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- Written by AUPHR AUPHR
- Published: 25 April 2010 25 April 2010
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"A lobby is like a night flower: It thrives in the dark and dies in the sun."
SteveRosen, the former AIPAC foreign policy chief
"Even in these partisan times, support for AIPAC is an article of faith for both political parties. This is as it should be . . ."
OregonGovernor Ted Kulongoski
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is one of the most powerful lobbies in the United States. AIPAC has huge influence in shaping U.S. Foreign policy in the Middle East. AIPAC's lobbying helps instill an aggressive, militaristic foreign policy with ourlocal, state, and federal politicians. The policies being promoted by AIPAC today will often be repeated by our politicians in thecoming year. AIPAC often drafts the congressional letters and bills supporting hardline policies which support Israel's ongoing human rights violations. AIPAC opposes holding Israel accountable to international law and opposes Obama's call for a freeze on Israel's illegal settlements.
Americans United for Palestinian Human Rights www.auphr.org
See our web site for our calendar of events and AUPHR meetings.
"I believe that a much-needed self-examination of American policy in the Middle East has started in this country; but it can’t make much headway as long as AIPAC retains powerful influence in both the Democratic and Republican parties. Some leaders of the Democratic Party have promised to bring about a change of direction but they cannot deliver on that promise until they are able to resist the dictates of AIPAC." - George Soros
“But when I see so many of my colleagues and friends making and trying to portray and to lead American Jewry into a single-issue Jewry — Israel and that’s it, no domestic coalitions, no minorities, no responsibility for other social and universalistic affairs—I’m concerned about it, very much so. And when I look at some of the AIPAC’s, OK, activities, I have a feeling that sometimes we’re having three political entities: the United States of America, the sovereign state of Israel, and the independent state of AIPAC, which has its own policy, whatever it is, not working for the best interests of Israel, according to the way I understand it and Yitzhak Rabin understood it, and not according to the best interests of the United States of America. This is a kind of a filter which filters only darkness through it, rather than light through it. And I would like to see the alternative American Jewry, which is expressed through the liberalism and humanism and civil rights and a total commitment toward peace, as the one which expresses me.” (Avraham Burg, former Speaker of Israeli Knesset, as quoted on Democracy Now, Feb. 12, 2009.)
How Much Military Aid to Israel . . . Do You Provide?
See aidtoisrael.org
Between 2009-2018, the United States is scheduled to give Israel--the largest recipient of U.S. aid--$30 billion in military aid.
Oregon Military Aid to Israel, Total FY2009-2018: $285,964,624.71
This money could have been spent instead to:
Provide 3,472 households per year w/affordable housing grants OR provide 4,747 job seekers per year w/green jobs training OR provide 8,455 children per year w/early reading education OR provide 231,588 people per year w/primary health care.