As the annual American
Israel Public Affairs Committee Policy Conference begins in Washington,
the lobbying organization will once again break attendance records, with
estimates of 14,000 attendees. But the conference will be a subdued
event, regardless of the obligatory cheering for any speaker who says
that Iran must not get the bomb. Cheering will not end the Iranian
nuclear program. Unfortunately, neither the P5+1 nor U.S. President
Barack Obama, assuming he ever really cared to accomplish this, are
likely to do that either.
The president is
sending Secretary of State John Kerry and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew to
fly the administration's colors and fake that all is well between the
Obama administration, AIPAC and Israel. Lew is an observant Jew, but has
had no real role since he joined the administration in either the
Iranian nuclear issue or the Israeli-Palestinian talks. So his presence
is window dressing.
Kerry is of course
central to both issues, and he will attempt to reassure the assembled
delegation that the White House is not blind to the realities of
negotiating with Iran, and has not been giving away the store to the
mullahs (despite much evidence to the contrary) in a desperate attempt
to negotiate a deal, any deal that would bring Iran into the "community
of nations."
On the
Israeli-Palestinian track, Kerry will promise his and the president's
utmost commitment to Israel's security, and try to prod AIPAC to back
his efforts to get Israel to agree to a framework deal that allows
negotiations to continue for another nine months or a year. Kerry will
argue that now is a rare moment for Israel, when it can step up to the
chance to finally make peace with the Palestinians. If it fails to do
so, presumably the window of opportunity for peace in our times will
close. Of course, given that the Palestinians have made clear to Kerry
that they completely reject pretty much every element of his framework
for negotiations, the only window that may be closing is the one that
allows Kerry, the former senator and defeated presidential nominee (the
only Democratic nominee to lose the popular vote since 1988), to see
himself in his dreams accepting a Nobel Peace Prize. Given how little it
took for Obama to be voted as the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in
2009 almost on the day he took office, Kerry arguably deserves multiple
awards for his efforts. But when a prize has been so cheapened, only a
career politician nearing the end of that career can see winning it as a
meaningful honor.
Beyond the day-to-day
stories on the ups and downs of the negotiations between the P5+1 and
Iran, and the Israelis and Palestinians each talking directly to Kerry
but not to each other, a bigger battle has been fought and won by the
administration. That battle has been to move the Democratic Party away
from its bedrock support for Israel. Obama is a man of the Left. He is,
in some sense, the first such president since Franklin Roosevelt. Had
Roosevelt survived to the vote on the U.N. partition plan in 1947, a
strong case can be made that he would have refused to back Israel in the
General Assembly vote and to recognize the new state when it declared
independence in 1948, assuming Israel could have won the partition vote
without American support. Roosevelt after all, had a long history of
distrusting, and even making anti-Semitic statements about, Jews, and refused to lift a finger to save the Jews of Europe from the Nazi annihilation until badgered by his own Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau in 1944.
Obama sees himself as a
transformative president, much as Roosevelt was. Both presidents
assumed office during economic downturns, Roosevelt's of course far more
severe. Both sought to greatly expand the size and reach of government
to address the downturns. Neither was able to dramatically improve
economic performance and produce a solid recovery, though the new
spending and programs did expand the safety net.
Both were presidents focused on domestic issues, though Roosevelt
understood the challenge of the Axis powers, and the need to win the war
against our enemies, and successfully prosecuted our war effort on
multiple fronts.
Barack Obama, on the
other hand, behaves as if our only enemies are a few isolated al-Qaida
terrorists. He has been busy reducing the size of the armed forces and
Pentagon budget (as all good leftists have always wanted) and made clear
that he wants America out of overseas conflicts. Obama is moved by
inequality (which has become much more severe on his watch despite his
redistributionist efforts to legislate higher taxes and more spending),
the nonexistent war on women that helps move the needle in campaigns,
and other social issue advocacy.
But with regard to U.S.
relations with Israel, and the role of Congress in pro-Israel advocacy,
Obama has also been on a mission. Today, if you are on the Left,
chances are high that you are not fond of Israel. In fact, opposition to
Israel has become one of many litmus tests for the Left. Finding
pro-Israel professors who are on the Left takes you to Alan Dershowitz's
office, and few others. What was once a fringe anti-Zionist movement
has gone mainstream the last few years, in part through the focused
efforts of Professors Steven Walt and John Mearsheimer, and the constant
pressure on college campuses by students and faculty to take direct
action against Israel through the boycott, divestment and sanctions
movement.
These anti-Zionist
efforts have grown much faster since Obama became president. While Obama
has not endorsed the BDS movement, he has not condemned it either. He
has sent top administration officials, including Vice President Joe
Biden, to the annual conference of J Street, where awards are given to
individuals (e.g., Peter Beinart)
for their advocacy of boycotts. He has given the Presidential Medal of
Honor to Desmond Tutu, who endorsed the Gaza Freedom Flotilla and has
called Israel a racist state. Kerry himself implicitly threatened Israel
with more BDS activities by European nations (if not others) if it were
unable to make peace with the Palestinians in the next few months.
Now many on the Left
are contacting their Democratic senators and House members, demanding
they create more space between Israel and the United States, and to
defer to Obama on foreign policy. The biggest push in this direction has
been to back the administration's so-far successful effort to kill a
new Iran sanctions bill that would have re-enforced the message to Iran
that we were not desperate for a deal at any price, and that to achieve
real sanctions relief as opposed to getting hit with new sanctions, Iran
would have to end its nuclear enrichment program and deactivate its
reactors and centrifuges.
The administration has
sought opportunities to create distance between elected Democrats and
the pro-Israel community. One such effort was to shepherd the founding
and growth of J Street, an alternative to AIPAC, which has effectively
appealed only to members of one political party and their supporters on
the Left, Jewish or not. While J Street professes to be pro-Israel and
pro-peace, in reality it is pro-Obama and hostile to Israel's elected
government, particularly when Obama is at odds with Israel and AIPAC.
Bipartisanship has always been the key to AIPAC's success. There are
more Jewish Democrats than Republicans, and that is the case within
AIPAC, itself. But over the last few years, Democratic members of
Congress have found it easier to ignore AIPAC and stand with Obama, but
not with Israel. Supposed leaders on Israel among Democrats in Congress
have switched sides to become total toadies for the administration --
such as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Senator Dick Durbin, and
Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the chairwoman of the Democratic
National Committee. Others, such as Senator Chuck Schumer, have for the
first time in their long political career, gone silent.
If AIPAC begins to be
seen as too Republican, that will make it easier for more Democrats in
Congress to move away from the organization. And that of course is
exactly Obama's goal -- he has no fear of a pro-Israel group that looks
Republican-dominated. If that occurs, more of the organization's
Democratic members will also walk, given their allergic reactions to
being seen as part of a GOP-leaning group.
For years, the promise
of campaign support from the pro-Israel community was an important
component of financing for various campaigns. Now, when Jeffrey Katzenberg,
a Jewish Hollywood movie mogul, can give millions to the president or
to groups opposing Republicans in Congress with Israel a nonissue in the
donations, or radical environmentalists can pledge $50 million to $100
million for the midterms to back Democrats, pro-Israel campaign
financing has been overwhelmed by other causes and organizations that
are more in lockstep with Democratic/leftist thinking. Working with
environmentalists or Hollywood lobbyists, or public employee unions,
means that Democrats never have to say they are sorry. But saying yes to
AIPAC puts Democrats on the wrong page with their president.
The president figured this out early. It has
taken a while for members of his party to catch on. But more and more,
they have, and that is a victory for the president and the Democratic
Party he wants to lead and design. 
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