Woke up this morning to see that the lobby’s war against President Obama’s agreement with Iran is the second lede in the New York Times. Read it here. Surprisingly, the Times mentions AIPAC by name which is rare. Note also Democratic senator Ben Cardin (MD) calling out the president for criticizing the lobby’s effort rather than calling out the lobby that he is so tight with for obstructing U.S. policy. Note also that Carl Levin, no surprise for him, is fiercely supporting the agreement and his president.
The article states that passage of the AIPAC resolution, followed by a veto override, would be an “historic repudiation” of the president. “Democrats recognize the delicacy of Mr. Obama’s signing the first veto of his presidency on an Iran bill, and to have that first veto overridden would be a historic repudiation. But Democrats said the current lull can hold only for a matter of weeks, not months.”
That could mean that AIPAC will use its March “policy conference” as the venue for an all out campaign to defeat the agreement, thereby putting the United States, in the White House’s words, on a “march to war.”
Here is the list of senators who support the AIPAC sanctions bill. (Cory Booker has certainly started his Senate career in a particularly irresponsible way). I suggest emailing the Democrats to express your views. And, if you happen to be a big donor, call your senator. It is, after all, the donors, who senators respond to. Especially on issues like these.
On a happier note, Ron Kampeas of JTA reports that the National Jewish Democratic Council has attacked both AIPAC and the American Jewish Committee for “strong-arm tactics, essentially threatening people that if they don’t vote a particular way, that somehow that makes them anti-Israel or means the abandonment of the Jewish community.” It is specifically referring to the Iran issue. See Rabbi Jack Moline’s statement here.
Most of the people who receive this are Jewish, To put it mildly, we have a special responsibility not to permit the lobby (and its Congressional cutouts) to obstruct the president’s effort to avert war in our name. Anyone who knows anything about Jewish history will understand that the lobby’s effort is singularly dangerous as well as wrong.
For the record, an email from an Israeli family named Horowitz that arrived this morning: January 14, 2014 3;33 AM I, and my family, are Israelis living and working in Tel-Aviv (sic) and loving our country.A simple question entered my mind on reading your article. Have AIPAC and American Jews gone completely insane?”
Have we?
Can you find AIPAC mengioned in the article. I can’t. To suggest yhs AIPAC wrote the bill is the same ad suggesting American Jews control the mechanism of yhr US government. This is your 2nd blog in as many days. I find this disturbing.
Read it again.
Where does it say except in your own mind that AIPAC wrote the bill?
That is what AIPAC does. It has a huge legislative operation to write all Congressional bills on the Middle East. You need to take a course on American government. ALL legislation is written by one lobby or another.
So you hate AIPAC, you dipise Israel. You’re an anti Semites dream
Jake’s response here is a perfect example of the violations of our comments policy. You cannot use our website to throw charges of racism, anti-Semitism or other attacks on individuals. You can argue against or for a particular analysis. You can try to make an argument that anyone who criticizes Israel is covertly or overtly an anti-Semite (though this is certainly a mistaken position, as I’ve demonstrated in my book The Socialism of Fools: Anti-Semitism on the Left). But you cannot attack individuals and throw charges at them of being racist anti-Semitic, etc. in the way that Jake has done without being permanently banned from our website.
Rabbi Lerner, Your selective outrage is noted. There is a blog that you responded to, “Israel:Dream Dies”, where a where one of the responders posted s link tobhus anti Semitic website Have a look see at Rahmat. You clearly saw it and gave his hostility and bigotry a pass. What do we call it, hypocracy?