AIPAC OUTLINE

THE AMERICAN ISRAEL PUBLIC AFFAIRS COMMITTEE

also known as

AIPAC

“AIPAC is America’s Pro Israel Lobby,” says its masthead. Its stated purpose is to lobby for policies and issues that are in the best interests of Israel and of America. It is a registered lobby. Fortune lists it as being the 2^nd most powerful lobby in Washington, AARP being the first. However, AIPAC is widely regarded as the most effective foreign policy lobby. It was created in 1951.

Membership is apparently open to anyone. There are now 100,000 members and it has grown rapidly since 9-11. The annual operating budget is $40 Million. Although, one apparently does not have to join a membership club, there are 6:

The Minyan Club for those who give $100,000 or more per year

The Chairman’s Council for those giving $36K or more

The President’s Cabinet for those giving $25K

The Senate Club for those giving $10K

The Capitol Club for those giving $3,600 or more

The Washington Club for those giving $1,500 or more

AIPAC’s Board of Directors consists of 46 persons. I could not find out how they are elected. Each is quite wealthy, and they contribute an average of $70,000 per year each. One Director gave $51 Million. The Board consists of Wall Street lawyers, stock brokers, heirs to family fortunes and real estate developers.

AIPAC’s 51 person Executive Committee is also called the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations CPMJO. It is supposed to represent a consensus of American Jews, but it is dominated by one man, Malcolm Hoenlein, a supporter of the Likud Party. He believes that Jews have a right to occupy and live in the West Bank permanently. According to the Jewish Bulletin, it is dedicated to the “unequivocal support of every Israeli government.” My research persuades me that this is also the objective of AIPAC.

CPMJO concentrates on lobbing the Executive Branch of the US government, the President, the State Department, the Department of Defense, the Intelligence Agencies, while AIPAC concentrates on Congress.

AIPAC has many satellite organizations or committees or separate organizations with which it works in tandem some of which are:

• PACs There are at least 61 (some say 100) separate pro Israel PACs ( Political Action Committees) with such names as Northern Californians for Good Government.

• CAMERA the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting which seeks to counter any media that portrays Israel in a way that AIPAC does not like….for example, it has put out or sponsored articles critical of Steven Spielberg’s new movie, Munich. AIPAC sees the movie as too partial to the Palestinians, although the main point of the movie seemed to me to be to show the idiocy of Mindless reciprocal retaliatory killing

• WINEP the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a think tank.

• JINSA, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs whose purpose is to educate Americans about the importance of an effective defense capability, and to inform the American public affairs and foreign policy community about the important role of Israel in bolstering democratic interests in the Middle East.

• The American Israel Education Foundation that finances trips to Israel for Congress persons and students.

• AIPAC’s influence and power are compounded by the fact that it seeks policies and acts sought also by the Christian Right, the Military Industrial Complex, and by the Bush Administration.

US elected officials are terrified of AIPAC. Criticism of Israel or sympathy for Palestinians has become the “third rail of American politics.” The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles in a series of articles about AIPAC dated 10-28-05 raised the question: “Who is afraid of big bad AIPAC?” and answered: “Nearly everybody.” In Congress, every person, Democrat or Republican, with one or two exceptions votes the way that AIPAC requests.

So what does AIPAC ask of the President, the Department of Defense, and of Congress?

• It is now actively lobbying for the US to invade or bomb Iran
• It lobbied for the Gulf War
• It lobbied for the Iraq War and lobbies for it to continue
• It lobbies for ever more monetary aid, loan guarantees, and armaments for Israel
• Support for the 15,000 new Jewish settlers in the West Bank
• Opposed every two state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict so far proposed
• Opposes any US intervention or brokering or pressuring or even handed mediation of the conflict
• Urges the US to veto any UN Resolution critical of Israel
• Opposes peace groups in the US and labels them “naïve.”

AIPAC contributed much money for candidates opposing Congress people who were insufficiently supportive of Israel, or supportive of Palestine.

Some Israeli Labor Party members have been critical of AIPAC as being too supportive of the Likud Party. I can not find one single instance where AIPAC has supported a peace proposal. In my view, AIPAC’s policies and actions are consistent only with an objective of the permanent Israeli occupation of the West Bank, and of ever more Jewish settlers there. So what is to become of the Palestinians?

Polls show that a substantial majority of American Jews favor US involvement in the peace process.

Does AIPAC speak for you?

Does AIPAC deserve your financial support?

Does AIPAC contribute to the long term safety of Israel and of Jews? Of my safety and the safety of my grandson?

Dated: January 23, 2006

Doug Page dougpage2@earthlink.net

WHAT IS SO BAD ABOUT CAPITALISM?

What Is So Bad About Capitalism?

We have been so subject to propaganda that we never think of capitalism as a human creation, and never question its shortcomings.

Capitalism is an economic system whereby a wealth owning class of humans hires another class of humans who have little or no wealth to perform work to create as much profit as possible for the owning class.

Capitalism is not accurately described by the words, “free market economy” which suggests that our economic system is a sunny benign plaza where we simply trade our goods and services with each other on a relatively equal footing.

The following are some of the real characteristics of capitalism that exist despite the false public relations of the capitalists:

1. Capitalism Is Amoral and Immoral!

Capitalism has no moral basis or foundation. Capitalism is not designed and maintained to meet human need, but only to make a profit...profit for the few and not even profit for everyone. Capitalism is fueled solely by greed for profit and power. The human values of kindness, sharing, cooperation and loving thy neighbor as thyself have no place in capitalism. Capitalism is subject to no public control and it is not inhibited by culture or by tradition. Capitalism thus has no concern for human beings, human culture, the environment, or natural resources. There is no concern for meeting the needs of human beings. .

2. Capitalism Depends Upon Paying Employees As Little As Possible And Keeping Some People Jobless

Capitalists seek to pay employees as little as possible. Capitalists would use slaves if they could, as they did for 300 years prior to 1865. Capitalists move their workplaces anywhere in the world where they can get the cheapest labor, with neither concern nor obligation to the employees or the communities they leave behind. Capitalists do not want full employment, but rather favor a large pool of unemployed persons to compete hungrily with each other for the jobs that are available. This reduces their labor costs. In most parts of the world, there is little difference between being a slave and being a wage-slave employed by a capitalist. Prior to the Civil War, an aristocratic Southern Planter argued that since slaves were his property, he took better care of them than a Northern employer took of his employees, his wage slaves. Capitalism does not foster loving thy neighbor as thyself.

3. Constantly Increasing Inequality of Wealth Between the Rich and the Poor is An Ongoing Necessary Component of Capitalism.

The inequality between the capitalist hirer, and the employee existed at the very beginning of capitalism. The hiring class had to have money to hire the first employees. The employees needed money in order to survive. The inequality constantly increases because of the power of employers and their maximization of profits and the weakness of unorganized employees who must work to survive. So what is so bad about that?

The worst thing is that capitalism steadily and slowly impoverishes 80% of us who are not of the wealthy class. We either remain where we are or we get poorer and poorer. This happens slowly but we know it from official statistics, and we know it in our own families. Millions of people outside the United States know it. Our children have to work longer hours for an average standard of living than we did. We have been so brainwashed that over 82% of us hold the false belief that it is possible in America to pretty much be who you want to be. On the other hand, 49% of Americans believe that the gross differences in wealth that now exist are immoral.

4. Capitalism is Incompatible with Democracy

Another bad thing is the effect on democracy. We know that money talks, that the Golden Rule of Capitalism is that Gold Rules. In other words the rich and powerful control our government. We have wealth primaries where he who spends the most millions, wins the election. Our constitutional guarantee of self-government, with each voter having equal power with each other voter, is thwarted. The rich and the powerful use their governmental power to place the tax burdens and the financial burdens of government on the rest of us.

5. Capitalism Has No Concern For the Environment

The worldwide capitalistic system is destroying the environment in the pursuit of short-term profit. The devastation of the forests, the depletion of the fishes of the sea, the pollution of air, the waste of fresh water, and the mining of the soil are all occurring at rapid and uncontrolled rate. This is not only dangerous for our healthy survival, but it is immoral. It is not proper stewardship of creation.

6. Capitalism is Damaging Our Culture

Another consequence is the effect on communities' public schools and public facilities. The rich live in gated enclosures. The rich send their children to private schools. The rich do not need or want public parks, swimming pools or entertainment facilities. They can well afford to buy their own. They therefor do not wish to pay taxes to improve schools, colleges, leisure and entertainment facilities.

Another consequence is that the rich powerful class owns all of the media and dominate colleges and universities with the result that the rich and powerful control our minds and what is available for us to think about.

7.. Capitalism is grossly wasteful.

Since capitalism seeks only to maximize profit by selling more goods, capitalism has developed “planned obsolescence,” annual model “changes,” and unrepairable and shoddy products. Vast portions of the military budget are wasted. Public relations, advertising, fancy packaging, and legal services are almost totally wasteful. The mining of irreplaceable natural resources is wasteful. Pollution is wasteful. The loss of goods and services which are not produced by unemployed people is wasteful. The total of this waste is staggering...about one half of what we do produce or could produce is wasted.

8. Capitalism is a Perfect System for Preying Upon and Fostering Human Frailty.

Capitalism exists by appealing to our baser sides, to our greed, our selfishness, our excessive consumption, and to our weakness for gambling and lotteries. The amoral and immoral qualities of capitalism have come to dominate the world. Millions of people would trade freedom and democracy for a pair of Levi's, a bottle of Coca-Cola and a chance to get rich in a lottery. Capitalism causes an unquestioning addiction to consumer goods, to shopping until you drop. Capitalism makes sharing, cooperation and compassion useless and inappropriate. Most of our states now support the public schools by the lottery, and the financial burden falls on poor people of color.

9. Capitalism Cannot Exist Without Government Spending. We Pay the Bill

Capitalism would be constantly in flux, with cycles of expansion, recession, boom and depression unless the Federal Government constantly subsidized it. This is due in part to the fact that employers do not pay employees enough money to enable employees to purchase all that the capitalists produce. Henry Ford was a unique capitalist in his recognition of this hard fact when he raised wages in his factories to $5.00 per day, a staggering sum in 1914, so that his workers could buy new Fords! Employers as a class do not accept this concept. Employers have read Karl Marx and John Maynard Keynes. Capitalists know that government spending can be used to keep capitalism out of depressions, and that the rest of us can be made to pay for this spending on behalf of capitalists. The only spending by the government that capitalists find appropriate (because of their need to keep the labor pool large, poor and docile) is corporate welfare and military expenditures.

10. The Benefits of Capitalism Come at An Immense Cost.

Although capitalism does produce an amazing proliferation of goods, which some of us enjoy, the price is very heavy... a constant lowering of our standard of living, the destruction of our culture, our environment, and our most cherished human values.... democracy and majority rule, liberty, equality, fraternity, freedom, and shared abundance.

11. Small business is not the problem.

This analysis applies to the richest 5% of our population, the large corporations, and the very large global corporations. It does not apply to small businessmen who hire a few people, and who remain a part of the local community, concerned with the welfare of their employees and of the community. This is the best side of the “free market economy.” We do question the wisdom and judgment of small businessmen and others who envy emulate and support the attitudes, conduct, political and economic ideas of the richest 5% when they are being harmed as much as the rest of us by the class warfare being waged by that 5% against us all.

For excellent analyses of capitalism past and present, check the following links

The site of Professor Douglas F. Dowd, former chairman of the Department of Economics at Cornell University and now teaching one half time in Bologna, Italy and one half time in San Francisco, California

http://www.vaivecchio.com/hi.htm

The site of Doug Henwood, author and publisher of the Left Business Observer

http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/LBO_home.html

The site of the Dollars & Sense Collective at

http://www.dollarsandsense.org/

Dated: April 26, 2006 dougpage2@earthlink.net

SPEAK TRUTH TO ISRAELI POWER

SPEAK TRUTH TO ISRAELI POWER.

INTRODUCTION: AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and Israel itself have spread an immense fog of misinformation, myths and lies about Israel’s acts policies and true objectives. We have been brainwashed. This is not simply a case of our psychological denial. AIPAC is the cause of our brainwashing, our failing to get accurate information from all main-stream sources. One of AIPAC’s functions through its CAMERA is to ridicule statements like this one, and falsely to label the authors and statements as “anti-Semitic.” With this awareness,, we choose to Speak Truth to Israeli Power, AIPAC power, US power and particularly to Jews and Liberals in the United States.

1. Because of the Holocaust, 1000 years of pogroms and anti-Semitism that continue to this day in Christian liturgy, and because of the shame of the world in refusing refuge to Holocaust victims, Israel and Jews everywhere have a legal and moral right to the State of Israel as granted in 1947 by the United Nations, with the boundaries existing until the 1967 War.

2. Israel has no legal, moral or historical right to a single square foot beyond the 1967 boundaries granted Israel by the UN.

3. Israel did not capture the West Bank and Gaza “fair and square” from Palestine. The Palestinians did not start the 1967 War and the War was not with them. Jordan Syria and Egypt were the nations involved in the 1967 War. Israel simply seized the opportunity provided by the War to capture and occupy the West Bank and Gaza in violation of International Law and the UN Charter in order to implement its Greater Vision of Israel. That vision was to capture all of Palestine for Israel as soon as possible.

4. Israel, for the last 39 years has been an imperialist military occupier of the West Bank and Gaza forcing 3.5 million of Palestinians to live under cruel military control, exploitation, poverty, humiliation and squalor. After 1967, Israel captured and occupied the West Bank and Gaza not for reasons of military security, but as a part of Israel’s “Greater Vision of Israel.” Israel did not simply establish military bases in the West Bank and Gaza so as better to defend itself from future attacks. Israel immediately destroyed 140 Palestinian water wells. Israel established Jewish civilian settlements in the West Bank, seized control of the available water, allocated 83% of the water to settlers and to Israel and provided a mere 17% to the millions of Palestinians. Israel destroyed many thousands of olive trees, 10,000 homes, and villages. Israel established dozens of civilian settlements which it then guarded with the IDF in order to “create conditions on the ground” implementing its Greater Vision in defiance of all negotiations and International Law. Israel has never agreed to accept the pre-1967 borders and has never accepted the right of Palestinians to have a state of their own. Israel has not sought peace at every turn and has not shown restraint when provoked. Israel has always attached preconditions to negotiations with Palestine and provided for endless negotiating sessions thereafter to insure that its future complete occupation of West Bank and Gaza would never really be impaired. Israel has never been concerned with the plight of the Palestinians.

5. Israel regularly imposes “collective punishment” and “targeted assassinations” on Palestinian men women and children. This can in no way be justified as “defensive” or “justified” retaliation because of the evil of a despairing, hopeless, humiliated, young male or female suicide bomber who kills himself or her self and a few Israelis. This is something like balancing the evil of a rebellious Black Slave in the Pre-Civil War South with the evil of the Institution of slavery implemented with the whips, guns and Ku Klux Klan lynching carried out by the White plantation owners. It is an attempt to “spin” the realities of immense Israeli military power and Israel’s covert objective of gaining ever more territory and control

6. The right wing neo-cons have seized control of Israel as they have of the United States with identical results. Israel is no longer a land of socialism, kibbutzim, and state owned businesses. The neo-cons have privatized Israel’s state owned businesses, reduced taxes for corporations and the rich, opened Israel to Western investors, abolished the kibbutzim, slashed social service benefits, raised the pension age, and enacted laws making it more difficult for employees to strike. As a consequence things have gotten worse for the average Israeli:

1. 28% of Israeli Children do not have health care.
2. Israel has spent $14 Billion on the rich settlements in the West Bank while 24% of the Israeli citizens live below the poverty line.
3. The neo-cons in the US and Israel eagerly support the Israeli occupation of the West Bank as a part of the US Plan to dominate and control the planet as outlined in the September, 2002 document The National Security Strategy of the United States of America..
4. These neo-con acts and policies foster anti-Semitic rage in millions of Arabs, threaten us all with a War of Armageddon proportions, and impoverish the citizens of Israel. Far from bringing peace and security to Israel, they portend disaster and suffering for us all.

7. Israel is no longer weak and threatened with extinction. Israel has become a military superpower in its own right. Its army and air force rival those England and France. Israel has become the world’s fourth largest nuclear power. It has an extremely effective Mossad, its “CIA.” Israel has a huge armaments industry and has become a major arms supplier to the world.

8. Arabs and Palestinians are not terrorists by nature any more than any other group of humans. Irgun, a Jewish terrorist organization, first established the practice of murdering innocent Arab women and children in 1937. This practice of Irgun soon found Arab and Palestinian imitators. It is, of course, continued today by Israel’s “collective punishment” policies and acts of the IDF in the West Bank.

9. Israel and Palestine will never have peace and security unless it is imposed upon them by the United States. Unfortunately the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, (AIPAC) has silenced those Jewish and liberal voters and office holders in the US who might normally push for justice. AIPAC fully implements this neo-con policy of capturing and controlling all of the West Bank and Gaza. AIPAC has political control of, and has silenced, every Congressperson and Senator, even those who would normally champion the cause of truth, justice, and peace. No elected person in the United States dares to support the Palestinians or to criticize Israel. So the one nation that could impose peace has been rendered powerless and impotent.

10. AIPAC has its “Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting,” a PR and propaganda arm which seeks to maintain the ongoing support of American Jews and non-Jews for neo-con right wing policies and complete control of the West Bank and Gaza. CAMERA does this by falsely labeling all criticism of Israel or support for Palestine as “anti-Semitic” by exploiting the memories of the Holocaust and by outright lies, “spin” about Israel’s true objectives and by repeating Israel’s own myths and falsehoods. AIPAC is enormously effective and is thought by Congress persons to be the most powerful lobby in Washington in the area of foreign affairs.

11. .Israel, Jews everywhere, all Nations and all of us owe the Palestinians massive, generous reparations, rebuilding, and apologies. We owe the Palestinians a viable modern state of their own, free of military incursions and Israeli control. We should all help to fund these reparations. We should seek their forgiveness. This is the only possible plan for peace and security for us all. The Palestinians today are paying the price of the Holocaust.

These are the truths that we must speak to power, to Israeli power, AIPAC power, U.S. Power, and to American Jewish and Liberal power.

Dated: April 20, 2005 Tucson, AZ

Douglas R. Page dougpage2@earthlink.net

Sources

AIPAC’s own website: www.aipac.org

For a scholarly documented comprehensive study of AIPAC and its power see The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt at

http://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/Research/wpaper.nsf/rwp/RWP06-011

See also The Israel Lobby and The Peace Process by Marshall Windmiller, Professor Emeritus of International Relations San Francisco State University at

http://www.middleeast.org/marshall1.htm

Regarding the rich West Bank settlements and poverty in Israel, my source is Michael Walzer Ph.D, Harvard University, 1961 and formerly Assistant Professor of Politics Princeton University and now an activist for Americans for Peace Now and Shalom Achshav. Contact him at apndc@peacenow.org

On neo-con privatizing in Israel see an article by Leila Khaled Moummar entitled: Privatizing Apartheid in Israel found at

http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2005-12/08

See an article Death of Kibbuz by Geoffrey Wheatcroft in the Guardian Unlimited for May 14, 2001 found at

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,490493,00.html

For an analysis of the real objectives of Israel, and the current need and opportunity for negotiating with Hamas, see the article by Henry Siegman, a Senior Fellow on the Middle East at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is a former head of the American Jewish Congress and the Synagogue Council of America. He has served as general secretary of the American Association for Middle East Studies. His article is Hamas: The Last Chance for Peace in the New York Review of Books, April 27, 2006, page 42.

For a current example of the power and control of AIPAC over Congresspersons and Senators, simply examine the amazing array of Democratic and liberal sponsors of HR

a resolution opposing any negotiation with Hamas that was put forth by AIPAC. Lined up by AIPAC and listed as sponsors are such Congress persons as Waxman, Berman, Pelousi, and Rangel. See also see an article by Joshua Frank entitled Hillary Clinton, AIPAC and Iran in Counterpunch for January 3, 2006

For a typical example of AIPAC’s influence on the media and on journalists, a number of articles and letters to the press have been printed calling the Mearsheimer-Walt study cited above anti-Semitic. See for example the opinion article in the Washington Post on April 5, 2006 by Eliot A. Cohen entitled: Yes, It’s Anti-Semitic.

See also Robert Fisk’s article entitled The United States of Israel?

in Counterpunch on April 27, 2006 reporting on an interview with Walt and listing the intemperate, false charges made against Walt and Mearsheimer by such inviduals as Alan Dershowitz. http://www.counterpunch.org/

The late Edward W. Said in his 1979 book, Orientalism, surveyed the literature and culture of England, France, and Germany for the last 200 years for attitudes and beliefs of Westerners about Middle Eastern Arabs. Here is a collection of the racist attitudes that he found, common to all 3 of the nations: Arabs as a people are lazy, backward, dirty, crooked, devious, cruel, perverted, illogical, irrational, unreliable, incapable of being logical, and tending toward pedophilia. They need and benefit from instruction, guidance, and control from Western man although they can never learn enough to be his equal. On the other hand, Western man is bright, logical, kind, generous, orderly, clean, moral, capable of leadership, and a more evolved human. Said believed that these attitudes were an unconscious and automatic result of attitudes of a Western oppressor against the oppressed Arab. Since Israelis and many Jews in the US, a part of Western man, have a similar collection of beliefs and attitudes about Arabs and Palestinian Arabs, it may be that Israeli oppression and occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, is a cause of Israeli attitudes toward Palestinians.

Date: April 27, 2006 Douglas R. Page dougpage2@earthlink.net