simply because the lobby is internally divided or weakened. The continued response of many elected officials toward AIPAC’s initiatives is automatic and without concern for the merits or implications of their votes. If the lobby wants something, elected officials still feel that the path of least resistance is to give it what it wants.
AIPAC may be down, but it not out. Despite internal problems, it retains the power of money and access, so its influence will continue to be felt in Washington. But its long-term prospects are dependent upon the outcome of several “ifs.” AIPAC needs time to regroup.
The first task facing AIPAC today is the hiring of a new executive director. This will not be a simple task, since the decision threatens the internal cohesion of the lobby.
Tom Dine, the recently “fired” executive director of the lobby had been with the organization for a decade. He oversaw the growth of the group from a medium-sized lobby to the strong but internally-divided power it is today. Dine was one of the few people in Washington with instant access to virtually everyone. He had worked in all three branches of the government; and though a Democrat, he was also respected and feared by Republicans.
The current acting director, Howard Kohr, is not a person of Dine’s stature. Kohr is a Republican and is not feared by Democrats. He is seen as a Likudnik—and is not viewed favorably by Laborites. But he is favored by the “big money” members of AIPAC’s board. If they get their way and the liberal president, Steve Grossman, is forced to keep Kohr, the decision may open anew the internal debate between the lobby and the more liberal members of the Jewish community. However, if Grossman is allowed his way and finds a replacement more to his liking, this, too, may increase friction within the board and could, moreover, alienate the “big money” members AIPAC needs to keep itself going.
Current tensions are already taking their toll on AIPAC. Fundraising is down by $2 million and several staff members have been let go. While the group’s budget will still be quite high (estimates are the it will be about $12 million)—it may yet suffer an additional decline in support.
The lobby will survive. It will also continue to face internal conflicts and will not regain the undisputed power it wielded during the Reagan years. How much of that power it does regain is dependent upon several factors, the “ifs” mentioned above.
If peace is not achieved, and if real campaign finance reform is not passed—AIPAC will find the time it needs to regroup and regain some of its former strength.
If Likud succeeds in ousting Labor in Israel, or if Rabin continues his “iron fist” policies in the Occupied Territories and creates deeper tensions in the Middle East, and if there is no effective U.S. challenge to a hard-line Israel, once again AIPAC will find the time it needs to regain its strength. AIPAC can only flourish in a political climate in which there is either no peace, or no tension between Israeli policy and the U.S. Administration and Congress.
At this point, the lobby could not possibly resist a strong challenge from the President, or a legislative initiative from a strong Congressional or Senate Committee Chair. But, since prospects for such a challenge seem slight, the lobby will most probably not have to face such an immediate confrontation.
AIPAC is still strong, but the group is in a fragile state. While the fallout from its internal disarray has not yet been reflected in political decisions taken by Congress or the Administration, any future blowups or an extreme challenge could weaken its power substantially.
It is ironic that, at this point, a real push toward a comprehensive Middle East peace, a genuine challenge of Israeli policies by the Administration, a strong push in Congress to change U.S. foreign aid programs to provide support for new democracies around the world, or an honest move toward genuine campaign finance reform—any of these challenges would not only enhance the prospects for a real democratic political debate in the U.S. and result in a more balanced U.S. Middle East policy that would promote peace and U.S. interests, but would also weaken the hold that the destructive lobby has on politics in Washington.
Arab Americans could play a more effective role as catalysts to help bring about this needed change, but that is a discussion that must await another article.
(This concludes the four-part series of articles about AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.)
23 aug 1993
(This is part three of a four-part series on the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC, examining the sources of its power and the roots of its current internal and political problems.)
In the past two years, AIPAC has been buffeted by a number of exposes and negative press reports. All these came on the heels of the organization’s first legislative defeat since the AWACs vote in 1981. President George Bush’s initial victory in denying unconditional loan guarantees to Israel was a disturbing loss for the lobby. It had been humiliated. Its myth of invincibility was shattered by the incident, since the loss showed that the lobby was vulnerable to defeat.
During the 15 years of Likud rule in Israel, AIPAC had become wedded to that government’s political line. Throughout the entire period leading up to President Bush’s decision to deny the loan guarantees to Israel, Shamir was convinced that his American supporters would teach Bush a lesson and win congressional passage of the loan guarantees. After its repeated victories in Congress, Israel’s government felt that whenever it had problems with an Administration, it merely had to turn to the lobby, which would move the Congress to intimidate the President and his State Department. That strategy had worked numerous times in the past.
But in this instance, Bush was convinced that if the unconditional loan guarantees were to go through, chances for a comprehensive Middle East peace would diminish. Therefore, he was determined to resist Congressional pressure and do some behavior modification of his own on the Israeli government.
Bush’s now famous press conference remarks about being “one lonely guy” resisting the pressure of “one thousand lobbyists” are interesting for a number of reasons. First, he showed that Presidential leadership could win and force Congress and the lobby to back down. Second, Bush showed that public opinion was clearly not with Israel’s request for more financial benefits from the U.S. (In fact, a poll the Arab American Institute provided the White House days before the Presidents’ press conference showed overwhelming public opposition to Israel’s loan guarantee request.)
The one benefit for AIPAC to come out of this setback was the perception in the Jewish community that Bush was insulting the lobby and questioning the loyalty of Jews who actively supported Israel. AIPAC, which as we shall see, has recently had a rocky relationship with other mainstream Jewish organizations was momentarily strengthened by Jewish supporters rushing to its defense.
In the end, Bush won and Shamir lost, and AIPAC emerged from this fight somewhat wounded in the eyes of the larger public. But, at the same time, the lobby was somewhat strengthened within the Jewish community. And AIPAC was resolved punish the President who had beaten it.
In an ominous speech before AIPAC’s policy conference on April 5, 1992, Tom Dine, then AIPAC’s Executive Director, said:
... we are not going away. We are here. And we will not be intimidated. We shall continue to nudge the stone up the hill inch by inch—until we get to the top. The campaign to win support for the guarantees may take several rounds before we succeed. Let us remember that the landmark Jackson-Vanik legislation to free Soviet Jewry did not succeed on the first effort in September 1972. The Nixon Administration adamantly opposed the legislation as a threat to detente and, by extension, to world peace. It took two and one half years of debate, plus Nixon’s resignation, before the Jackson-Vanik amendment was adopted in December 1974. ...We are very tenacious people when an issue of principle is concerned. On the issue before us today, we are right and the Administration is wrong.” (emphasis added)
Whether or not Dine intended his speech as a threat to Bush, the message was clear. AIPAC would oppose George Bush and even seek to bring him down. The die was cast. Bush ended up losing the election, but AIPAC emerged wounded as well.
Shortly after winning his election in Israel in June of 1992, the new Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin let it be known that he did not care for the way the so-called pro-Israel groups behaved during the loan guarantees debate. In Rabin’s eyes, they had arrogated to themselves the power to negotiate with the Administration on behalf of Israel. And that, he noted, would no longer be tolerated.
Furthermore, Labor Party officials let it be known that they did not care for the way the lobby had sided with the Likud during this debate. In a number of public rebukes, Rabin chided AIPAC for its position. And this left the organization wounded in the eyes of many in the Jewish community and the press. Bush’s attack had had the short-term effect of winning Jewish support for the lobby—Rabin’s attacks ended that.
Still reeling from this embarrassment, AIPAC received a number of additional shocks in the following months as several major newspapers carried exposes detailing how AIPAC’s “research department” spied on and defamed its enemies. The articles featured reports on how AIPAC had carried out campaigns against African Americans, Arab Americans, politicians and, most significantly, even prominent American Jews who had run afoul of the lobby because of their suspected “pro-peace” positions.
The case that first prompted the exposes involved the removal of the editor of the influential Washington Jewish Week (the paper of this city’s Jewish community). As the story unfolded, it was established that the editor and an important writer for the paper had come under AIPAC scrutiny because the editor had made “dove-like” comments at a picnic sponsored by a pro-Israel peace group, and the writer had written stories that were unsympathetic to AIPAC’s positions. The lobby, it appeared, had launched a campaign utilizing prominent Jewish leaders to pressure the paper to replace the editor and remove the writer.
While AIPAC won and the editor was forced to resign, the stories that appeared in the aftermath proved quite embarrassing to the lobby. The organization was described as McCarthy-like (a reference to the famous U.S. Senator who in the 1950’s launched a “witch-hunt” to ferret out “communists” in the U.S. government). As the story developed it became clear that, like McCarthy, AIPAC’s “enemies lists” were very long indeed.
A few months later, fresh from what AIPAC viewed as “its victory” over George Bush in the November 1992 election, the organization was rocked by yet another scandalous revelation.
(In fact, the Clinton victory was not due to the work of AIPAC. It was due to a number of factors including the continuing decline in the nation’s economy, the frustration of many groups with Republican economics, the coalition of a number of liberal groups whose causes the Democrats supported, and the disruptive presence in the campaign of Ross Perot. But, as in the case of the Percy campaign in 1984, AIPAC was quick in claiming victory for itself.)
In the midst of their euphoria, the President of AIPAC, David Steiner, was tape-recorded in a telephone conversation making the following boastful claims to a prospective contributor:
...I helped him [Clinton], we raised over a million dollars for him in New Jersey. ...I’ve known Bill for seven, eight years from the National Governors Association. I know him on a personal basis. One of my friends is Hillary Clinton’s scheduler, one of my officer’s daughters works there, we gave two employees leaves of absence to work on the campaign. We have a dozen people in his headquarters. ...In Little Rock, and they’re all going to get big jobs. we have friends, I also work with a think tank, the Washington Institute, Michael Mandlebaum and Martin Indyk being foreign policy advisors. Steve Speigel, we’ve got friends…this is my business. ...we need a friendly President, and we have Bill Clinton’s ear. I talked to Bill Clinton …He’s going to be very good for us.
AIPAC was not only publicly humiliated by this incident, but it was politically hurt as well. Negative articles appeared, Steiner was forced to resign, and many of President Clinton’s closest advisors were furious at the AIPAC President’s arrogance and his distortions, since many of his claims were not true.
AIPAC’s wish-list for appointments in the Clinton Administration was long, but in the end very few succeeded in receiving their hoped-for assignments. A New York Times article in January of 1993 noted AIPAC’s frustration as it failed to place “its favorites” in most of the top positions in the Administration. In fact, only two of the top appointments sought by AIPAC and the pro-Israel community came through, and they were balanced by other appointments given to supporters of Peace Now and other experienced members of the foreign policy establishment.
More recently, AIPAC was hit once again by negative stories which, in a week’s time, forced the resignation of its long-time Executive Director, Tom Dine, and also one of its Vice Presidents, Harvey Friedman, a wealthy businessman from Florida.
Ostensibly, Dine was removed because of comments he had made that were insulting to traditional Orthodox Jews. The comments, appearing in a recently published book, refer to the orthodox as “smelly” and “low-class.”
Dine insists that he was merely telling the author how some in the mainstream upper-middle class Jewish community feel about the traditionalists, but despite his appeals, he was told by the organization to resign. Many feel that the real reason for Dine’s ouster lay deeper in the internal struggles taking place within AIPAC.
A clear example of this struggle can be seen in the second recent forced resignation, that of Harvey Friedman. On a recent trip to Israel, Friedman, along with three members of Congress from Florida, met with Israeli Deputy Minister Yossi Beilin. Beilin is a well-known dove. When Friedman raised the issue of the peace process, Beilin responded that he believed Israel should give territories back to the Palestinians in exchange for peace. Friedman challenged Beilin with the suggestion that the Palestinians ought to be invited to leave the occupied territories for other Arab countries, and then went on to question the mandate of the Rabin government to trade any territories for peace. And to add insult to injury, when asked to later comment on the exchange, he referred to Beilin as “a little slime ball.”
For his insult to the Israeli Deputy Minister, Friedman was asked to resign.
The debates and divisions that run through Israeli society have also emerged in the American Jewish community. They have long been hidden from public view, as the community and its organizations maintained a facade of internal cohesion and complete acceptance of whatever the Israeli government position.
What the Dine and Friedman resignations point to is a fracturing of the cohesion and the acceptance within AIPAC.
***
AIPAC’s new President. Steve Grossman, is a wealthy Massachusetts business executive. He served as chair of that state’s Democratic Party and has been a vice President of AIPAC. He has promised to restore AIPAC’s credibility, and is currently heading a search committee for a new Executive Director.
Grossman is known to be a supporter of the Labor Party and has expressed some sympathy for a “land for peace” position. He is also an acquaintance of the new Democratic President. While some Jewish newspapers have taken the Grossman Presidency of AIPAC to mean “a kinder and gentler AIPAC,” the pro-Labor position of its President doesn’t mean a real shift as far as Arab Americans and supporters of a balanced U.S.-Middle East policy are concerned. AIPAC is still pushing, as its recent newsletters show, for a narrow pro-Israel and one-sided Middle East policy.
For its part, Israel is now trying to help the organization it so recently rebuked. The Labor government obviously likes Grossman’s politics, and has sent letters in praise of him to AIPAC’s newsletter, Near East Review (NER). In recent issues of the NER there has been a campaign-like effort to convince AIPAC members that a new page is being written in the relationship between the lobby and the government of Israel. First, a letter to Grossman from Israel’s Ambassador to the U.S., Itamar Rabinovich, was reprinted, which said in part:
While AIPAC undoubtedly has weathered some difficulties in recent months, there unfortunately seems to be a tendency to convert isolated cases into major conflicts, thus amplifying the issue. I wish to tell you, dear Steve, that my talks in Jerusalem with the Prime Minister, the Foreign Minister, and other leading officials, emphasized to me the great degree of respect and gratitude we feel toward AIPAC. ...On a personal note, may I say that your ascendancy to the leadership of AIPAC was received in Israel with hope and high expectations. (emphasis added)
Months after his rebuke of AIPAC (then led by Dine), a letter from Rabin to Grossman also ran in the NER which furthered the effort begun by Rabinovich to shore up the lobby and its new president. “I want my position to be fully understood:” Rabin wrote, “I consider AIPAC to be an important friend of Israel, and I am a friend of AIPAC. ...Through you, Steve, I want to thank AIPAC’s dedicated officers, staff, and members.”
Whether Grossman can steer AIPAC back to its former position remains to be seen and depends upon his ability to resolve serious internal difficulties and political problems plaguing the organization.
These internal political problems will be examined in next week’s article, the last of this series.
In the past two years, AIPAC has been buffeted by a number of exposes and negative press reports. All these came on the heels of the organization’s first legislative defeat since the AWACs vote in 1981. President George Bush’s initial victory in denying unconditional loan guarantees to Israel was a disturbing loss for the lobby. It had been humiliated. Its myth of invincibility was shattered by the incident, since the loss showed that the lobby was vulnerable to defeat.
During the 15 years of Likud rule in Israel, AIPAC had become wedded to that government’s political line. Throughout the entire period leading up to President Bush’s decision to deny the loan guarantees to Israel, Shamir was convinced that his American supporters would teach Bush a lesson and win congressional passage of the loan guarantees. After its repeated victories in Congress, Israel’s government felt that whenever it had problems with an Administration, it merely had to turn to the lobby, which would move the Congress to intimidate the President and his State Department. That strategy had worked numerous times in the past.
But in this instance, Bush was convinced that if the unconditional loan guarantees were to go through, chances for a comprehensive Middle East peace would diminish. Therefore, he was determined to resist Congressional pressure and do some behavior modification of his own on the Israeli government.
Bush’s now famous press conference remarks about being “one lonely guy” resisting the pressure of “one thousand lobbyists” are interesting for a number of reasons. First, he showed that Presidential leadership could win and force Congress and the lobby to back down. Second, Bush showed that public opinion was clearly not with Israel’s request for more financial benefits from the U.S. (In fact, a poll the Arab American Institute provided the White House days before the Presidents’ press conference showed overwhelming public opposition to Israel’s loan guarantee request.)
The one benefit for AIPAC to come out of this setback was the perception in the Jewish community that Bush was insulting the lobby and questioning the loyalty of Jews who actively supported Israel. AIPAC, which as we shall see, has recently had a rocky relationship with other mainstream Jewish organizations was momentarily strengthened by Jewish supporters rushing to its defense.
In the end, Bush won and Shamir lost, and AIPAC emerged from this fight somewhat wounded in the eyes of the larger public. But, at the same time, the lobby was somewhat strengthened within the Jewish community. And AIPAC was resolved punish the President who had beaten it.
In an ominous speech before AIPAC’s policy conference on April 5, 1992, Tom Dine, then AIPAC’s Executive Director, said:
... we are not going away. We are here. And we will not be intimidated. We shall continue to nudge the stone up the hill inch by inch—until we get to the top. The campaign to win support for the guarantees may take several rounds before we succeed. Let us remember that the landmark Jackson-Vanik legislation to free Soviet Jewry did not succeed on the first effort in September 1972. The Nixon Administration adamantly opposed the legislation as a threat to detente and, by extension, to world peace. It took two and one half years of debate, plus Nixon’s resignation, before the Jackson-Vanik amendment was adopted in December 1974. ...We are very tenacious people when an issue of principle is concerned. On the issue before us today, we are right and the Administration is wrong.” (emphasis added)
Whether or not Dine intended his speech as a threat to Bush, the message was clear. AIPAC would oppose George Bush and even seek to bring him down. The die was cast. Bush ended up losing the election, but AIPAC emerged wounded as well.
Shortly after winning his election in Israel in June of 1992, the new Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin let it be known that he did not care for the way the so-called pro-Israel groups behaved during the loan guarantees debate. In Rabin’s eyes, they had arrogated to themselves the power to negotiate with the Administration on behalf of Israel. And that, he noted, would no longer be tolerated.
Furthermore, Labor Party officials let it be known that they did not care for the way the lobby had sided with the Likud during this debate. In a number of public rebukes, Rabin chided AIPAC for its position. And this left the organization wounded in the eyes of many in the Jewish community and the press. Bush’s attack had had the short-term effect of winning Jewish support for the lobby—Rabin’s attacks ended that.
Still reeling from this embarrassment, AIPAC received a number of additional shocks in the following months as several major newspapers carried exposes detailing how AIPAC’s “research department” spied on and defamed its enemies. The articles featured reports on how AIPAC had carried out campaigns against African Americans, Arab Americans, politicians and, most significantly, even prominent American Jews who had run afoul of the lobby because of their suspected “pro-peace” positions.
The case that first prompted the exposes involved the removal of the editor of the influential Washington Jewish Week (the paper of this city’s Jewish community). As the story unfolded, it was established that the editor and an important writer for the paper had come under AIPAC scrutiny because the editor had made “dove-like” comments at a picnic sponsored by a pro-Israel peace group, and the writer had written stories that were unsympathetic to AIPAC’s positions. The lobby, it appeared, had launched a campaign utilizing prominent Jewish leaders to pressure the paper to replace the editor and remove the writer.
While AIPAC won and the editor was forced to resign, the stories that appeared in the aftermath proved quite embarrassing to the lobby. The organization was described as McCarthy-like (a reference to the famous U.S. Senator who in the 1950’s launched a “witch-hunt” to ferret out “communists” in the U.S. government). As the story developed it became clear that, like McCarthy, AIPAC’s “enemies lists” were very long indeed.
A few months later, fresh from what AIPAC viewed as “its victory” over George Bush in the November 1992 election, the organization was rocked by yet another scandalous revelation.
(In fact, the Clinton victory was not due to the work of AIPAC. It was due to a number of factors including the continuing decline in the nation’s economy, the frustration of many groups with Republican economics, the coalition of a number of liberal groups whose causes the Democrats supported, and the disruptive presence in the campaign of Ross Perot. But, as in the case of the Percy campaign in 1984, AIPAC was quick in claiming victory for itself.)
In the midst of their euphoria, the President of AIPAC, David Steiner, was tape-recorded in a telephone conversation making the following boastful claims to a prospective contributor:
...I helped him [Clinton], we raised over a million dollars for him in New Jersey. ...I’ve known Bill for seven, eight years from the National Governors Association. I know him on a personal basis. One of my friends is Hillary Clinton’s scheduler, one of my officer’s daughters works there, we gave two employees leaves of absence to work on the campaign. We have a dozen people in his headquarters. ...In Little Rock, and they’re all going to get big jobs. we have friends, I also work with a think tank, the Washington Institute, Michael Mandlebaum and Martin Indyk being foreign policy advisors. Steve Speigel, we’ve got friends…this is my business. ...we need a friendly President, and we have Bill Clinton’s ear. I talked to Bill Clinton …He’s going to be very good for us.
AIPAC was not only publicly humiliated by this incident, but it was politically hurt as well. Negative articles appeared, Steiner was forced to resign, and many of President Clinton’s closest advisors were furious at the AIPAC President’s arrogance and his distortions, since many of his claims were not true.
AIPAC’s wish-list for appointments in the Clinton Administration was long, but in the end very few succeeded in receiving their hoped-for assignments. A New York Times article in January of 1993 noted AIPAC’s frustration as it failed to place “its favorites” in most of the top positions in the Administration. In fact, only two of the top appointments sought by AIPAC and the pro-Israel community came through, and they were balanced by other appointments given to supporters of Peace Now and other experienced members of the foreign policy establishment.
More recently, AIPAC was hit once again by negative stories which, in a week’s time, forced the resignation of its long-time Executive Director, Tom Dine, and also one of its Vice Presidents, Harvey Friedman, a wealthy businessman from Florida.
Ostensibly, Dine was removed because of comments he had made that were insulting to traditional Orthodox Jews. The comments, appearing in a recently published book, refer to the orthodox as “smelly” and “low-class.”
Dine insists that he was merely telling the author how some in the mainstream upper-middle class Jewish community feel about the traditionalists, but despite his appeals, he was told by the organization to resign. Many feel that the real reason for Dine’s ouster lay deeper in the internal struggles taking place within AIPAC.
A clear example of this struggle can be seen in the second recent forced resignation, that of Harvey Friedman. On a recent trip to Israel, Friedman, along with three members of Congress from Florida, met with Israeli Deputy Minister Yossi Beilin. Beilin is a well-known dove. When Friedman raised the issue of the peace process, Beilin responded that he believed Israel should give territories back to the Palestinians in exchange for peace. Friedman challenged Beilin with the suggestion that the Palestinians ought to be invited to leave the occupied territories for other Arab countries, and then went on to question the mandate of the Rabin government to trade any territories for peace. And to add insult to injury, when asked to later comment on the exchange, he referred to Beilin as “a little slime ball.”
For his insult to the Israeli Deputy Minister, Friedman was asked to resign.
The debates and divisions that run through Israeli society have also emerged in the American Jewish community. They have long been hidden from public view, as the community and its organizations maintained a facade of internal cohesion and complete acceptance of whatever the Israeli government position.
What the Dine and Friedman resignations point to is a fracturing of the cohesion and the acceptance within AIPAC.
***
AIPAC’s new President. Steve Grossman, is a wealthy Massachusetts business executive. He served as chair of that state’s Democratic Party and has been a vice President of AIPAC. He has promised to restore AIPAC’s credibility, and is currently heading a search committee for a new Executive Director.
Grossman is known to be a supporter of the Labor Party and has expressed some sympathy for a “land for peace” position. He is also an acquaintance of the new Democratic President. While some Jewish newspapers have taken the Grossman Presidency of AIPAC to mean “a kinder and gentler AIPAC,” the pro-Labor position of its President doesn’t mean a real shift as far as Arab Americans and supporters of a balanced U.S.-Middle East policy are concerned. AIPAC is still pushing, as its recent newsletters show, for a narrow pro-Israel and one-sided Middle East policy.
For its part, Israel is now trying to help the organization it so recently rebuked. The Labor government obviously likes Grossman’s politics, and has sent letters in praise of him to AIPAC’s newsletter, Near East Review (NER). In recent issues of the NER there has been a campaign-like effort to convince AIPAC members that a new page is being written in the relationship between the lobby and the government of Israel. First, a letter to Grossman from Israel’s Ambassador to the U.S., Itamar Rabinovich, was reprinted, which said in part:
While AIPAC undoubtedly has weathered some difficulties in recent months, there unfortunately seems to be a tendency to convert isolated cases into major conflicts, thus amplifying the issue. I wish to tell you, dear Steve, that my talks in Jerusalem with the Prime Minister, the Foreign Minister, and other leading officials, emphasized to me the great degree of respect and gratitude we feel toward AIPAC. ...On a personal note, may I say that your ascendancy to the leadership of AIPAC was received in Israel with hope and high expectations. (emphasis added)
Months after his rebuke of AIPAC (then led by Dine), a letter from Rabin to Grossman also ran in the NER which furthered the effort begun by Rabinovich to shore up the lobby and its new president. “I want my position to be fully understood:” Rabin wrote, “I consider AIPAC to be an important friend of Israel, and I am a friend of AIPAC. ...Through you, Steve, I want to thank AIPAC’s dedicated officers, staff, and members.”
Whether Grossman can steer AIPAC back to its former position remains to be seen and depends upon his ability to resolve serious internal difficulties and political problems plaguing the organization.
These internal political problems will be examined in next week’s article, the last of this series.
16 aug 1993
(This is part two of a four-part series on the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC, examining the sources of its power and the roots of its current internal and political problems.)
Last week I detailed two of the four keys to AIPAC’s political success, its ability to create a network of influential American Jews and to mobilize them in support of Israel; and its ability to raise substantial amounts of money and to put it to use in a focused political plan.
This week I will focus on the final two keys to AIPAC’s success: its ability to create an aura of power and its ability to develop and implement an effective political strategy.
The ability to create an aura of power.
Writing in the pro-Israel magazine New Republic, Morton Kondracke reported a conversation with an anonymous member of Congress who told him:
If there were a secret ballot, aid [to Israel] would be cut severely. It’s not out of affection anymore that Israel gets $3 billion a year. It’s from fear that you’ll wake up one morning and find that an opponent has $500,000 to run against you.
It is, in large measure, this kind of fear of power that has created support for AIPAC’s initiatives in Congress.
To some extent, fear of AIPAC’s clout is justified; but I believe that the lobby has magnified its claims of power out of all proportion in order to cultivate fear among members of Congress, thereby enhancing its power.
Shortly after losing the vote to sell AWACs to Saudi Arabia, AIPAC pledged that it would defeat those whom it held responsible for its defeat. By the mid-1980s, it would boast of success, since many of the offending Senators had, in fact, been defeated. But was AIPAC solely responsible for these losses, or was their boasting unjustified?
The most prominent of the pro-AWAC Sale senators to have been defeated was Senator Charles Percy of Illinois, who lost his 1984 reelection bid. In a speech in Toronto in 1984, AIPAC’s Executive Director Tom Dine, in speaking of the Percy defeat, gloated: “All the Jews, from coast to coast, gathered to oust Percy. And the American politicians—those who hold public positions now, and those who aspire—got the message.”
It was true that AIPAC helped to direct over $300,000 in PAC money first to a primary opponent of Percy’s and then to the Democratic candidate who defeated him—Paul Simon. It was also true that a wealthy Jewish donor, Michael Goland illegally contributed $1,000,000 to finance a right-wing attack on Percy to siphon some conservative votes away from the Republican Senator (the Goland-fueled effort charged that Percy was pro-abortion). But the reasons for Percy’s defeat may be found elsewhere.
In fact, I was at a forum with the former Senator shortly after his defeat when he charged that it was the African American vote in Chicago, the largest city in his state, that had cost him his election. In previous races, Percy, an advocate of civil rights, had secured endorsements and votes from the African American community. African Americans, angry with the power structure in Chicago (which was white and Democratic), had on many occasions refused to endorse the white Democratic candidates in state-wide elections in order to show their displeasure over the way they were treated by the Democratic Party in Chicago. Voting patterns in Illinois are such that unless a Democrat can win overwhelmingly in the city of Chicago, he cannot win the whole state—the rest of which is largely Republican. Percy’s previous victories came because he was able win some of Chicago’s small and influential Jewish vote and, more importantly, a good portion of Chicago’s African American vote.
By 1984, however, things had changed. The notorious white Mayor of Chicago, Richard Daley, Sr., had died and an African American Mayor, Harold Washington, had been elected. The Democratic Senatorial nominee, Congressman Paul Simon, was a liberal with strong civil rights credentials and was also a close friend of the new Mayor. Thus it was that Percy lost the African American vote and this, he felt, had cost him the election. While it was true that the Jewish community had been involved in this race, with many opposing Percy (although Percy did have his strong Jewish supporters as well), it was not their work alone that brought Percy’s defeat. In addition, it is important to note that neither the Middle East nor the pro-Israel PACs became an issue during the campaign (despite Arab Americans urging Percy to speak out on these subjects), and Percy even went so far as to discourage active Arab American involvement or fundraising for his campaign for fear, he said, of antagonizing AIPAC!
AIPAC’s boasts that it “beat Percy” rang hollow, but went unchallenged, and so many observers came to believe that it was the lobby which had “single-handedly brought down the mighty Senator.” Arab Americans and their supporters unfortunately have, on too many occasions, played into the hands of AIPAC’s myth-makers by agreeing with their boastful claims, and reinforcing them.
Several other so-called AIPAC “victories” can also be better understood when seen in terms of changing voter demographics and other decisive political dynamics that affect elections. A closer look at AIPAC’s record will show that not only didn’t it win all of the races it claimed to win, but it has lost many races it has worked hard to win.
An examination of AIPAC and pro-Israel PAC supported candidates in 1992, for example, shows that in the elections involving the top ten recipients of pro-Israel PAC money, five lost their elections! And in the highly publicized AIPAC effort to defeat Senator John Chafee of Rhode Island in 1988, AIPAC and all of its money was unable to prevail. The lobby and its money can play an important role in an election—but in the end, voters and domestic issues are the decisive factors in every victory and defeat.
But the facts have not mattered—what has been most telling is the myth of AIPAC power, as exemplified by Morton Kondracke’s anonymous congressman. This myth is one that AIPAC has deliberately cultivated, much to its advantage and, as I have noted, Arab Americans their supporters have all too often mistakenly encouraged those efforts.
The ability to develop and implement a winning political strategy.
While the myth of AIPAC power in elections is overblown (many AIPAC supported candidates don’t win elections), it is the strategic use of money that contributes to AIPAC’s success in lobbying. But this is only one part of AIPAC’s overall strategy in winning passage of legislation. The other components of its winning legislative strategy includes the following points:
a) In elections, AIPAC uses threats and promises of contributions to shape the policy of as many candidates as possible—before they are elected.
Working with either its own members or utilizing the organized Jewish community in each Congressional district, AIPAC directs visits to every serious Congressional candidate. The candidates are asked to prepare or endorse an already prepared statement on the Middle East which is filled with the usual pro-Israel rhetoric. Sometimes implicit in the request, and sometimes quite explicit, is the promise of campaign funds or the threat of support for an opponent.
The threat can be a successful form of behavior modification, even with long-time elected officials who go against the policy of the lobby. My experience with Tom Harkin (a Democrat from Iowa), is a case in point.
In the late 1970s, then-Congressman Tom Harkin was a leading human rights advocate in the House of Representatives. This stance led him to support Palestinian rights as well. In 1980, for example, when two Palestinian mayors were expelled by Israeli military authorities from the occupied West Bank, Harkin endorsed the defense campaign on behalf of the mayors.
Harkin’s voting record in this period also reflected his balanced perspective in Middle East issues. Regularly voting against foreign aid bills in 1977, he supported two efforts to cut aid to all foreign aid recipients (including Israel) by 5%. In 1978 Harkin opposed a bill that would have provided $25 million to resettle Soviet Jews in Israel and prevented U.S. involvement in two United Nations committees working on Palestinian rights.
But in 1980, Harkin changed course dramatically. Shortly after endorsing the two expelled Palestinian mayors, Harkin was visited by AIPAC and, according to a staff member, left the meeting shaken and feeling threatened. Apparently he got the message, and thereafter Harkin’s record was dramatically different.
From 1980 through 1984, he consistently voted for pro-Israel bills and signed most pro-Israel letters circulating on Capitol Hill. He became so strong in his support of Israel that, in 1984 Senate bid, he received significant contributions from pro-Israel PACs which had targeted incumbent Senator Roger W. Jepsen for his vote to send AWACs to Saudi Arabia.
In 1990, Harkin ran for reelection and received an additional $246,000 from pro-Israel PACs.
Harkin’s opponent that year, Representative Tom Tauke, was approached by AIPAC early in the campaign. Tauke was, like so many other candidates, urged to issue a statement in support of Israel. He was told that, of course, he would not receive pro-Israel support, since Harkin was the pro-Israel candidate—but if he agreed to refrain from criticizing Israel, he would be helped after the election if he won. In the end, Harkin had been “threatened” and “rewarded” and Tauke had been “neutralized.” Nevertheless, the 1990 election was quite close and could have ended differently, Tauke campaign staff felt, had their candidate exposed AIPAC’s practices and the extent to which Harkin had been influenced by pro-Israel PACs.
b) After years of placing interns in Congressional offices and of cultivating friends in Congress (by working on their campaigns, contributing to their elections, winning their friendship through years of cooperative efforts), AIPAC has been able to place hundreds of former interns, former staff and friends and supporters into key positions in many congressional offices.
Since in many Congressional offices staff do most of the Congressman’s work, the power of the staff is quite considerable. They write the Congressman’s letters to constituents, draft their speeches and positions papers, and they even sign the person’s name to congressional letters and as co-sponsors to legislation. In many instances, staff will determine who will or will not receive appointments with the member of Congress.
There have been many occasions where members of Congress I know will be unaware that they have co-sponsored a piece of legislation (to which their names were added by staffers)—but once informed only the brave will remove their names.
c) Again, utilizing its own extensive activist membership and the networks provided by the other mainstream Jewish organizations, AIPAC can deliver thousands of letters to a member of Congress—from his own constituents—either protesting an “anti-Israel” vote or praising a “pro-Israel” vote.
While letters and petitions in themselves mean little (the side that sends the most letters doesn’t automatically win the Congressman’s support), they are a reminder to the congressman of the potential for support or opposition he can expect at election time.
d) Another effective mechanism used by AIPAC and other Jewish groups to win Congressional support has been the regular trips to Israel they sponsor for most members of Congress, and even other local elected officials (who are viewed as potential Congressional candidates in the future). For example, a survey of trips made by members of Congress during the a 1991 break showed that Israel was the number one travel destination, with 30 members of Congress stopping there—which was more than the total of visits to all the Arab countries combined during the same period.
As with the letter writing, the trips in and of themselves have more of a symbolic than an actual value. The visits do not educate, since they are one-sided presentations. A real fact-finding visit would, of course, include traveling throughout the Middle East. The purposes of the trips, in actuality, are to inform the members of Congress what they are expected to say about issues involving Israel.
Just as all the statements signed by members of Congress in their election campaigns sound the same (because they are), so do the comments they make when they return from Israel all sound the same—because they have learned on their visit what to say and how to say it.
Most members of Congress are not convinced to behave in a certain way by the letters, by the trips to Israel or by the pressures on them to conform. They are convinced by the fear of being defeated. And the letters and the other forms of pressure represent symbols of the money and “power” that creates fear.
I frequently refer to a club I have only jokingly formed, called the “I’m really with you Arabs, but…” Club. To it belong all those members of Congress who told me after or during their elections or after their trips to Israel that they really know that the Arab side is right, but… And the “but” is usually followed by some reference to money or pressure from the pro-Israel side (and, conversely, by the absence of money from our side or the failure of Arab Americans to vote or apply public pressure in amounts equal to the pro-Israel side).
In this light, it is imperative to correct an impression about lobbying in U.S. politics. Lobbying, for the most part, does not consist of visiting with a member of Congress and convincing them of the “truth,” because “truth” doesn’t influence votes, power does. Lobbying is collecting on a bill that is due. In effect, the successful lobbyist implies, “You know we’ve supported you with money and votes, and now we want your support.” Too many Arabs and Arab Americans still do not understand that lobbying is not merely an information dispensing game.
e) AIPAC also runs an aggressive information campaign targeted at the media, opinion-makers as well as members of Congress and their staffs. AIPAC uses this constant campaign technique to shape the debate about Middle East policy in this country, and its efforts usually go uncontested.
Utilizing all of their resources, especially among opinion-makers (newspaper editorial writers and political leaders), the lobby will develop a theme and present it in a repetitive fashion so that it comes to be accepted as common sense. At this point, one can usually recognize the signs of an AIPAC-orchestrated campaign. Three opinion articles by “AIPAC friends” in The New York Times, a few more in the Washington Post, a Congressional resolution in support of the issue, a number of similar speeches by key members of Congress, and AIPAC memoranda, and information briefs sent out to all Congressmen and Senators and newspaper editors—after a two-week “information blitz” such as this, AIPAC and its supporters would have succeeded in defining an issue and establishing their view as the “accepted” conventional wisdom.
Arab Americans, overpowered by such a barrage of information, must then fight an up-hill battle in the media to make our case. In other words, even before we can begin to do our actual work, AIPAC has put us on the defensive. They have used this technique to define the PLO as “terrorist,” to define each and every Israeli attack as a “retaliation,” to call loan guarantees “humanitarian aid,” to tar their enemies as “anti-Semites,” and on and on.
f) AIPAC also has an aggressive information-gathering operation by which it and related Jewish organizations are able to know what members of Congress say at any public gathering, and what perceived enemies of Israel also say. This apparatus is so sophisticated as to resemble a quasi-governmental intelligence agency in that it covers not only print and other media outlets, but also involves sending spies to offices, meetings and events to record what transpires, and even who simply attends.
While AIPAC claims that it gathers such data legally and only for its own use, in fact it is what it do with this information that makes it so potent a force in their arsenal and such an integral part of their strategy.
AIPAC’s so-called “research” department has become a major source of information on members of Congress and on “enemies of Israel.” It publishes a confidential monthly report which it sends to Jewish groups and leaders and wealthy donors and a number of friendly writers. Then, over the next few weeks, articles and columns will include the AIPAC “line” on issues of the day as well as details on what various public officials have said and/or done.
It is through these reports that AIPAC is able to shape attitudes and behavior among its supporters. The reports are not always truthful, however.
I have learned from a reporter who regularly covers the lobby, that AIPAC’s research department has an entire drawer devoted to me as an “enemy.” I apparently have the distinction of being second to Jesse Jackson in the numbers of files kept by the lobby.
I can speak first-hand of the political use which AIPAC makes of its “information gathering.” For example, in 1986 I made contributions to a number of Congressional campaigns. After the elections a few of the Congressional offices contacted me to inform me that they had been called by supporters of Israel who noticed on Federal Elections Commission records that they had received contributions from me. The supporters of Israel had wanted the Congressional offices to know who I was and what I stood for. Implicit in these conversations was the message that it would be wise for these members of Congress not to accept my support. To the credit of those whom I and many other Arab Americans have supported in recent years, none have rejected our support.
But the threat is there, and it can be intimidating to some members of Congress.
One might think after all this that the lobby was invincible. But as it reached the peak of its power, cracks in AIPAC’s armor began to appear. And after some review it seems that AIPAC’s successes may be leading it into some deep internal difficulties. I will review these difficulties in next week’s article.
Last week I detailed two of the four keys to AIPAC’s political success, its ability to create a network of influential American Jews and to mobilize them in support of Israel; and its ability to raise substantial amounts of money and to put it to use in a focused political plan.
This week I will focus on the final two keys to AIPAC’s success: its ability to create an aura of power and its ability to develop and implement an effective political strategy.
The ability to create an aura of power.
Writing in the pro-Israel magazine New Republic, Morton Kondracke reported a conversation with an anonymous member of Congress who told him:
If there were a secret ballot, aid [to Israel] would be cut severely. It’s not out of affection anymore that Israel gets $3 billion a year. It’s from fear that you’ll wake up one morning and find that an opponent has $500,000 to run against you.
It is, in large measure, this kind of fear of power that has created support for AIPAC’s initiatives in Congress.
To some extent, fear of AIPAC’s clout is justified; but I believe that the lobby has magnified its claims of power out of all proportion in order to cultivate fear among members of Congress, thereby enhancing its power.
Shortly after losing the vote to sell AWACs to Saudi Arabia, AIPAC pledged that it would defeat those whom it held responsible for its defeat. By the mid-1980s, it would boast of success, since many of the offending Senators had, in fact, been defeated. But was AIPAC solely responsible for these losses, or was their boasting unjustified?
The most prominent of the pro-AWAC Sale senators to have been defeated was Senator Charles Percy of Illinois, who lost his 1984 reelection bid. In a speech in Toronto in 1984, AIPAC’s Executive Director Tom Dine, in speaking of the Percy defeat, gloated: “All the Jews, from coast to coast, gathered to oust Percy. And the American politicians—those who hold public positions now, and those who aspire—got the message.”
It was true that AIPAC helped to direct over $300,000 in PAC money first to a primary opponent of Percy’s and then to the Democratic candidate who defeated him—Paul Simon. It was also true that a wealthy Jewish donor, Michael Goland illegally contributed $1,000,000 to finance a right-wing attack on Percy to siphon some conservative votes away from the Republican Senator (the Goland-fueled effort charged that Percy was pro-abortion). But the reasons for Percy’s defeat may be found elsewhere.
In fact, I was at a forum with the former Senator shortly after his defeat when he charged that it was the African American vote in Chicago, the largest city in his state, that had cost him his election. In previous races, Percy, an advocate of civil rights, had secured endorsements and votes from the African American community. African Americans, angry with the power structure in Chicago (which was white and Democratic), had on many occasions refused to endorse the white Democratic candidates in state-wide elections in order to show their displeasure over the way they were treated by the Democratic Party in Chicago. Voting patterns in Illinois are such that unless a Democrat can win overwhelmingly in the city of Chicago, he cannot win the whole state—the rest of which is largely Republican. Percy’s previous victories came because he was able win some of Chicago’s small and influential Jewish vote and, more importantly, a good portion of Chicago’s African American vote.
By 1984, however, things had changed. The notorious white Mayor of Chicago, Richard Daley, Sr., had died and an African American Mayor, Harold Washington, had been elected. The Democratic Senatorial nominee, Congressman Paul Simon, was a liberal with strong civil rights credentials and was also a close friend of the new Mayor. Thus it was that Percy lost the African American vote and this, he felt, had cost him the election. While it was true that the Jewish community had been involved in this race, with many opposing Percy (although Percy did have his strong Jewish supporters as well), it was not their work alone that brought Percy’s defeat. In addition, it is important to note that neither the Middle East nor the pro-Israel PACs became an issue during the campaign (despite Arab Americans urging Percy to speak out on these subjects), and Percy even went so far as to discourage active Arab American involvement or fundraising for his campaign for fear, he said, of antagonizing AIPAC!
AIPAC’s boasts that it “beat Percy” rang hollow, but went unchallenged, and so many observers came to believe that it was the lobby which had “single-handedly brought down the mighty Senator.” Arab Americans and their supporters unfortunately have, on too many occasions, played into the hands of AIPAC’s myth-makers by agreeing with their boastful claims, and reinforcing them.
Several other so-called AIPAC “victories” can also be better understood when seen in terms of changing voter demographics and other decisive political dynamics that affect elections. A closer look at AIPAC’s record will show that not only didn’t it win all of the races it claimed to win, but it has lost many races it has worked hard to win.
An examination of AIPAC and pro-Israel PAC supported candidates in 1992, for example, shows that in the elections involving the top ten recipients of pro-Israel PAC money, five lost their elections! And in the highly publicized AIPAC effort to defeat Senator John Chafee of Rhode Island in 1988, AIPAC and all of its money was unable to prevail. The lobby and its money can play an important role in an election—but in the end, voters and domestic issues are the decisive factors in every victory and defeat.
But the facts have not mattered—what has been most telling is the myth of AIPAC power, as exemplified by Morton Kondracke’s anonymous congressman. This myth is one that AIPAC has deliberately cultivated, much to its advantage and, as I have noted, Arab Americans their supporters have all too often mistakenly encouraged those efforts.
The ability to develop and implement a winning political strategy.
While the myth of AIPAC power in elections is overblown (many AIPAC supported candidates don’t win elections), it is the strategic use of money that contributes to AIPAC’s success in lobbying. But this is only one part of AIPAC’s overall strategy in winning passage of legislation. The other components of its winning legislative strategy includes the following points:
a) In elections, AIPAC uses threats and promises of contributions to shape the policy of as many candidates as possible—before they are elected.
Working with either its own members or utilizing the organized Jewish community in each Congressional district, AIPAC directs visits to every serious Congressional candidate. The candidates are asked to prepare or endorse an already prepared statement on the Middle East which is filled with the usual pro-Israel rhetoric. Sometimes implicit in the request, and sometimes quite explicit, is the promise of campaign funds or the threat of support for an opponent.
The threat can be a successful form of behavior modification, even with long-time elected officials who go against the policy of the lobby. My experience with Tom Harkin (a Democrat from Iowa), is a case in point.
In the late 1970s, then-Congressman Tom Harkin was a leading human rights advocate in the House of Representatives. This stance led him to support Palestinian rights as well. In 1980, for example, when two Palestinian mayors were expelled by Israeli military authorities from the occupied West Bank, Harkin endorsed the defense campaign on behalf of the mayors.
Harkin’s voting record in this period also reflected his balanced perspective in Middle East issues. Regularly voting against foreign aid bills in 1977, he supported two efforts to cut aid to all foreign aid recipients (including Israel) by 5%. In 1978 Harkin opposed a bill that would have provided $25 million to resettle Soviet Jews in Israel and prevented U.S. involvement in two United Nations committees working on Palestinian rights.
But in 1980, Harkin changed course dramatically. Shortly after endorsing the two expelled Palestinian mayors, Harkin was visited by AIPAC and, according to a staff member, left the meeting shaken and feeling threatened. Apparently he got the message, and thereafter Harkin’s record was dramatically different.
From 1980 through 1984, he consistently voted for pro-Israel bills and signed most pro-Israel letters circulating on Capitol Hill. He became so strong in his support of Israel that, in 1984 Senate bid, he received significant contributions from pro-Israel PACs which had targeted incumbent Senator Roger W. Jepsen for his vote to send AWACs to Saudi Arabia.
In 1990, Harkin ran for reelection and received an additional $246,000 from pro-Israel PACs.
Harkin’s opponent that year, Representative Tom Tauke, was approached by AIPAC early in the campaign. Tauke was, like so many other candidates, urged to issue a statement in support of Israel. He was told that, of course, he would not receive pro-Israel support, since Harkin was the pro-Israel candidate—but if he agreed to refrain from criticizing Israel, he would be helped after the election if he won. In the end, Harkin had been “threatened” and “rewarded” and Tauke had been “neutralized.” Nevertheless, the 1990 election was quite close and could have ended differently, Tauke campaign staff felt, had their candidate exposed AIPAC’s practices and the extent to which Harkin had been influenced by pro-Israel PACs.
b) After years of placing interns in Congressional offices and of cultivating friends in Congress (by working on their campaigns, contributing to their elections, winning their friendship through years of cooperative efforts), AIPAC has been able to place hundreds of former interns, former staff and friends and supporters into key positions in many congressional offices.
Since in many Congressional offices staff do most of the Congressman’s work, the power of the staff is quite considerable. They write the Congressman’s letters to constituents, draft their speeches and positions papers, and they even sign the person’s name to congressional letters and as co-sponsors to legislation. In many instances, staff will determine who will or will not receive appointments with the member of Congress.
There have been many occasions where members of Congress I know will be unaware that they have co-sponsored a piece of legislation (to which their names were added by staffers)—but once informed only the brave will remove their names.
c) Again, utilizing its own extensive activist membership and the networks provided by the other mainstream Jewish organizations, AIPAC can deliver thousands of letters to a member of Congress—from his own constituents—either protesting an “anti-Israel” vote or praising a “pro-Israel” vote.
While letters and petitions in themselves mean little (the side that sends the most letters doesn’t automatically win the Congressman’s support), they are a reminder to the congressman of the potential for support or opposition he can expect at election time.
d) Another effective mechanism used by AIPAC and other Jewish groups to win Congressional support has been the regular trips to Israel they sponsor for most members of Congress, and even other local elected officials (who are viewed as potential Congressional candidates in the future). For example, a survey of trips made by members of Congress during the a 1991 break showed that Israel was the number one travel destination, with 30 members of Congress stopping there—which was more than the total of visits to all the Arab countries combined during the same period.
As with the letter writing, the trips in and of themselves have more of a symbolic than an actual value. The visits do not educate, since they are one-sided presentations. A real fact-finding visit would, of course, include traveling throughout the Middle East. The purposes of the trips, in actuality, are to inform the members of Congress what they are expected to say about issues involving Israel.
Just as all the statements signed by members of Congress in their election campaigns sound the same (because they are), so do the comments they make when they return from Israel all sound the same—because they have learned on their visit what to say and how to say it.
Most members of Congress are not convinced to behave in a certain way by the letters, by the trips to Israel or by the pressures on them to conform. They are convinced by the fear of being defeated. And the letters and the other forms of pressure represent symbols of the money and “power” that creates fear.
I frequently refer to a club I have only jokingly formed, called the “I’m really with you Arabs, but…” Club. To it belong all those members of Congress who told me after or during their elections or after their trips to Israel that they really know that the Arab side is right, but… And the “but” is usually followed by some reference to money or pressure from the pro-Israel side (and, conversely, by the absence of money from our side or the failure of Arab Americans to vote or apply public pressure in amounts equal to the pro-Israel side).
In this light, it is imperative to correct an impression about lobbying in U.S. politics. Lobbying, for the most part, does not consist of visiting with a member of Congress and convincing them of the “truth,” because “truth” doesn’t influence votes, power does. Lobbying is collecting on a bill that is due. In effect, the successful lobbyist implies, “You know we’ve supported you with money and votes, and now we want your support.” Too many Arabs and Arab Americans still do not understand that lobbying is not merely an information dispensing game.
e) AIPAC also runs an aggressive information campaign targeted at the media, opinion-makers as well as members of Congress and their staffs. AIPAC uses this constant campaign technique to shape the debate about Middle East policy in this country, and its efforts usually go uncontested.
Utilizing all of their resources, especially among opinion-makers (newspaper editorial writers and political leaders), the lobby will develop a theme and present it in a repetitive fashion so that it comes to be accepted as common sense. At this point, one can usually recognize the signs of an AIPAC-orchestrated campaign. Three opinion articles by “AIPAC friends” in The New York Times, a few more in the Washington Post, a Congressional resolution in support of the issue, a number of similar speeches by key members of Congress, and AIPAC memoranda, and information briefs sent out to all Congressmen and Senators and newspaper editors—after a two-week “information blitz” such as this, AIPAC and its supporters would have succeeded in defining an issue and establishing their view as the “accepted” conventional wisdom.
Arab Americans, overpowered by such a barrage of information, must then fight an up-hill battle in the media to make our case. In other words, even before we can begin to do our actual work, AIPAC has put us on the defensive. They have used this technique to define the PLO as “terrorist,” to define each and every Israeli attack as a “retaliation,” to call loan guarantees “humanitarian aid,” to tar their enemies as “anti-Semites,” and on and on.
f) AIPAC also has an aggressive information-gathering operation by which it and related Jewish organizations are able to know what members of Congress say at any public gathering, and what perceived enemies of Israel also say. This apparatus is so sophisticated as to resemble a quasi-governmental intelligence agency in that it covers not only print and other media outlets, but also involves sending spies to offices, meetings and events to record what transpires, and even who simply attends.
While AIPAC claims that it gathers such data legally and only for its own use, in fact it is what it do with this information that makes it so potent a force in their arsenal and such an integral part of their strategy.
AIPAC’s so-called “research” department has become a major source of information on members of Congress and on “enemies of Israel.” It publishes a confidential monthly report which it sends to Jewish groups and leaders and wealthy donors and a number of friendly writers. Then, over the next few weeks, articles and columns will include the AIPAC “line” on issues of the day as well as details on what various public officials have said and/or done.
It is through these reports that AIPAC is able to shape attitudes and behavior among its supporters. The reports are not always truthful, however.
I have learned from a reporter who regularly covers the lobby, that AIPAC’s research department has an entire drawer devoted to me as an “enemy.” I apparently have the distinction of being second to Jesse Jackson in the numbers of files kept by the lobby.
I can speak first-hand of the political use which AIPAC makes of its “information gathering.” For example, in 1986 I made contributions to a number of Congressional campaigns. After the elections a few of the Congressional offices contacted me to inform me that they had been called by supporters of Israel who noticed on Federal Elections Commission records that they had received contributions from me. The supporters of Israel had wanted the Congressional offices to know who I was and what I stood for. Implicit in these conversations was the message that it would be wise for these members of Congress not to accept my support. To the credit of those whom I and many other Arab Americans have supported in recent years, none have rejected our support.
But the threat is there, and it can be intimidating to some members of Congress.
One might think after all this that the lobby was invincible. But as it reached the peak of its power, cracks in AIPAC’s armor began to appear. And after some review it seems that AIPAC’s successes may be leading it into some deep internal difficulties. I will review these difficulties in next week’s article.
9 aug 1993
Beginning this week, I will be writing a four-part series on the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC, examining the sources of its power and the roots of its current internal and political problems.) The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the powerful pro-Israel lobby, has been hit by a series of crises over the past two years.
AIPAC’s recent problems began in September 1991. Its losing fight against President George Bush over the issue of loan guarantees for Israel was the lobby’s first major legislative defeat in ten years. AIPAC then found itself at odds in mid-1992 with the newly-elected Labor government in Israel. And, finally, within the past six months, after a number of embarrassing press stories and exposes, the organization was hit by the forced resignations of its president, its executive director and one of its vice presidents.
For the first time since the group rose to power, the Jewish press, and even the mainstream newspapers, have run articles asking questions like “Is AIPAC in Trouble?” and “Can AIPAC Survive?”
While a great deal has already been written about AIPAC in the Arab press, much of it has been rhetorical and moralistic, and too little analytical. A more sober political analysis is needed in order to:
1) understand how the lobby really works—and to identify the source of its power and success;
2) review the lobby’s current problems and understand their background; and
3) assess the future of this group that has played such an important role in opposing a balanced U.S.-Arab relationship.
***
Since its inception some 40 years ago, the keys to AIPAC’s success have been:
1) The ability to create a network of influential American Jews and mobilize them to support Israel.
2) The ability to raise substantial amounts of money and to use money in a focused political plan.
3) The ability to create an aura of power.
4) The ability to develop and implement an effective political strategy.
Of course, these factors do not account for U.S. support for Israel, since from the days of Israel’s creation there were both powerful political forces and popular support for the creation of a Jewish state. What AIPAC is responsible for, however, is the total distortion of U.S. policy during the past two decades which has resulted in the virtual implementation of parts of Israel’s agenda by successive Congresses and Administrations. This agenda includes such items as:
--· special and extraordinary economic benefits given exclusively to Israel,
--· silence in the face of repeated Israeli violations of U.S. laws regulating arms sales, economic aid, and U.S. efforts to block or delay implementation by Israel of several United Nations Security Council Resolutions, and
--· repeated opposition to important and mutually beneficial U.S. arms sales to Arab countries,
--· and the adoption of foreign policy initiatives that have forced the U.S. to mimic Israeli policy on key Middle East issues.
So, while public opinion and concern for the fate of the Jewish people after World War II may have at one time accounted for U.S. support for Israel, it is necessary to comprehend the workings of the pro-Israel lobby in order to understand how that support has been distorted to produce the highly unbalanced policy that exists today.
How has AIPAC done it? By a blending of the four keys listed above and detailed below:
The ability to network influential American Jews and mobilize them to support Israel.
Since its earliest days as an organized constituency in the U.S., the Jewish community has been active in social, cultural and political life. In this country they have been a central component in two of our major social transformation movements: organized labor and civil rights. Their leadership in these two movements catapulted many American Jews into major roles in politics and government, and won their community significant allies among other ethnic and racial groups in the U.S.
Americans Jews have also been extraordinarily active in other ways in U.S. politics. For example, they are not only more involved in political parties and campaigns than most other groups, but they also vote in percentages almost twice as high as the national average. Though their overall numbers are small (they are only 2.2% of the U.S. population), the Jewish community is heavily concentrated in a number of politically important states. More than 80% of the Americans Jewish community lives in New York, New Jersey, Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and California. When their percentage of the total population in these states is multiplied by their higher voter-turnout ratio, the importance of the Jewish vote can be seen in each of these states.
State % of Total Vote
New York 16%
New Jersey 10%
Florida 8%
Maryland 8%
Massachusetts 8%
Pennsylvania 6%
California 5.5%
Thus, in national and statewide elections, winning the “Jewish vote” in these states is viewed by politicians as an important key to their success.
In short, because of their long involvement in politics and in political and social movements, the American Jewish community is well-placed and respected throughout all sectors of the political establishment.
What AIPAC has been able to do, since its inception, is to create a network of prominent Jews already active in the political system, organize them, and provide direction to their efforts. The organization has been able to identify Jews who worked for politicians, were friends or associates or major contributors of politicians, and important Jewish leaders who came from the home towns of politicians whom AIPAC hoped to influence. By relying on such a network, the lobby was able to win U.S. aid for the new state of Israel and build a support base in Congress for their pro-Israel initiatives.
Today, AIPAC as an organization has grown in excess of 50,000 members. Using its own networks, but also relying on the organized strength of the other major Jewish groups, AIPAC has been able to accomplish a number of additional political objectives.
--· It has created at least the appearance, and in some cases the reality of being able to deliver a powerful bloc of votes committed to the single issue of Israel.
--· It has expanded its network of prominent political workers, activists, donors and community leaders who work with it to achieve its agenda.
--· It has created its own version of Washington’s famous “revolving door”, as it recruits prominent former Congressional and Administration staff to work at AIPAC and send former AIPAC staff to work in important positions on all levels of government.
Through this process, AIPAC has not only entered the mainstream of U.S. politics, it become a component of the mainstream of the U.S. foreign policy establishment.
The ability to raise substantial amounts of money and to put it to use in a focused political plan.
American Jews have long been viewed as legendary donors in American politics. For example, in the years before campaign finance reform, it was widely reported that in 1968, of the 21 individuals who contributed $100,000 or more to the Presidential campaign of Hubert Humphrey, 15 were Jews. Even now, with campaign finance reform in place, it is estimated that over 50% of the total money raised by the national Democratic Party and 25% of the money raised by the national Republican Party comes form the Jewish community.
But it is not just the amount of the money that accounts for the tremendous influence of the donors—it is the targeting of that money which makes it so important a key to AIPAC’s success.
After suffering a defeat in 1981 in their attempt to block the sale of AWACs to Saudi Arabia, AIPAC decided to become more disciplined in the use of money in political campaigns. Recognizing the possibilities and limits created by campaign finance reform, they helped to create a number of political action committees (PACs) to implement their objectives.
The growth of PACs in U.S. electoral politics was encouraged by the campaign reform laws passed in the late 1970s. These reforms sought to eliminate from elections large contributions from individual donors. The new law limited the amount one person could contribute to $1,000 per candidate per election. The law also allowed for the use of the PACs—a fund that could receive $10,000 from an individual donor and could give $10,000 to a candidate in each election cycle.
At least 60 to 70 pro-Israel PACs currently exist—with 51 of them having AIPAC Board members as officers or directors. In combination these PACs raise and distribute roughly $4,000,000 to Senate and Congressional candidates each election cycle. In effect, the campaign reform laws provided a loophole for large donors. Instead of giving $50,000 each to ten different candidates, they could each now give $5,000 to 10 PACs, which could in turn give $5,000 to the ten candidates, for the same total of $50,000 per donor and the same total of $50,000 to each candidate.
AIPAC was the first to discover this loophole, and exploited it most effectively to circumvent the intention of the new law. In order to work, however, the entire system must be carefully orchestrated—something that is technically illegal, as the law prohibits any cooperation among PACs and prohibits PACs from receiving direction from any source.
While AIPAC claims to have no control over, nor even to have offered advice to, the PACs—since to do so would be a violation of the campaign reform law—most informed observers dismiss this claim. There is significant evidence to point to AIPAC’s direction of the pro-Israel PACs. How else, AIPAC’s critics charge, can one explain how the $4,000,000 coming from 51 PACs each cycle ends up so conveniently distributed and targeted to just the right Senate and Congressional candidates?
This network of PACs and the quantity of money they contribute has been an important new key to the success of the pro-Israel lobby. The PACs have allowed the lobby to:
--· direct money to key races in states where there were no major Jewish donors and few Jewish voters;
--· provide identifiable pro-Israel money in political campaigns so as to make it a factor that politicians take into consideration; and
--· have a mechanism whereby it could visibly reward friends and punish enemies.
Between 1990 and 1992, I did four extensive studies of pro-Israel PACs and their giving patterns in elections. In the 1990 work, “PAC-ing the U.S. Senate,” I found a direct relationship between amounts of money received by a Senator and their voting record on Israel. The Senators with the most consistent pro-Israel records received on average $100,000 per election from the pro-Israel PACs. Meanwhile, the Senators with the records least supportive of Israel averaged less than $8,000 per election from the same PACs.
In a follow-up study on “Pro-Israel PACs and the Gulf Crisis,” I found once again that those Senators who had most consistently voted against arms sales to Gulf countries and any form of U.S.-Gulf security cooperation were consistently among the highest recipients of pro-Israel PAC money. The five highest recipients (Senator Paul Simon of Illinois, Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa, former Senator Rudy Boschwitz of Minnesota and Senator Claiborn Pell of Rhode Island) averaged $360,000 each in the last two elections cycles, and all five had perfect voting records in opposing all pro-Arab legislation.
Finally, in a 1992 study of where those PACs directed their contributions, I observed that more than 20% of all the pro-Israel PAC donations in four successive election years went to just 17 Senators (averaging over $200,000 each). These 17 form a controlling bloc of votes on the two influential Senate committees which oversee all foreign assistance and arms sales abroad (Foreign Relations and Appropriations).
This ability of AIPAC to direct some $4,000,000 each election cycle to a few important Senators has contributed to their political power. And while the overwhelming bulk of the money goes to only a handful of Senators and a few Congressmen (most elected officials receive very little, if any, support), it is the fear that this money could turn against them that keeps many elected officials in line.
A by-product of the creation of PACs and the involvement of AIPAC with major Jewish political contributors has been that, gradually over the past number of years, major wealthy Jewish contributors have been brought into the leadership of the organization and gained positions on its executive board. They now sit alongside the politically savvy operators and Washington insiders who ran the lobby in the past. While their presence has added significant new financial resources to the fuel the lobby, it has also produced tension within the organization and within the Jewish community at large. It is this tension, as we shall see, which accounts for some of AIPAC’s current troubles.
(In next week’s article I will examine how AIPAC has created an aura of power and how it has developed a winning electoral strategy.)
AIPAC’s recent problems began in September 1991. Its losing fight against President George Bush over the issue of loan guarantees for Israel was the lobby’s first major legislative defeat in ten years. AIPAC then found itself at odds in mid-1992 with the newly-elected Labor government in Israel. And, finally, within the past six months, after a number of embarrassing press stories and exposes, the organization was hit by the forced resignations of its president, its executive director and one of its vice presidents.
For the first time since the group rose to power, the Jewish press, and even the mainstream newspapers, have run articles asking questions like “Is AIPAC in Trouble?” and “Can AIPAC Survive?”
While a great deal has already been written about AIPAC in the Arab press, much of it has been rhetorical and moralistic, and too little analytical. A more sober political analysis is needed in order to:
1) understand how the lobby really works—and to identify the source of its power and success;
2) review the lobby’s current problems and understand their background; and
3) assess the future of this group that has played such an important role in opposing a balanced U.S.-Arab relationship.
***
Since its inception some 40 years ago, the keys to AIPAC’s success have been:
1) The ability to create a network of influential American Jews and mobilize them to support Israel.
2) The ability to raise substantial amounts of money and to use money in a focused political plan.
3) The ability to create an aura of power.
4) The ability to develop and implement an effective political strategy.
Of course, these factors do not account for U.S. support for Israel, since from the days of Israel’s creation there were both powerful political forces and popular support for the creation of a Jewish state. What AIPAC is responsible for, however, is the total distortion of U.S. policy during the past two decades which has resulted in the virtual implementation of parts of Israel’s agenda by successive Congresses and Administrations. This agenda includes such items as:
--· special and extraordinary economic benefits given exclusively to Israel,
--· silence in the face of repeated Israeli violations of U.S. laws regulating arms sales, economic aid, and U.S. efforts to block or delay implementation by Israel of several United Nations Security Council Resolutions, and
--· repeated opposition to important and mutually beneficial U.S. arms sales to Arab countries,
--· and the adoption of foreign policy initiatives that have forced the U.S. to mimic Israeli policy on key Middle East issues.
So, while public opinion and concern for the fate of the Jewish people after World War II may have at one time accounted for U.S. support for Israel, it is necessary to comprehend the workings of the pro-Israel lobby in order to understand how that support has been distorted to produce the highly unbalanced policy that exists today.
How has AIPAC done it? By a blending of the four keys listed above and detailed below:
The ability to network influential American Jews and mobilize them to support Israel.
Since its earliest days as an organized constituency in the U.S., the Jewish community has been active in social, cultural and political life. In this country they have been a central component in two of our major social transformation movements: organized labor and civil rights. Their leadership in these two movements catapulted many American Jews into major roles in politics and government, and won their community significant allies among other ethnic and racial groups in the U.S.
Americans Jews have also been extraordinarily active in other ways in U.S. politics. For example, they are not only more involved in political parties and campaigns than most other groups, but they also vote in percentages almost twice as high as the national average. Though their overall numbers are small (they are only 2.2% of the U.S. population), the Jewish community is heavily concentrated in a number of politically important states. More than 80% of the Americans Jewish community lives in New York, New Jersey, Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and California. When their percentage of the total population in these states is multiplied by their higher voter-turnout ratio, the importance of the Jewish vote can be seen in each of these states.
State % of Total Vote
New York 16%
New Jersey 10%
Florida 8%
Maryland 8%
Massachusetts 8%
Pennsylvania 6%
California 5.5%
Thus, in national and statewide elections, winning the “Jewish vote” in these states is viewed by politicians as an important key to their success.
In short, because of their long involvement in politics and in political and social movements, the American Jewish community is well-placed and respected throughout all sectors of the political establishment.
What AIPAC has been able to do, since its inception, is to create a network of prominent Jews already active in the political system, organize them, and provide direction to their efforts. The organization has been able to identify Jews who worked for politicians, were friends or associates or major contributors of politicians, and important Jewish leaders who came from the home towns of politicians whom AIPAC hoped to influence. By relying on such a network, the lobby was able to win U.S. aid for the new state of Israel and build a support base in Congress for their pro-Israel initiatives.
Today, AIPAC as an organization has grown in excess of 50,000 members. Using its own networks, but also relying on the organized strength of the other major Jewish groups, AIPAC has been able to accomplish a number of additional political objectives.
--· It has created at least the appearance, and in some cases the reality of being able to deliver a powerful bloc of votes committed to the single issue of Israel.
--· It has expanded its network of prominent political workers, activists, donors and community leaders who work with it to achieve its agenda.
--· It has created its own version of Washington’s famous “revolving door”, as it recruits prominent former Congressional and Administration staff to work at AIPAC and send former AIPAC staff to work in important positions on all levels of government.
Through this process, AIPAC has not only entered the mainstream of U.S. politics, it become a component of the mainstream of the U.S. foreign policy establishment.
The ability to raise substantial amounts of money and to put it to use in a focused political plan.
American Jews have long been viewed as legendary donors in American politics. For example, in the years before campaign finance reform, it was widely reported that in 1968, of the 21 individuals who contributed $100,000 or more to the Presidential campaign of Hubert Humphrey, 15 were Jews. Even now, with campaign finance reform in place, it is estimated that over 50% of the total money raised by the national Democratic Party and 25% of the money raised by the national Republican Party comes form the Jewish community.
But it is not just the amount of the money that accounts for the tremendous influence of the donors—it is the targeting of that money which makes it so important a key to AIPAC’s success.
After suffering a defeat in 1981 in their attempt to block the sale of AWACs to Saudi Arabia, AIPAC decided to become more disciplined in the use of money in political campaigns. Recognizing the possibilities and limits created by campaign finance reform, they helped to create a number of political action committees (PACs) to implement their objectives.
The growth of PACs in U.S. electoral politics was encouraged by the campaign reform laws passed in the late 1970s. These reforms sought to eliminate from elections large contributions from individual donors. The new law limited the amount one person could contribute to $1,000 per candidate per election. The law also allowed for the use of the PACs—a fund that could receive $10,000 from an individual donor and could give $10,000 to a candidate in each election cycle.
At least 60 to 70 pro-Israel PACs currently exist—with 51 of them having AIPAC Board members as officers or directors. In combination these PACs raise and distribute roughly $4,000,000 to Senate and Congressional candidates each election cycle. In effect, the campaign reform laws provided a loophole for large donors. Instead of giving $50,000 each to ten different candidates, they could each now give $5,000 to 10 PACs, which could in turn give $5,000 to the ten candidates, for the same total of $50,000 per donor and the same total of $50,000 to each candidate.
AIPAC was the first to discover this loophole, and exploited it most effectively to circumvent the intention of the new law. In order to work, however, the entire system must be carefully orchestrated—something that is technically illegal, as the law prohibits any cooperation among PACs and prohibits PACs from receiving direction from any source.
While AIPAC claims to have no control over, nor even to have offered advice to, the PACs—since to do so would be a violation of the campaign reform law—most informed observers dismiss this claim. There is significant evidence to point to AIPAC’s direction of the pro-Israel PACs. How else, AIPAC’s critics charge, can one explain how the $4,000,000 coming from 51 PACs each cycle ends up so conveniently distributed and targeted to just the right Senate and Congressional candidates?
This network of PACs and the quantity of money they contribute has been an important new key to the success of the pro-Israel lobby. The PACs have allowed the lobby to:
--· direct money to key races in states where there were no major Jewish donors and few Jewish voters;
--· provide identifiable pro-Israel money in political campaigns so as to make it a factor that politicians take into consideration; and
--· have a mechanism whereby it could visibly reward friends and punish enemies.
Between 1990 and 1992, I did four extensive studies of pro-Israel PACs and their giving patterns in elections. In the 1990 work, “PAC-ing the U.S. Senate,” I found a direct relationship between amounts of money received by a Senator and their voting record on Israel. The Senators with the most consistent pro-Israel records received on average $100,000 per election from the pro-Israel PACs. Meanwhile, the Senators with the records least supportive of Israel averaged less than $8,000 per election from the same PACs.
In a follow-up study on “Pro-Israel PACs and the Gulf Crisis,” I found once again that those Senators who had most consistently voted against arms sales to Gulf countries and any form of U.S.-Gulf security cooperation were consistently among the highest recipients of pro-Israel PAC money. The five highest recipients (Senator Paul Simon of Illinois, Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa, former Senator Rudy Boschwitz of Minnesota and Senator Claiborn Pell of Rhode Island) averaged $360,000 each in the last two elections cycles, and all five had perfect voting records in opposing all pro-Arab legislation.
Finally, in a 1992 study of where those PACs directed their contributions, I observed that more than 20% of all the pro-Israel PAC donations in four successive election years went to just 17 Senators (averaging over $200,000 each). These 17 form a controlling bloc of votes on the two influential Senate committees which oversee all foreign assistance and arms sales abroad (Foreign Relations and Appropriations).
This ability of AIPAC to direct some $4,000,000 each election cycle to a few important Senators has contributed to their political power. And while the overwhelming bulk of the money goes to only a handful of Senators and a few Congressmen (most elected officials receive very little, if any, support), it is the fear that this money could turn against them that keeps many elected officials in line.
A by-product of the creation of PACs and the involvement of AIPAC with major Jewish political contributors has been that, gradually over the past number of years, major wealthy Jewish contributors have been brought into the leadership of the organization and gained positions on its executive board. They now sit alongside the politically savvy operators and Washington insiders who ran the lobby in the past. While their presence has added significant new financial resources to the fuel the lobby, it has also produced tension within the organization and within the Jewish community at large. It is this tension, as we shall see, which accounts for some of AIPAC’s current troubles.
(In next week’s article I will examine how AIPAC has created an aura of power and how it has developed a winning electoral strategy.)
