The Protocols of AIPAC
by Hal Lindsey
The new issue of The New Yorker features a hit piece against Israel. And, as hit pieces go, it’s brilliant. It does what good propaganda usually does. It plays on the prejudices of its audience. If the goal is to undercut Israel, there are many prejudices from which to choose. Just build the message around age-old stereotypes of Jews.
Americans have a deep mistrust of lobbyists, so the natural place to start an attack on Israel is through the group that lobbies for it — the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, usually known as AIPAC.
The article claims that AIPAC sabotages peace treaties, encourages war, and decides who will be elected to federal office. It says that they do this with the shrewd manipulation of cash. Amazingly, a hit piece on Israel doesn’t have to back up such claims. It can simply go to the back of the closet, find a bunch of useful old canards against the Jewish people, and use them. Run the world? Of course they run the world. They’re Jews.
The magazine features the article in its September 1st issue. Staff writer Connie Bruck wrote the piece entitled “Friends of Israel: The lobbying group AIPAC has consistently fought the Obama Administration on policy. Is it now losing influence?”
From the article’s point of view, the prospect of AIPAC losing influence is a hopeful one. Ms. Bruck depicts an organization with near-mythical power and reach. Her story fits well with the old anti-Semitic screed that Jews run the world’s economies, Jews choose who goes to war and when, and Jews decide who gets elected to office and what they do when they get there. While she doesn’t say they drink the blood of Christian children, she does buy in to most of the classic Jewish stereotypes.
Sabotaging Peace?
The Oslo Accords were a series of peace agreements between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization. PLO leader Yasser Arafat, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres each received the Nobel Peace Prize for their roles in negotiating it. The Accords failed largely because the Palestinians, instead of being appeased, were emboldened to immediately start a new round of intensified terror attacks on Israel.
The New Yorker disagrees with that assessment, choosing to blame AIPAC instead. Ms. Bruck quotes Keith Weissman, a former AIPAC analyst. “The outcry in the organization about Oslo was so great that they found ways to sabotage it.”
She wrote, “As part of the agreement, the U.S. was to make funds available to the Palestinians, Weissman said. ‘The Israelis wanted the money to go to Arafat, for what they called walking-around money. But AIPAC supported a bill in Congress to make sure that the money was never given directly to Arafat and his people, and to monitor closely what was done with it. And, because I knew Arabic, they had me following all of Arafat’s speeches. Was he saying one thing here, and another thing there? Our department became P.L.O. compliance-watchers. The idea was to cripple Oslo.’”
She presents a world where Middle East peace efforts have repeatedly failed because of AIPAC. Reasonable people might blame those failures on the inherent animosity Arab Muslims feel toward Israelis, something that has existed for millennia. But she chooses to blame an organization that did not even exist until 1963. What’s her evidence? That AIPAC thought it wise to compare Yasser Arafat’s words meant for the west to his words meant for Palestinian consumption. If you will recall, Arafat was caught saying one thing to America and another to his own people many times. By helping point this out, AIPAC performed a public service. Trying to build peace on a foundation of lies destabilizes the world.
“Prideful”
The New Yorker article claims “AIPAC is prideful about its influence.” To back that up, Ms. Bruck quoted from a piece of AIPAC promotional literature. She says it “points out that a reception during its annual policy conference, in Washington, will be attended by more members of Congress than almost any other event, except for a joint session of Congress or a State of the Union address.”
She does not provide a quote, but even assuming that her description of the statement is accurate, “prideful” is a bizarre criticism. What organization doesn’t say good things about itself? The sales department for a magazine like The New Yorker points out the size of its readership, and the relative affluence of those readers. Why? They need to sell ad space. Is that prideful? Retail establishments talk about the quality of their products, and their low prices. Why? They need customers. Big business touts their past growth and potential for future growth. They need investors. Politicians tell us about their brilliance, hard work, and innovation. They need voters. Non-profits talk about how much good they do in the world. They need donors.
That’s not being “prideful.” That’s communicating.
A lobbying group also depends on contributions. To raise money it must say positive things about itself. AIPAC points out its influence with powerful government figures because no one with any sense would want to contribute to a lobbying group that has no influence. AIPAC (or any other organization) should be able to make a case for itself without being labeled “prideful.”
Iron Grip on Congress
The New Yorker piece explains how brilliantly, or perhaps diabolically, AIPAC uses its financial resources to elect only friends of Israel to congress. The article makes you wonder how critics of Israel ever get elected, but, of course, they do.
When she describes AIPAC’s extreme control of Congress, she faces a tough challenge as a writer. How do you explain the lack of witnesses? There are 435 current members of the House of Representatives, each with a staff of about 15 people. That’s a total of 6,525 people. There are a hundred Senators with an average staff of 35 — that’s 3,500 people, making a total of over 10,000. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Congressional staffers have a high turnover rate, so over a period of a few years, you have tens of thousands of potential witnesses against AIPAC and its intrigues. And don’t forget that those tens of thousands all know people, have families, and they’re politically oriented, meaning they love to talk, especially to the press.
So where are the witnesses against AIPAC?
Don’t misunderstand. AIPAC has a lot of critics, some of whom are either present or former members of Congress. But this article intimates a level of Congressional control far beyond the complaints of normal critics. Think about it. If an organization loyal to a foreign government is running ours, surely some of these thousands of loyal Americans would speak out and say so.
The article’s answer to this problem is telling. It says, “Staff members fret about whether AIPAC will prevent them from getting a good consulting job when they leave government.”
Look at how large her imagined Jewish conspiracy just became. Now she says that it controls the vast majority of jobs in and out of government. To what other people-group would anyone even attempt to assign such power? Only the Jews.
Biblical prophets warned the Jewish people that exceedingly tough times lay ahead. Jesus said that in the last days it would only get worse. Today, around the world we’re seeing a renewal of the old, unreasoning hatred against Jews. I’m not accusing Connie Bruck of anti-Semitism, but I believe her article is an example of the way anti-Semitism gains respectability in a society. I think we are already much farther down that road than most people, including most Jews, dare to realize.
Subject: Watchman Warning: 8-29-2014 
Sat Aug 30, 2014 8:11 pm
