Yes, there is only one AIPAC, by all or some accounts America’s foremost brand when it comes to lobbying for Israel.
(Never forget that ZOA is always tall for Israel…without reservations, near singularly so.)
But sometimes the 100,000-member AIPAC organization comes across as a body with two minds.
There’s no question that the members have Israel’s best interests at heart, and there’s no doubt that their influence profoundly helps shape US policy to the good of both the United States and Israel. It is recognized that we share the same values, and that what is good for the one, is good for the other.
Remember, they are lobbyists, in the best sense of the word, therefore our leading thinkers and philanthropists, and when they talk, Congress and Presidents listen.
But the message is sometimes wobbly.
On the one hand, they stand for a strong Israel, a nation with defensible borders, and yet…and yet they support a two-state solution.
That won’t work, certainly never to Israel’s benefit, and maybe some day they will figure that out, as we did, when here we objected to an AIPAC leader lobbying for a Palestinian state.
Incredible.
So that’s AIPAC going soft.
At the moment, they find themselves in a fix for going strong, as here, when they ran ads deploring “radical” Democrat members of Congress who intend harm for the Jewish State. Pointedly, copy within the AIPAC ad suggested that Israel’s harshest critics in Congress pose a threat “more sinister than ISIS.”
Which did not go over well, and was taken as a broad brush against ALL Congressional Democrats, and hence – Gevalt!
No…no…no, AIPAC since responded, and apologized, and changed the ads, to reflect only upon certain people, like Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, the two who make no secret of their bitterness against Israel. We meant no disrespect, AIPAC said, to the majority of Democrats in Congress.
For instance, in what way do the Democrats deserve an explanation when they never explained their failure to censure Omar after her plainly anti-Semitic comments? 
Somebody…if you ask me…got caught writing the truth. While the proofreader was asleep. Sounds like coming from a Jewish ad-writer who stands on no bended knees.
Understood. A group such as AIPAC must tread responsibly and respectfully to keep its reputation as balanced for both parties, Democrats and Republicans.
Apologizing, it did what it had to do. We suppose.
So it’s been corrected, and is it enough?
Of course not. In today’s world, everything is remembered and nothing is forgiven.
For some, the apology will never be enough, and for others, like this nonmember of AIPAC, or anything else, it is too much.
For instance, in what way do the Democrats deserve an explanation when they never explained their failure to censure Omar after her plainly anti-Semitic comments?
Without blushing, Omar accused American Jews of dual loyalties, and of paying “the Benjamins” for favorable legislation. A vote was called for, in the House, to condemn such intolerance. A vote was taken, with the result that nearly all other forms of intolerance were denounced -- except for Ilhan Omar’s particular type of bigotry.
She got off scot-free, and along with Tlaib, continues to mouth off. The test vote failed miserably for the Democrats, but succeeded in showing a particular Party’s true face.
Does this reflect the entire Party?
Well yes it does, and yes it will…until we hear a single voice…a single Democrat speak out against the toxic elements within their own Party.
So far, silence. Nothing from Pelosi, nor from the other Democrat leaders in both houses, which automatically puts them all in the same boat.
Which means that AIPAC was right the first time.
New York-based bestselling American novelist Jack Engelhard writes regularly for Arutz Sheva.
He wrote the worldwide book-to-movie bestseller “Indecent Proposal,” and the authoritative newsroom epic, “The Bathsheba Deadline,” followed by his coming-of-age classics, “The Girls of Cincinnati,” and, the Holocaust-to-Montreal memoir, “Escape from Mount Moriah,” for which contemporaries have hailed him “The last Hemingway, a writer without peer, and the conscience of us all.” Website: www.jackengelhard.com
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