AIPAC Could Face First Test In Decades

AIPAC’s relationship with the Obama administration hinges on the policies of Bibi Netanyahu, above.

by James D. Besser
Washington Correspondent

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which holds its annual policy conference in Washington next week, could face its toughest battle with an administration in more than a decade, depending on the proposals Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu brings to Washington later in May.

Press attention has focused on mounting criticism of the Israel lobby in left-wing and foreign policy circles and the continuing shadow cast by the Espionage Act trial of two former employees. But the real challenge facing AIPAC may be diverging policy in Washington and Jerusalem — with AIPAC and its supporters in the American Jewish community caught in the middle.

“AIPAC hasn’t had a major fight on its hands since the loan guarantee battle of 1991 — which it lost,” said Dan Fleshler, a New York publicist who has worked with a number of dovish pro-Israel groups and is the author of a new book on AIPAC, “Transforming America’s Israel Lobby.”

“AIPAC could be facing the first real test of its power in a long time,” Fleshler continued. “They are going to do everything possible to avoid a confrontation. The real question is whether Bibi has the same goal.”
In past fights with an American administration, Netanyahu looked to AIPAC as a key ally.

So far the omens are mixed. A series of statements from Jerusalem, including last week’s assertion that Israel will not engage with the Palestinians until Washington deals with Iran, prompted stern responses from the administration and a reiteration of U.S. support for a two-state solution and an Annapolis peace process Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman publicly rejected.

“There’s a game of verbal ping-pong going on now,” said David Makovsky, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a pro-Israel think tank. “It’s being driven by statements coming out of Jerusalem. That’s not ideal, because I think it’s everybody’s goal to avoid a fight.”

Even more challenging could be the question of U.S. Iran policy, AIPAC’s top policy priority in recent years.

While the immediate trigger for U.S-Israel tension will likely involve issues such as settlements, illegal outposts and Washington’s desire for confidence-building gestures by both Israel and the Palestinians, any move by Netanyahu to make progress on Iran a precondition for new negotiations with the Palestinians will likely produce a strongly negative response from an administration that regards both as critical priorities, analysts say — and put AIPAC on the firing line.

With new legislation in the works to toughen sanctions against the Tehran regime, Iran will once again be a dominant theme at the policy conference.

If new tensions do emerge along the Jerusalem-Washington axis, the big lobby group will face a different political climate from the last time it went head-to-head with an administration, said former AIPAC Executive Director Neal Sher.

Changes include pro-peace process groups that have the ear of important Obama administration policymakers, a Congress with a strong Democratic majority and a new Democratic president with unusually high approval ratings. 

“Right now everything hinges on Bibi,” Sher said. “If there is a confrontation, it remains to be seen if AIPAC is up to that kind of test in the current climate.”

In recent weeks AIPAC, accused by some detractors of tilting to the political right here and in Israel, has been reinforcing relationships with key Capitol Hill Democrats, although the group lacks the tight leadership ties it had when the Republicans were running both Houses of Congress.

The group’s next president will be one of Obama’s staunchest and earliest supporters in the Jewish community: Lee Rosenberg, a Chicago businessman and Democratic activist, who will be introduced as president-elect at next week’s policy conference and take the reins in 2010.

AIPAC officials won’t say who will represent the Obama administration at the conference, but word on the pro-Israel street is that it will be Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Vice President Joe Biden or both.

AIPAC officials undoubtedly hope to avoid strong outbursts by delegates against a new administration it must get along with for the next four years, but that could be harder because of another scheduled keynoter — former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), one of the administration’s most scathing foreign policy critics and a longtime ally of both AIPAC and Netanyahu.

Early speculation had Netanyahu coming to Washington both to address the conference and hold his inaugural meetings with Obama. That won’t happen, according to reports in the Israeli press, because Netanyahu needs time to flesh out his new government’s policies.

“It’s a good sign that he delayed the trip by three weeks,” said the Washington Institute’s Makovsky. “A week ago, the betting money would have said he couldn’t resist the temptation of speaking to 6,000 American Jews who are ardent supporters of Israel. But it’s better to take his time and make sure he gets off on the right foot.”

Instead, AIPAC insiders say President Shimon Peres will represent Israel at the conference.

Shadowing the conference will be the unfolding controversy enveloping Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), who was reportedly taped in a federal wiretap offering to intervene on behalf of two former AIPAC officials awaiting trial for passing along government secrets. At press time Harman was still scheduled as a policy conference speaker.

Few observers doubt AIPAC will adjust to the dramatic shift to Democratic dominance in Washington.

While the press has made much of a new challenger on the scene — J Street, the pro-peace process lobby and political action committee — AIPAC retains an unmatched activist network in congressional districts across the country and connections to countless donors to political campaigns, a critical element in its reputation for Capitol Hill clout.

But the fact is, that clout has not been put to the test for many years.

“For more than a decade, they’ve been pushing against open doors,” said former AIPAC director Sher. “You can get resolutions passed, letters of support and overwhelming support for foreign aid, but those are issues members of Congress are not spending any political capital on; they’re no-brainers.”
If the Netanyahu government chooses to push back against an administration that demands quick progress on the Israeli-Palestinian front, “the test is this: can AIPAC get enough Democrats to take on a popular Democratic administration?” Sher asked.

The answer is not simple. Even ardently pro-Israel Democrats may be reluctant to pick a fight with the high-flying Obama. At the same time, some Democrats will be anxious about 2010 midterm elections — and reluctant to risk pro-Israel campaign donations by picking a fight with AIPAC, Sher said.

What’s far from clear on the eve of the policy conference is this: how much of the tough talk from Jerusalem is just that — talk meant for domestic political consumption. Many observers believe the new Netanyahu government will go to great lengths to avoid the conflict recent newspaper reports seem to regard as inevitable.

Gilbert Kahn, a Kean University political scientist, said that while Netanyahu probably wants to avoid a disruptive fight with the Obama administration, “We don’t know what the internal politics of this coalition are. Bibi is extremely pragmatic; the question is whether he can hold his coalition together if he demonstrates that pragmatism.”

Netanyahu may also be willing to make compromises on the Israeli-Palestinian front to win stronger U.S. action on Iran — but whether he can pull that off without fracturing his coalition and angering the White House remains to be seen.

“The last eight years were essentially a cakewalk for AIPAC,” he said. “That could change, but it’s in Bibi’s hands.”

“AIPAC could be facing the first real test of its power in a long time,” said author Dan Fleshler. “AIPAC, I believe, will do everything possible to avoid a confrontation.”

Netanyahu, he said, may not be on the same page — but a confrontation is by no means a certainty.

“Right now what we’re seeing is a game of diplomatic chicken before the real hard decisions are made,” he said.

I, Antichrist?

This is why Christian Evangelicals' support for Jews and Israel is so suspect. J Street, listen up. AIPAC, too. RS

I, Antichrist?

I'm Jewish. I'm male. I'm alive. By Jerry Falwell's standards, that puts me on the short-list of candidates.

By Jeffrey Goldberg





Posted Friday, Nov. 5, 1999, at 3:30 AM ET

Early one shiny autumn morning, I got in my car and drove to Lynchburg, Va., in order to find out whether or not I am the Antichrist. You know: the Beast, the Worthless Shepherd, the Little Horn, the Abomination, the linchpin of the Diabolical Trinity. That Antichrist.

I had my suspicions. Nowhere on my body could I find the mark of the Beast--666--but I do have a freckle that's shaped like Bermuda. And though I have never been seized by a desire to lead the armies of Satan in a final, bloody confrontation with the forces of God on the plain of Armageddon, I do suffer from aggravated dyspepsia, as well as chronic malaise, conditions that I'm sure afflict the Antichrist.

The surest suspicion I had about my pivotal role in Christian eschatology grew from the fact that I am Jewish, male, and alive. These are the qualifications for the job of Antichrist as specified by Lynchburg's most famous preacher, Jerry Falwell, in a speech he made earlier this year.

I was actually going to see the Rev. Falwell on a different matter, the future of Jerusalem, but I thought I might just slip this question--the one about me maybe being the Antichrist--into the stream of the interview. Falwell, I guessed, wouldn't be happy to discuss his views on the identity of the Antichrist--he had apologized for the remark but took quite a load of grief for it anyway.

As it turned out, though, Falwell was eager to talk about the Antichrist. And, as it also turned out, he didn't really feel bad for saying what he said. In fact, he was more convinced than ever that the Antichrist is a Jew who walks among us.

Let me pause for a moment to give three concise reasons why I'm so curious about the identity of the Antichrist:

1) I think I speak for all the approximately 4.5 million adult male Jews in the world when I say that we get a little antsy when Christians start looking at us like we're the devil. This is on account of Christian behavior over the past 2,000 years, by which I mean blood libels and pogroms and inquisitions, those sorts of things.

2) I've always been possessed by the delusional notion that I am to play a major role in world history, so why not a role in the End of Days? And I don't mean the Schwarzenegger movie.

3) Now that we stand on the lip of the millennium, much of the evangelical Christian world is in the grip of Armageddon fever, and, according to the evangelical interpretation of the books of Daniel and Revelation, the Antichrist will make his appearance before Christ makes his, and his is looking kinda imminent. The Antichrist, in this reading, will be a world leader who strikes a peace deal with Israel, only to betray the Jewish state and make war on it, until Jesus comes to the rescue. The thankful Jews, those who are still alive, will then become Christians and live happily ever after. These beliefs, held by tens of millions of Christians are, journalistically speaking, worthy of note.

The day before my visit with the Rev. Falwell, I had just finished reading a novelistic treatment of these events, Assassins, which is subtitled Assignment: Jerusalem, Target: Antichrist. Assassins is the sixth book in the "Left Behind" series, "left behind" referring to those unfortunate nonevangelical Christians who are not taken up to heaven in the Rapture--the opening act in God's end days plan--and are forced to contend with the Antichrist's evil reign on Earth. The "Left Behind" series, co-written by Tim LaHaye, the prominent right-wing screwball and husband of Beverly LaHaye, the even more prominent right-wing screwball, and Jerry B. Jenkins, who, his biography states, is the author of 130 books, which is a lot of books for one guy to write, is a phenomenon. Ten million copies of the series have sold already--hundreds in my local PriceClub alone. "Left Behind" is the Harry Potter of the Armageddon set.

The notable thing for me about the "Left Behind" series--beside the fact that few in the secular media have noticed that millions of Americans are busy reading books warning about the imminence of one-world government, mass death, and the return of the Messiah, is that all the Jewish characters are Christian. LaHaye and Jenkins are both active participants in the absurd and feverish campaign by some evangelical Christians to redefine Judaism in a way that allows for belief in Jesus.

Jews (and again, I feel comfortable speaking for all of us here) find this sort of Christian imperialism just a wee bit offensive. Just imagine if Jews began an official campaign calling Muhammad irrelevant to Islam--can you imagine the fatwas that would produce?

But evangelical leaders, who are, in my experience, uniformly kind and generous in their personal relations, can also be terribly obnoxious in their relations with Jews.

There is only one road to salvation for Jews, and that road runs through Jesus, LaHaye told me. To his credit, though, LaHaye doesn't believe that the Antichrist will be Jewish. He will be a European gentile, who will kill lots of Jews. "The Jews will be forced to accept the idolatry of the Antichrist or be beheaded," he said. This will take place during the seven-year Tribulation.

Jewish suffering, though, is divinely ordained. Even though the Antichrist will not be Jewish, Jews are still capable of great evil and have often been punished for their evil, LaHaye explained. "Some of the greatest evil in the history of the world was concocted in the Jewish mind," LaHaye told me, for reasons that aren't entirely clear--he knew what the name "Goldberg" generally signifies. "Sigmund Freud, Marx, these were Jewish minds that were infected with atheism."

I asked LaHaye to tell me more about the Jewish mind.





"The Jewish brain also has the capacity for great good," he explained. "God gave the Jews great intelligence. He didn't give them great size or physical power--you don't see too many Jews in the NFL--but he gave them great minds."

Of all the evangelical leaders I have interviewed, LaHaye is capable of some of the most anti-Semitic utterances, which is troublesome, because he is also the most popular author in the evangelical world.

The Rev. Falwell is smoother than LaHaye. He acknowledges "where the sensitivity comes from," though he shows no understanding of the role the myth of the Antichrist played in the history of anti-Semitism, and he refuses to back away from his opinion that somewhere in Great Neck or West L.A. or Shaker Heights is living Satan's agent.

"In my opinion," he told me, "the Antichrist will be a counterfeit of the true Christ, which means that he will be male and Jewish, since Jesus was male and Jewish."

I asked him if he understood that such statements strip Jews of their humanity, which is the first step anti-Semites take before they kill them. He responded, "All the Jewish people we do business with on a daily basis, not one has ever got upset over this." It is not Jews who picked this most recent fight, he said, it is supporters of President Clinton.

"Billy Graham made the same statement a dozen times last year, but there was no comment about that," Falwell said. "But Billy Graham was not calling for the resignation of the president." Falwell, you'll recall, is no fan of Clinton's; he has even peddled a video accusing the president of murder.

Falwell is right: Evangelical preachers are constantly accusing the Jews of harboring the Antichrist.

I asked Falwell if he knew the actual identity of the Antichrist. No, he said. "People might say, it's a certain person, it's Henry Kissinger, like that, but the Lord does not let us know that."

So there's a chance, then, that I'm the Antichrist?

Falwell chuckled a condescending chuckle. "It's almost amusing, that question. Of course not. I know that you're not."

Why?

"The Antichrist will be a world leader, he'll have supernatural powers," he said.

He got me there--I have no supernatural powers. I can't even drive a stick shift.

I pressed him further on the identity of the Antichrist, but Falwell wouldn't play. "We'll know the Antichrist when he arrives," he said.

Most evangelical leaders, in fact, refuse to publicly guess the name of the Antichrist--though, as Falwell suggests, Kissinger is a perennial favorite, at least among those evangelicals who believe the Antichrist will be Jewish. For most of their history, Christian leaders had been content to ascribe the characteristics of the Antichrist to the Jewish people as a whole. "Ever since the 2nd century CE, the very beginning of the Antichrist legend, Christians have associated Jews with everything unholy," Andrew Gow, who teaches Christian history at the University of Alberta, told me. In the minds of early Christian leaders, the church was the new Israel; God's covenant with the Jews was obsolete. Therefore, the Jews who remained on Earth were there to serve devilish purposes, Gow explained.

There are plenty of evangelical thinkers who differ with Falwell, who believe, like LaHaye, that the Antichrist will be a gentile who rises out of Europe. "The Antichrist is supposed to make a peace treaty with Israel," Ed Hindson, the author of Is the Antichrist Alive and Well?, explained. "Why would a Jew make a peace treaty with a Jewish state?"

Hindson suggested that Satan will make the Antichrist the leader of the European Union--the revived Roman Empire, eternal enemy of Israel--though Hindson disputed one popular idea advocated by Monte Judah, an Oklahoma-based prophecy-teacher, that Prince Charles is the Antichrist.

"There's no way Prince Charles is the Antichrist," Hindson said. "Satan can do better than that."

In his book, Hindson runs through a list of potential candidates. Bill Clinton is there, of course, as well as Saddam Hussein and Ronald Wilson Reagan (six letters in each of his three names. Get it?).

Of course, none of these men are gay.

"It says in the Bible that the Antichrist will have 'no regard for women,' and so many evangelicals interpret that to mean that he will be a homosexual," Hindson said, though he added that he's not entirely convinced.

This idea--the Antichrist as gay--strikes a chord with many evangelicals, just as the idea that the Antichrist is Jewish strikes a chord.

I gradually came to see how far-fetched it was to think that I might be the Antichrist. I'm not gay, I'm not famous, I wouldn't know a euro if I found one in my wallet.

Then it struck me: Barry Diller is the Antichrist.

There's no way to know for sure. But if you wake up one morning to read that Barry Diller is the head of the European Union (and that David Geffen is his deputy), well, remember where you read it first.

Obama's Speech to AIPAC June 4, 2008 - FULL 37:22

Phil Gramm Enabling Osama's Bankers - Making US and Israel Unsafe from Terror

As McCain gets up in front of AIPAC and beats his chest in front of a lot of people who still think that Barack Obama is a Muslim terrorist or, alternatively, a member of the Weather Underground circa 1970, word comes from Washington that McCain's chief economic adviser, Dr. Phil Gramm a former longtime Senator from Texas and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and formerly in the employ of UBS, an enormous Swiss Banking concern, made it easier for terrorists to use US Banks to deal with foriegn banks who do business with terrorists who, for example, want to kill all Americans and of course Jews. And McCain blithely diddles through his non-campaign supported by people who apparently do not care about what or whom they are or were affiliated with directly and how those decisions have affected this country for the worse. Shameless, amoral folks, they are.

Randy Shiner

Countdown: McCain’s Lobbyist Campaign Co-Chair Phil Gramm Creating More Controversy
By: Logan Murphy on Monday, June 2nd, 2008 at 7:06 PM - PDT

Last week we brought you this story about McCain campaign Co-Chair Phil Gramm and his lobbying efforts that put him on the wrong side of the ongoing mortgage foreclosure crisis. Now, it appears Gramm’s association with the aging Republican senator’s campaign is doing far more harm that previously known. UBS, a bank for which Gramm lobbied, is now under investigation for alleged use of overseas tax havens to hide assets of its wealthy clients from U.S. authorities — while in office, Gramm also supported these tax havens after 9/11, which hampered the government’s ability to track Osama bin Laden’s financial network before 9/11.