Washington, D.C. Anybody who thought that Congressional Democrats had a more realistic understanding of America’s problems with the Muslim world ought to think again. Like most of their Republican colleagues, most Democrats deny, at least in public, that the root cause of Muslim hostility in general and Arab hostility in particular is the U.S. government’s unqualified support for Israel’s 39-year old occupation of Arab land.
It is a policy that expects Palestinians to submit to whatever injustice and injury Israel inflicts upon them. It is a policy that ignores the advice of thousands of American experts with decades of experience in the Middle East who have persistently urged the President and Congress to seek a fair and evenhanded settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict, not only for America’s sake, but for the sake of Israel’s security and prosperity as well.
If you wonder why neither the President nor the majority of Congress
pursues this course of action, study their subservience to, even their fear of, the American Israeli Political Action Committee (AIPAC), the most powerful foreign-interest lobby in Washington. Although AIPAC claims to represent all Israelis, in reality it speaks mostly for that segment of Israeli society that wants to maintain control over all Palestinian land indefinitely. Tens of thousands of other Israelis, albeit a minority, have long been demanding--and demonstrating for--an end to the oppression of Palestinians. Their voices are rarely heard in the American media.
All four incoming Democratic leaders in Congress have received large financial contributions from AIPAC in exchange for their dependable support of the lobby’s hard line anti-Arab agenda. The record shows that, by 2004, AIPAC had given incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid a career total of $319,000, incoming Assistant Senate Majority Leader Richard Durbin, $327,000, incoming Speaker Nancy Pelosi, $57,000, and incoming House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, $93,000. In both the Senate and the House, 9 of AIPAC’s 10 largest career donations have gone to Democrats.
None of the major recipients of AIPAC’s largesse ever dared urging the government of Israel and the White House to end the agony of the occupation. Eyes shut, mouths closed, that is their watchword. During the recent election campaign, Democrats flung numerous severe criticisms at their Republican opponents, but none of them addressed the Republican failure to bring peace to the Holy Land. Nancy Pelosi not only pledged “unwavering support and commitment” to the government of Israel but also urged the Bush administration to tighten the screws on Syria and Iran.
When AIPAC’s clients on the Hill are asked why they fail to push for lasting peace in the Holy Land, they routinely insist that the Arabs are bent on destroying Israel--even though all Arab armies combined could never overcome the overwhelming weight of Israel’s armed forces (including over 200 nuclear bombs) and at least three billion dollars of annual American support. Recipients of AIPAC funds also routinely claim that if they criticized Israel’s occupation regime, they would lose the votes of Jewish-Americans. In reality, however, large numbers of American Jews, while rightly favoring a secure and viable Israel, nevertheless reject the continued oppression of the Palestinian people as counterproductive.
The Democrats likely to chair the House International Relations Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee--Rep. Tom Lantos and Sen. Joseph Biden--distinctively differ in their policy priorities for the Middle East. Ever since he entered the House in 1981, Lantos has been the most rabidly anti-Arab voice in the House. He eagerly supported the invasion of Iraq, which he considers a threat to Israel, but later criticized the Republican President’s "conduct" of the war.
Biden voted for the invasion of Iraq but criticized the Bush administration for failing to "level with the American people" about the cost and length of the conflict. Biden does not appear beholden to AIPAC and can therefore be more evenhanded in dealing with Arabs and Israelis.