June 1992, Page 16, 17

AIPAC's 1992 National Convention-Two Views

AIPAC 1992: Unbroken, Unrepentant, Unreflective, Unconscious and Unreal

By Andrew I. Killgore

Six months after the event, delegates to the national convention of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee were still reeling from the shock of what its executive director, Thomas Dine, called "a day that lives in infamy for the American pro-Israeli community." In case anyone in his Washington, DC audience didn't remember, Dine described Sept. 12, 1991 as the day when "this president did what no other president has done-he held a special press conference on this issue and challenged not just congressional efforts to proceed with the guarantees legislation, but Israel's overall aid levels."

On the surface, the 2,000 delegates looked as confident as ever. But the slogan on the badges was "American, Pro-Israeli, and Proud," a reaction to the national mood, evoked by the president, which shows little sympathy for the loan guarantees.

Few of the delegates, however, seemed to be natural hawks. They represented traditional American Jewish liberalism rather than Kahane country. One couldn't help thinking that if any other country, even the U.S., behaved the way Israel does, many of these people would be leading the outraged protests.

So, even if the delegates missed beholding the beam in their eyes, the mote seemed to cause considerable discomfort. About three-quarters of the delegates ostentatiously sat through standing ovations for the more hawkish statements, such as Israeli Ambassador Zalman Shoval's "we shall never return to the 1967 borders," or Florida Senator Connie Mack's "I don't see why Israel should back down one iota on settlements."

Some squirmed with embarrassment when Delaware Senator Joe Biden referred to aid to Israel becoming an issue "susceptible to demagoguery, presenting it as largesse, instead of an obligation," in a hyperbolic speech, shouted rather than delivered.

Florida Representative Larry Smith, Israel's most crudely aggressive congressional supporter, who has since announced he will not be running for re-election, dropped the conference mask of official confidence at a private meeting to support Governor William Clinton for president. He claimed that while most of the men and women on Capitol Hill agreed with AIPAC about Israel, sentiment is running the other way among voters in their districts. Since the president's speech on Sept. 12, "a defining moment in American history," as he called it, the mail has supported the president. His own mailbag, containing "vituperative" and "bitter" letters, has run 40 to 1 against his attempt to "set Baker right" at the House Committee.

The president had "poisoned the well" against Israel "for domestic reasons," Smith said, "by singling out Jews." Above all, he warned, the president had made the loan guarantees a "hot stove issue, one that members don't want to touch with a 10-foot pole."

His point about the mailbags was confirmed by AIPAC Vice President Harriet Zimmerman who said, "We are getting murdered in the local press. Israel has become a news item in local newspapers and TV stations. Local radio talk shows are hitting on Israel."

The comments touched upon AIPAC's biggest weakness. Like all special interest groups lobbying in Washington, it flourishes best when shielded from public scrutiny. It is easy to see why the mere threat of another speech by Bush publicly criticizing both Israel and its congressional supporters was enough to scare senators into dropping amendments which would have mandated adding the loan guarantees to the foreign aid resolution.

In that context, Steve Rosen, AIPAC's director of foreign policy issues, revealed a hitherto unknown last-minute congressional ploy. "Our friends in the Senate" he said, tried to "craft yet another compromise and this one involved a set of loan guarantees that wouldn't even go to the government of Israel. They would instead be loan guarantees to American corporations to invest in Israel, form joint partnerships, joint ventures, and buy out Israeli government firms who are being privatized and so on, and truly have nothing to do with settlements. The money would all have to be invested inside the Green Line, lots of restrictions."

The fact that Secretary of State James Baker rejected it, Rosen said, proved that the administration wanted capitulation, not compromise. Rosen told delegates that the peace process would not survive unless the loan guarantees were put back on track. He argued that, to make peace, the Israelis have to take risks with people they don't trust, like the Palestinians and Syrians. They will only take that risk if they are confident of support from the U.S. president, Rosen said. He maintained that the administration's refusal to accept suggested compromises on the loan guarantees make it "very difficult to see how at that critical moment the people of Israel will be able to believe the sincerity of the administration's profession that it believes in the U.S.-Israeli relationship."

In fact, the peace process was hardly a major theme of the conference, except in terms of leverage to get more aid from the U.S. The 2,000 delegates at the conference were joined by others for a mass lobby of the Congress. They concentrated on three issues: support for foreign aid, support for loan guarantees, and opposition to the sale of 72 F-15s to Saudi Arabia.

Rosen also had much to tell delegates about AIPACs success in entwining the Israeli-U.S. defense relationship-despite the strains of U.S. intelligence reports that Israel had sold secret U.S. military technology to China. Ten years ago, Israeli military exports were valued at $10 million annually. Now, following the Reagan-era honeymoon, Israeli military exports amount to $500 million annually. According to the Department of Defense, Rosen said, there now are 321 U.S.-Israeli joint programs in defense research and development, worth $2.9 billion.

In addition to the items they took to the Hill, platform speakers picked up themes suggested in the policy document adopted by the conference. They stressed the "inalienable" constitutional right of citizens to lobby their representatives. The implication was that by responding publicly to their September lobbying campaign, Bush had threatened their right to lobby, instead of simply their objectives. Other themes were Israel's continuing role as a "strategic asset" to the United States, combined with shared "Judeo-Christian values" (referring to monotheism would have included Islam, which, of course, this definition seeks to exclude).

While all this is expected of a lobbying group seeking grass roots support, what was surprising was the lack of critical self-analysis which the experience of the loan guarantees should have generated. For example, the policy document was adopted without debate or amendment in the convention itself, in a manner which would have done credit to a Syrian presidential election.

The lack of public debate implied no recognition that AIPAC was badly wounded on the loan guarantee issue, and that its reliance on Realpolitik has backfired. Because there was no media debate about AIPAC's deals during the eight years of the Reagan presidency, there is seemingly no AIPAC realization that President Bush's principal weapon is simply to inform the public of AIPAC plans. Thus future private deals with congressmen are off.

Perhaps the most critical element missing from the convention was open to discussion of the fact that, by allowing AIPAC's leadership to support Likud and Shamir on settlements, occupation and repression, Israel's supporters are losing the battle for the hearts and minds of American voters. Even the tactics pursued by AIPAC and its affiliated political action committees for campaign financing and influence buying are precisely what many voters have shown distaste for in the current primaries.

The ability of AIPAC to delude itself was apparent in its policy statement, which says that Israel has voted with the U.S. at the U.N. more than any other country, even Britain and Canada. To more objective eyes, this looks more like the U.S. voting to defend Israel against the united judgment of the rest of the world.

However, any rumors of AIPAC's demise would be exaggerated. The lobby claimed the attendance of 46 senators, 78 representatives, and numerous State Department officials (along with the ambassador of China) at the evening banquet to indicate the reality of AIPAC's continuing power.

Furthermore, there was one particularly stark reminder. Introducing U.S. Vice President J. Danforth Quayle, AIPAC President David Steiner announced that his guest was just a heartbeat away from the presidency-"and his heart is with us!" It was a frightening reminder of how much the current mood of reality in the administration depends upon Bush and Baker.

Ian Williams is a British journalist based at the United Nations.

Green for Goyim: Covering the AIPAC Convention with the "Wrong" Press Credentials

By Eugene Bird

It was the largest gathering ever held of committed American Jewish supporters of hard-line lobbying on behalf of Israel. A claimed 3,000 delegates from every state and all major centers of Jewish life in America gathered at the Sheraton ballroom in Washington in early April to hear both Democrat and Republican legislators and the vice president of the United States. Day Quayle opened his remarks by greeting "Fellow Zionists."

And the vice president was mobbed afterward by some of the 1,000 student delegates from more than 100 colleges around the nation. They wanted to shake his hand, to touch him, to shout words of encouragement. For what they heard was that this administration is as dedicated to a close relation with Israel as before the loan guarantee fight. They also heard from Israeli Ambassador Zalman Shoval and from Senators Joe Biden (D-DE), Connie Mack (R-FL) and Robert Kasten (D-WI) that the loan guarantee request would be left on the table in the Congress and definitely would be taken up later this year.

Senator Biden used stump-speech techniques, sometimes shouting and sometimes lowering his voice to a whisper to denounce the George Bush-James Baker policy toward the Middle East like an old-fashioned preacher.

Yet even he seemed to admit that everything has changed. One observer described his speech as defensive, brittle and unconvincing-whistling in the dark. And conversations with individual Jewish delegates revealed their uncertainty that the course laid down by AIPAC in support of Israel, regardless of the consequences for American foreign policy or for real peace in the Middle East, was wise or in the long-term interest of either Israel or of American Jews.

One said at dinner, "You know, no one should take Biden seriously here. He is a cheer leader. He helps us, of course, but does opposing the peace talks or ignoring them or disparaging them really make sense? I don't think so." Another remarked how many of her friends at home were divided over the peace talks. They know this is an opportunity that could be lost by the hard-line Shamir approach.

Press people were issued green cards if they were non-Jewish or from non-Jewish publications and white cards if they were of Jewish origin, giving them the right to attend the smaller AIPAC legislative and strategy sessions. The resulting coverage by both television and non-Jewish print media was both broad and superficial.

When Dan Quayle cited in his speech the many accomplishments of the administration on behalf of U.S.-Israeli relations, he pointed out that without Reagan-Bush:

The great Soviet emigration (channeled to Israel) would not have occurred.

The rescue of Ethiopian Jewry would not have happened.

The "Zionism is Racism" resolution would still stand.

Direct peace talks, on terms Israel "has rightly sought for 43 years" would not be a reality.

And Iraq might be threatening Israel's very survival today.

But when he added, "I think you will agree: Ronald Reagan's presidency and George Bush's presidency have been good for Israel," there were a few audible boos from the audience. Yet he was affectionately mobbed a few minutes later and took 15 minutes to move out of the auditorium.

The bruised AIPAC organization has obviously recovered a lot since its stunning defeat last autumn. It still is capable of mustering votes and gaining a hearing for its peculiar arguments that ignore Arab concessions for peace and endorse Israeli seizure and retention of still more Arab lands to buttress Israeli security.

But the irrationality of such policies and the disillusionment of increasing numbers of American Jews with Israel's ideology of never-ending confrontation with its Arab neighbors may make even the most ardent AIPAC member pause to ponder: Are Bush administration officials or the hard-line hired guns of AIPAC the real "enemies of the Jews"?

Eugene Bird, a retired U.S. foreign service officer, is diplomatic correspondent for the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.

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