AIPAC

For my politics class, I had to do a research paper on an interest group, and I chose AIPAC, the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee. I eventually finished the paper, but I continued to research AIPAC because it was so interesting.

AIPAC is one of the most influential lobbies in the United States. It has over 100,000 members, a multi million dollar budget, and it is extremely effective as the watch dog for Israel. Some have found AIPAC's methods to be rather underhanded (a lot of their influence comes from their ability to direct where campaign money goes), and many people are concerned with the unhealthy amount of power that AIPAC has over legislation, especially where Israel is concerned.

When I talk to people about it, though, nobody seems to know anything about it. My friend just came back from Israel, and she said that Israelis don't really know that much about it either. Everything that I read about is so polarized, too. Proponents of AIPAC are die hard defenders of the organization and Israel, and dissenters are labeled Anti Semitic, and it's hard to find something that doesn't seem biased.

What do you guys think? Is AIPAC the villain/godsend that people make it out to be? Or is it just a very efficient lobby?

How ya doing, buddy?

I think that any thread that starts out with "For my ______ class I had to......" is doomed to failure.

It's tough to deny their influence. I'm rather anti-zionist myself (not to be confused with anti-semetic), so I disagree with their goals, but I have to respect their abilities.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

There's no doubt about their power in the US government. Personally I think its a huge problem and a conflict of interest (especially since this administration has people with dual American-Israeli citizenship). It seems that no prominent figures within the government have a chance if they don't have AIPAC's backing. I'd consider what they do tantamount to blackmail, and they are quite good at keeping it quiet.

Israel itself is an abomination that inflicts unspeakable horrors to the Palestinian people and should never have been created in the first place. Thanks to our huge economic and military support, it is a huge factor in the destabilization of the region, long before our wars in Iraq & Afghanistan.

I don't know how anybody can support what they do at all.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

AIPAC is an impressive lobby and I have no problem with an independent Israel in so far as if they weren't perpetrating apartheid, but they should not have the power they do.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

I take it you read "The Israel Lobby", either the essay or book? It is indeed an extremely powerful, overly influential body that advances many goals that are simply counterintuitive to American interests. That, and my views on Israel are similar to Nehmi's, so I don't like it much either.

I was speaking idiomatically.

According to some people the reason why the US continues to support Israel as much as we do is because of AIPAC. Considering the damage our support for Israel has done to our reputation and image in the Middle East its a wonder and a show of how powerful AIPAC is that we continue to hold the same policy towards Israel and the Middle East.

Also considering the fact that we've caught several Israeli spies in the US sending over confidential military information and technical information and yet our support and money continues to flow shows just how deeply entrenched AIPAC is. They've got spies in our country stealing our technology and yet we still call them allies (oh and not to mention at one point Israel was about to sell sensitive US military technologies that we gave to them as aid to the Chinese). Hilarious.

While I'm not anti-semitic I am however against our current policy in regards to Israel at the moment. We seem more contempt to just continually dump money into Israel, incur the wrath the Palestinians and Arabs worldwide than to actually cut our support to Israel to bring them to the bargaining table and actually try to create a stable and lasting environment in Israel/Palestine. And while I'm sure there are several forces at work here to makes things the way they are but the idea of a shadowy super powerful political body lobbying for these ideas is just too good to pass up as something I can just point to and blame.

How ya doing, buddy?