OpEdNews Op Eds On Syria, AIPAC, The 800 Pound Gorilla, Risks Looking Like A Chimp! | MJ RosenbergBy MJ Rosenberg (about the author) Permalink (Page 1 of 2 pages), Add to My Group(s)
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AIPAC's last big battle was in 1991 when it tried to get extra aid to support Soviet Jewish refugees in Israel. President George H. W. Bush said the extra aid (in the form of loan guarantees) would only be provided if Israel froze West Bank settlement construction. Prime Minister Shamir said no and Bush said: no extra aid for you.
AIPAC descended on the Hill as they now are over Syria, leading Bush to publicly say "I am one lonely little guy" up against "some powerful political forces" made up of "a thousand lobbyists on the Hill."
That battle did not end well for AIPAC although it did for Israel. It led the Israeli electorate to dump the rightist prime minister, Yitzhak Shamir, in favor of Yitzhak Rabin. Israel did not get the extra aid until Bush could provide it to a prime minister who pledged to freeze settlements and to negotiate with the Palestinians.
In that case, unlike this one, there was no Congressional vote. AIPAC was not able to test the formula pronounced by its top strategist, Steve Rosen (later indicted under the Espionage Act) who famously told the New Yorker:
You see this napkin? In twenty-four hours, we could have the signatures of seventy senators on this napkin.The Syria vote will be the test.
AIPAC and its cutouts are the only lobbying forces supporting the administration's plans for war and Congress will make the decision. It should be a good moment for AIPAC to make its case. Members of Congress are now in intense fund raising mode for the 2014 primaries and general election. When AIPAC visits in the next week or two, it will make the case for war with that looming overhead.
I called a friend on Capitol Hill to refresh my memory about what the AIPAC push is going to look like:
First come the phone calls from constituents who are AIPAC members. They know the Congressman and are nice and friendly and just tell him, or whichever staffer the constituent knows, just how important this vote is to him and his friends back in the district.
Then the donors call. The folks who have hosted fundraisers. They are usually not only from the district but from New York or LA or Chicago. They repeat the message: this vote is very important.
Contrary to what you might expect, they do not mention campaign money. They don't have to. Because these callers are people who only know the Congressman through their checks, the threat not to write any more of them is implicit. Like the constituents, the donors are using AIPAC talking points which are simple and forceful. You can argue with them but they keep going back to the script. Did I mention the rabbis? We only have a few in our district but we get calls from all of them and from other rabbis from around the state.
Then there are the AIPAC lobbyists, the professional staffers. They come in, with or without appointments. If the Congressman is in, they expect to see him immediately. If not, they will see a staffer. If they don't like what they hear, they will keep coming back. They are very aggressive, no other lobby comes close, They expect to see the Member, not mere staff.
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http://mjayrosenberg.com
M.J. Rosenberg is Special Correspondent for The Washington Spectator. Previously he served as a Senior Foreign Policy Fellow with Media Matters Action Network, and prior to that worked on Capitol Hill for various Democratic members of the House and (more...)
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