De Pro-Israel Lobby 35

'Can American Jews unplug the Israel lobby?
As Bush's unbalanced Mideast policies careen from disaster to
disaster, people who don't toe the AIPAC line are beginning to speak
out.
By Gary Kamiya
Mar. 20, 2007

Last week, a familiar Washington ritual took place:
Leading American politicians from both parties lined up at the annual
policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee to
vie with each other over who could pledge the most undying fealty to
Israel. As usual, much of Congress showed up -- half of the members
of the U.S. Senate and more than half of the House, including figures
like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, along with Vice President Dick
Cheney.

It was a typical AIPAC parallel-universe extravaganza, marred only by
partisan rifts that have begun to appear over Iraq. (Even some of the
AIPAC crowd, who overwhelmingly supported the war at the outset, have
begun to realize that it has been a disaster for both the United
States and Israel.) Cheney got a standing ovation, Israeli Prime
Minister Ehud Olmert said via a video link that winning the war in
Iraq was important for Israel, Nancy Pelosi was booed for criticizing
the war, a fire-breathing Christian dispensationalist who believes
that war on Iran will bring about the Rapture and the Second Coming
was rapturously greeted, and Barack Obama took heat for having the
audacity to mention the suffering of the Palestinians.

But AIPAC showed its true power -- and its continuing ability to
steer American Mideast policy in a disastrous direction -- when a
group of conservative and pro-Israel Democrats succeeded in removing
language from a military appropriations bill that would have required
Bush to get congressional approval before using military force
against Iran.

The pro-Israel lobby's victory on the Iran bill is almost
unbelievable. Even after the nation repudiated the Iraq war
decisively in the 2006 midterms, even after it has become clear that
the Bush administration's Middle East policy is severely unbalanced
toward Israel and has damaged America's standing in the world,
Congress still cannot bring itself to stand up to the AIPAC line.'

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