First AIPAC Test In Years Looming In PA Aid Fight
Pro-Israel lobby, under cloud, to press aid cutoff bill administration
says ties its hands.
James D. Besser/Washington
http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/newscontent.php3?artid=12126
When 4,000 pro-Israel lobbyists descend on Capitol Hill next week as
part of the annual policy conference of the American Israel Public
Affairs Committee, they will be pressing for a sweeping Palestinian
aid cutoff bill that the Bush administration wants to kill.
That could set the stage for the kind of clash that will test whether
the pro-Israel lobby group's legendary clout has been diminished by
more than a year of controversy touched off by the indictment of two
former AIPAC officials caught up in an FBI investigation.
"While it is too early to tell if AIPAC has been hurt, the first test
could come soon if there is any effort [by the Bush administration] to
support financially the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority," said Akiba
Covitz, a political scientist and associate dean of the Phoenix
International School of Law. "Depending on how that comes out, it will
become clearer just how AIPAC has been affected."
AIPAC insiders say a top lobbying priority for policy conference
delegates will be legislation by Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.)
and Tom Lantos (D-Calif.) cutting off direct aid to a Hamas-led PA,
tightening up even humanitarian aid and severely restricting
diplomatic contacts.
The administration, along with groups such as Americans for Peace Now
and the Israel Policy Forum, claims the measure is far too restrictive
and could hasten the collapse of the PA. They have sought to use
support for a non-binding, less sweeping alternative in an effort to
defuse the House bill.
That resolution, barring only direct PA aid as long as Hamas is in
control, has passed both Houses with the help of key GOP lawmakers,
including House International Relations Chairman Henry Hyde (R-Ill).
But Ros-Lehtinen has indicated she will press ahead with her tougher
bill that goes beyond even what the government of Israel is seeking in
dealing with the PA. And AIPAC delegates will press right along with
her, setting the stage for what could be the first real fight for the
pro-Israel lobby group since the 1992 debacle over loan guarantees to
Israel.
That fight could be revealing, though some congressional observers
expect a compromise that will defuse the battle.
AIPAC planned weeks ago - before the extent of the administration's
opposition became clear - to use the Ros-Lehtinen bill as the lobbying
centerpiece of the policy conference. But now that could be setting up
the group for a major battle with the White House.
While AIPAC continues to be seen as a Capitol Hill powerhouse,
numerous observers say it is difficult to measure the impact of the
spy case controversy because the group has not been put to the test in
many years.
"The test of a lobby isn't when things are going well but when there's
a real conflict with an administration or Congress," said a former top
official of the group. Like most observers who agreed to speak about
AIPAC, this source asked that his name not be revealed. "And AIPAC
hasn't had any real fights in the past 10 years."
AIPAC is poised for record attendance at the conference and the usual
mass migration of congressional and administration officials to the
Washington Convention Center, but the ongoing Pentagon controversy
will cast a shadow over the event.
Legal experts are warning that the trial of former policy director
Steve Rosen and Iran specialist Keith Rosen, due to start April 25 in
Federal Court in Alexandria, Va., could produce unwelcome surprises
for the group, even though federal prosecutors have said AIPAC itself
is not under investigation.
"I would be very concerned about the possibility that its inner
workings will come out in a trial, along with details about their
relationships with Israeli officials," said Neal Sher, a former
government prosecutor and a onetime executive director of AIPAC.
Sher said defense attorneys are likely to grill top AIPAC officials in
an effort to show their clients were simply following standard AIPAC
policies, even though the group has said publicly that Rosen and
Weissman, charged with receiving classified information from former
Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin, were acting on their own.
"There is a significant possibility that some of its inner workings
could come out," Sher said. "And frankly, as they get into the
relationship with Israel, you have to walk a very tight FARA line."
FARA is the Foreign Agents Registration Act. For years AIPAC's
opponents have argued that the group serves the Israeli government and
therefore should be required to register as a foreign agent, not as a
U.S. lobby.
Sher said AIPAC serves exclusively as a lobby for Americans concerned
about U.S.-Israel relations, but conceded the FARA line is a blurry
one.
He said AIPAC also faces a public relations vulnerability. Lobbying is
an ever-present part of the American democratic process, but few lobby
groups, no matter how responsible and law abiding, can fare well under
open public scrutiny - especially scrutiny by aggressive lawyers
defending angry former employees.
Rosen, in particular, is said to be furious at his firing and lack of
support by a group he served for 23 years.
His supporters argue the case is mostly about the administration's
effort to crack down on the flow of information to lobby groups and
journalists.
Their argument was bolstered in recent weeks after the Washington Post
revealed the contents of a legal memorandum co-authored by Viet Dinh,
a former Bush administration Justice Department official, arguing that
the Espionage Act was never meant to apply to private citizens who did
nothing illegal to acquire classified information.
"Never has a lobbyist, reporter or any other non-government employee
been charged ... for receiving oral information the government alleges
to be national defense material as part of that person's normal First
Amendment protected activities," the defense memorandum states,
according to the Post.
Despite the cloud hanging over AIPAC, numerous congressional staffers
and Jewish activists say there is no evidence the group's political
muscle has atrophied.
"It's not an issue up here," said a top Democratic staffer in the
House. "The individuals charged are out of the organization, and they
weren't part of the lobbying team. We still deal with the AIPAC people
we've depended on day after day, week after week."
Another top aide said AIPAC's real strength will be unaffected unless
the group finds itself in serious legal hot water.
"The infrastructure they've built at the grass-roots level, using
their lay leadership, has been brilliant," this staffer said.
AIPAC lay leaders are active in almost every congressional district in
the country; influential local leaders develop relationships with
politicians long before they reach the U.S. Congress.
"They call members, invite them to their homes, have little parlor
meetings," this source said. "These are people who will always get in
the door in Congress."
That infrastructure will be unaffected by the controversy, this
analyst said - or by likely lobbying reform measures.
Some critics say AIPAC has started pulling its punches out of a new
caution stemming from the Pentagon spying trials.
Sher has argued that AIPAC's lack of support for a languishing bill
imposing sanctions on Saudi Arabia because of its support for
terrorism is a direct result of its diminished clout. But Capitol Hill
sources say that has less to do with AIPAC's woes than with flaws in
the bill and a feeling that it's not worth pushing.
And the Saudi sanctions bill is also the pet project of the Zionist
Organization of America, a group that has challenged AIPAC's
pro-Israel hegemony on Capitol Hill with aggressive lobbying from the
political right.
"I'm not on the inside, but I've been told that they are being more
cautious now because they do not want to take strong issue with the
State Department and the White House," said ZOA President Morton
Klein. "That may be one reason they are not promoting the Saudi
Accountability Act. We are disappointed by that."
Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said
the ongoing controversy "hasn't touched the institution; the scandal
doesn't go to the essence of AIPAC."
He said AIPAC has been helped by the fact that Congress and the
administration almost universally support its pro-Israel message in
this age of terrorism.
Foxman added that the administration has gone out of its way to show
AIPAC is not politically radioactive because of the controversy. Last
year, when the Pentagon spy case was just erupting, the administration
sent Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to address the policy
conference. Vice President ***** Cheney is the conference headliner
this year.
The group expects 4,500 to 5,000 participants during the course of the
three-day conference, with more than 1,000 students from all 50 states
joining in the workshops, lobbying sessions and the Monday banquet
highlighted by AIPAC's legendary "roll call" of important politicians
in attendance.
Also scheduled to speak: U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, several top
congressional leaders and a handful of 2006 presidential hopefuls,
including former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), former Virginia
Gov. Mark Warner (D), Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) and former Sen. John
Edwards (D-N.C.).
When participants come to Congress on Tuesday for more than 450
lobbying appointments, the priorities will be renewed and beefed-up
sanctions on Iran and the Hamas aid bill.
On Sunday the group's executive committee will consider a 2006 "Action
Agenda" that includes the usual calls to "build on the commitment of
the administration and Congress to the security of Israel, to a peace
process predicated on direct negotiations between Israel and her
neighbor, to the United States' and Israel's war on terror, to the
fight against weapons of mass destruction."
Also as usual, the ZOA will demand a slew of amendments, including
amendments deleting AIPAC's support for a two-state solution and an
independent Palestinian state "as long as Hamas is in power," Klein
said.
According to one measure, the FBI probe has been good for AIPAC. The
group raised more than $45 million in the past year, a record, and
will use the Policy Conference to officially unveil plans for its new
building in Washington's Chinatown
http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/newscontent.php3?artid=12126
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Just some favorite sites:
http://www.antiwar.com/
http://www.lewrockwell.com/ips/lobe-arch.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAoe26MaTew&search=fox%20news
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