Plans for OCCUPY AIPAC are under way and we hope you will join us March 2-6 in Washington DC again!

With the Occupy movement that has swept the country demanding social and economic justice, many have concluded that AIPAC—the powerful pro-Israeli government lobby that distorts U.S. policy in the Middle East— is a mandatory “occupy target”.

Adbusters, the magazine that issued the initial visionary call for the takeover of Wall St. on September 17th, has declared: “The time has come for the Occupy Movement to demand an end to the Occupation of Palestine… We need a hashtag, #occupyAIPAC” (Kalle Lasn).

Timed to coincide with the annual AIPAC policy conference in March 2012, the Occupy AIPAC summit will be a long weekend of teach-ins, cultural performances, protests and creative direct actions, and a sneak preview of the forthcoming film Roadmap to Apartheid. Our Saturday conference will feature educational panels on Iran, Palestine, the Arab Uprisings and the Occupy Movement (see the list of speakers).

Sponsors and endorsers include the Institute of Policy Studies, Global Exchange, Just Foreign Policy, Interfaith Peace Builders (IFPB), the US Palestinian Community Network (USPCN), Jewish Voice for Peace, several Students for Justice in Palestine chapters, and over 120 other groups.

Right now AIPAC is trying to drag us into a disastrous war with Iran, just as they pushed the Iraq war. We must show our opposition by exposing AIPAC and standing against a war with Iran. AIPAC’s underhanded tactics and their manipulation of our political process destroys the possibility of a just peace for Palestinians and Israelis. Recent public criticisms of the Israel lobby make the call to Occupy AIPAC all the more relevant.

Now is the time to make a large, people-powered push to show our opposition to the stranglehold the Israel lobby continues to hold over our government. Your support made last year’s Move Over AIPAC a success and we need you again in 2012.

Register for the conference. Your outreach and presence is critical to help us ensure a strong turnout, because now is the time to Occupy AIPAC, not Palestine!

Corporate Flag of America, Graphic Credit: Adbusters

Attention Occupy communities: In addition to peace and justice groups around the country, we are reaching out to Occupy communities for support and participation (see the Occupy AIPAC GA resolution). If your group would like to endorse or join this effort, please email occupyaipac@gmail.com.

 

 

 

 

Global Exchange is hosting a series of blog posts from allies who are headed to the Move Over AIPAC conference taking place in Washington, D.C. this weekend, May 21-24, to expose the AIPAC lobby and build the vision for a new US foreign policy in the Middle East.

AIPAC announced that President Obama will speak at their opening plenary on Sunday morning. Sign this petition and tell President Obama to get our of bed with AIPAC!

The following post was written by Omar Barghouti, author of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS): The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights.

By Omar Barghouti
The Arab democratic spring, striving to end authoritarian rule and establish freedoms and social justice, has not been welcome by all. Israel and its main lobby in the U.S., the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), for instance, appear to have been caught off guard and visibly disturbed by the seemingly irreversible transformations that these uprisings promise to bring about in the Arab world and, to an extent, the world at large.

Having stood on the wrong side of history during the Tunisian and then the Egyptian revolutions, supporting the despots and authoritarian regimes against the people, Israel has a lot to lose from the democratic winds of change in the region. When Hosni Mubarak was about to be overthrown by the people’s revolution in Egypt Israel launched a diplomatic campaign to convince key Western capitals to support him lest stability is lost and Israel’s other tyrannical friends in the region feel abandoned.

In Tunisia, as well, the vaunted electronic surveillance apparatus of the former dictator Ben-Ali was run in close cooperation with Israel, as exposed by Tunisian civil society organizations. With more of Israel’s friends in the region being dethroned, it is becoming abundantly clear how much Israel and its Western partners have invested in safeguarding and buttressing the unelected, autocratic regimes in the Arab world, partially to make a self-fulfilling prophecy of Israel as the “villa in the midst of the jungle” — the myth often repeated by AIPAC. The impact of debunking that myth cannot be overstated. Israel has, for decades, extracted billions of dollars, not to mention diplomatic, political, and scientific support from the U.S. and European states partially based on this misleading image of Israeli democracy, and despite all the evidence to the contrary. A state that has been imposing an occupation regime for almost 44 years on Palestinians in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and Gaza, that has denied on racial grounds millions of refugees their UN-sanctioned right to return home, and that is regularly condemned by its chief benefactor and ally, the U.S. government , for its “system of institutional, legal and societal discrimination” against its own Palestinian minority carrying Israeli citizenship cannot reasonably be regarded as a “democracy.”

The fact is, U.S. citizens have been bankrolling Israel’s system of occupation, racial discrimination and denial of basic human rights to the tune of billions of dollars annually without knowing what they were funding and why. AIPAC is the main culprit in this process of defrauding the American people, while one cannot ignore the fact that the U.S. military and oil establishments have also stood to gain from Israel’s colonial expansion, endless bloody wars of aggression, and role as the police of the region, preventing popular revolt from threatening the pillage of its vast strategic resources.

For many years AIPAC has falsely advertised Israel as a democratic state that best serves U.S. interests in a turbulent and unpredictable part of the world, covering up Israel’s suppression of human rights and its very nature as a state premised on fanatic militarism, racial segregation and injustice, contrary to the supposed “shared values” with the “West” that AIPAC has fed to the American public so effectively with its well-oiled media machine and its unmatched power of intimidation as well as suppression of debate and dissent by anyone who dares to slightly step out of line and question the “Israel-first” agenda.

But given that Israel in the last few years, especially since the start of the recent Arab revolutions, has largely and quite demonstrably failed in hindering the outbreak of popular uprisings and democratic transformations in the Middle East, leading pundits have started to raise serious doubts about the taken-for-granted mantra of convergence between Israeli and American interests.

Furthermore, at a time when average Americans are losing jobs, benefits and hope, should the U.S. be spending billions to help Israel maintain its regime of oppression and violations of international law? When schools and hospitals in the U.S. are being closed, and when hundreds of thousands of U.S. soldiers are mired in endless wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and elsewhere, where they sow mass destruction and death among the populations of these countries, while they themselves suffer increasing casualties, should U.S. taxpayers continue to fund this immoral war agenda? Should Israel and its lobby groups be allowed to pull the U.S. into more wars or to continue to justify Israel’s own brutal and patently illegal wars of aggression, as the one against Palestinians in Gaza in 2008-09 and on Lebanon in 2006?

If members of the U.S. Congress dare not ask these critical questions for fear of AIPAC’s wrath – perceived and carefully marketed as invincible – and an almost certain loss of career, shouldn’t the working people of the U.S. pose them and demand accountability and, indeed, democratic regime change?

It is in this context that one cannot but highly admire the courage, creativity and resilience of human rights and advocacy groups in the U.S., like CODEPINK, the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, Jewish Voice for Peace and many others that insist on challenging AIPAC’s domination of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and beyond and its detrimental and deeply corrupting influence over U.S. decision making in general. The CODEPINK-led campaign to “expose AIPAC and usher in a new foreign policy,” to be launched in Washington, DC in May is a badly needed and truly inspiring effort that should be widely supported by all those who care about the cause of justice and peace in the U.S. and, by extension, the entire world.

Omar Barghouti is a human rights activist and author of Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS): The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights (Haymarket, 2011)

Take action by attending Move Over AIPAC, a gathering in Washington DC from May 21-24, 2011, to expose AIPAC and build the vision for a new US foreign policy in the Middle East! More information can be found at www.MoveOverAIPAC.org.

Spread the word! The Move Over AIPAC Summit keynote and plenary will be aired on livestream at www.moveoveraipac.org on Saturday, May 21, 10:30am-3pm EST and people can tweet questions to @moveoveraipac

Global Exchange is hosting a series of blog posts from allies who are headed to the Move Over AIPAC conference taking place in Washington, D.C. on May 21-24, to expose the AIPAC lobby and build the vision for a new US foreign policy in the Middle East. Sign up today.

With just three days left before Move Over AIPAC, it has been announced that President Obama will speak at their opening plenary on Sunday morning. Sign this petition and tell President Obama to get our of bed with AIPAC!

The following post was written by Alice Rothchild, author of Broken Promises, Broken Dreams: Stories of Jewish Trauma and Resilience.

By Alice Rothchild

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee is holding its annual conference May 22-24, where Congress people and many of our national leaders will rush headlong into the committee’s open arms and bountiful coffers. In an increasingly bizarre time warp they will congratulate each other and kvell about Israel’s special relationship with the US, our strategic partnership, and Israel’s commitment to democratic ideals in a “sea of dictatorships” (to quote the website).

What they will not talk about is reality. US Jews are increasingly uncomfortable with a lobby that claims to represent us, but is deeply committed to the militaristic and rightwing policies of successive Israeli governments. Jews in the US tend to be politically progressive, but we are being asked to suspend our liberal beliefs when it comes to Israel. While maintaining a steady dream beat for war against Iran and a world view that, “Israel continues to fulfill its ancient obligation as a ‘light unto the nations,’” AIPAC lobbyists with their Christian Zionist allies guarantee billions of dollars in military aid for Israel each year . Much of this goes towards buying US military weapons and machinery, cementing the massive, interconnected, and lucrative military-industrial-security complex that now exists between our two countries.

AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis

Not only has this made a brutal 43 year military occupation possible, but it also provides military and political support to the current Netanyahu government. Let’s be clear. Netanyahu is committed to building Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, undermining any possibility for a two-state solution. He is building Jewish settler-only roads and roads for Palestinians funded by USAID. He tightly controls Palestinian movement through checkpoints, permits, and the Separation Wall which has stolen thousands of acres of Palestinian land and destroyed the lives and livelihoods of people whose families have lived in the region for centuries. His idea of Palestinian statehood, (should he still have one), is a scattering of weak enclaves surrounded by Israeli military. The recently released Palestine Papers painfully documented the degree to which Palestinian negotiators were willing to sell their souls while Israeli negotiators refused to accept any concessions. The US was revealed twisting the arms of Palestinians diplomats to give up basic demands and the massive security coordination between the Israelis and the Palestinian Authority was exposed.

Within Israel, there is a rightwing crackdown on human rights activists, and laws brewing in the Knesset that will criminalize:

  1. Nonviolent protests (in Israel and internationally) that advocate boycotts, divestments, and sanctions
  2. Providing information that could lead to Israeli war crime charges,
  3. Any activity against Israeli soldiers or State symbols including nonviolent legitimate resistance to the occupation.
  4. Commemorations of the Nakba, the Palestinian experience of 1948

At the same time there are over 20 laws that maintain the second class status for Palestinians with Israeli citizenship.

While Israeli activists worry about rising fascism in Israeli society, Palestinians are celebrating the Arab Spring that is blossoming in the region and Fatah and Hamas are gingerly talking about unity and democratic elections. Arabs from Tunisia to Yemen are putting their lives on the line for equality and freedom of speech. This breathtaking political moment is changing the political discourse in the Middle East and the US Congress needs to take notice and shake itself free of the world view that is promoted by AIPAC lobbyists. Fear of anti-Semitism and the traumas of the Holocaust do not justify Israeli exceptionalism, militarism, racism towards Arabs, or a belief in permanent Jewish victimization.

Peace in the Middle East is more urgent than ever, but it needs to be based on international law, human rights, and UN resolutions. AIPAC and its supporters are deluding themselves, promoting a perpetual state of war and hostility, living in a world that does not match reality. At the same time, over 100 peace organizations will be meeting in Washington. Under the call: Move Over AIPAC: Building a New US Middle East Policy, they will explore the impacts of US military aid and political cover, the demand to end the Israeli occupation, and the building of a solution that respects the rights and dignity of everyone in the region. There will be no big donors there, but Congress would do well to listen.

Alice Rothchild is a physician, activist, and author of Broken Promises, Broken Dreams: Stories of Jewish Trauma and Resilience. Her website is www.alicerothchild.com.

Take action by attending Move Over AIPAC, a gathering in Washington DC from May 21-24, 2011, to expose AIPAC and build the vision for a new US foreign policy in the Middle East! More information can be found at www.MoveOverAIPAC.org.

Spread the word! The Move Over AIPAC Summit keynote and plenary will be aired on livestream at www.moveoveraipac.org on Saturday, May 21, 10:30am-3pm EST and people can tweet questions to @moveoveraipac

The following post was originally sent to our Economic Activism for Palestine e-mail list. Be the first to receive urgent news and action updates from Global Exchange by signing up to our e-mail lists.

photo: Who Profits?

In an unprecedented victory to a public campaign led by Palestinian, German and Israeli groups, the German firm Deutsche Bahn International has been pulled off an Israeli railway project by a decision of the German Federal Government. The Israeli railway line is being built between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, unlawfully crossing into occupied Palestinian territory in two areas, at a great cost to the neighboring Palestinian communities.

The international campaign was launched six months ago following an investigation by the Israeli research group “Who Profits from the Occupation” of the Coalition of Women for Peace. The “Who Profits” report shows the route of the new train line and the involvement of several European companies in its construction on occupied Palestinian land.

A letter from the German Transport Ministry was released last week, stating that “The federal government pointed out [to Deutsche Bahn] that the project of the Israeli state railway is problematic from a foreign policy point of view and potentially breaches international law.” The letter added that the German operator confirmed “in writing” that there would be no further involvement of its international subsidiary in “this politically very sensitive project”.

Prominent among the other European companies involved in the planning and construction of the new train line is the private Italian company Pizzarotti which handles much of the tunneling. A wide coalition of Italian organizations has appealed to the company to back out of this illegal project. The Israeli Coalition of Women for Peace has called upon other governments to follow the example of the German Government and regulate corporate involvement in international law violations in the occupied West Bank.

See below some recent news reports about this breakthrough:

Now, more then ever, corporations are held accountable in Europe for their involvement in illegal occupation profiteering. It is our job to hold them accountable in the US too. Join us this weekend in DC, with over a hundred other organizations at the Move Over AIPAC conference to build a new US Middle East Policy! The gathering will expose AIPAC’s negative influence on U.S. foreign policy and promote an alternative approach that respects the rights of all people in the region. I will be there leading workshops about divestment and effective campaigns in the U.S. Join us!

Global Exchange is hosting a series of blog posts from allies who are headed to the Move Over AIPAC conference taking place in Washington, D.C. on May 21-24, to expose the AIPAC lobby and build the vision for a new US foreign policy in the Middle East. Sign up today. The following post was written by Managing Editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Janet McMahon.

By Janet McMahon

One could be forgiven for thinking that the last three letters of AIPAC stand for “political action committee.” But since the American Israel Public Affairs Committee does not itself make campaign contributions to political candidates, technically it is not a PAC. Curiously, however, the 30-odd “unaffiliated” pro-Israel PACs, most with deceptively innocuous names, all seem to give to the same candidates—almost as if there were a guiding intelligence behind their contributions. In the eyes of the Federal Election Commission, AIPAC is a “membership organization” rather than a political committee. This means that, unlike actual PACs, AIPAC is not required to file public reports on its income and expenditures.

Not for nothing, however, did Fortune magazine once name it the second most powerful lobby in Washington. So it’s easy to understand why, like a night flower that blooms in the dark and dies with the light of day, this particular organization which advances the interests of a foreign government has fought long and hard to ensure that its funding sources and expenditures are not exposed to public scrutiny.

Despite its best efforts, however, unwanted light does occasionally shine on AIPAC’s activities. Most dramatically, perhaps, two of its top operatives, Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, were indicted on espionage charges in 2005. Four years later federal prosecutors dropped the charges when it became clear that Judge T.S. Ellis’ numerous rulings in favor of the defendants would require the release of sensitive government documents. Rosen then sued his former employer for defamation, claiming that AIPAC routinely dealt in classified information and that he was in no way a rogue employee, as AIPAC had claimed.

A related case of unwanted publicity involved former Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA), who was overheard on a 2006 NSA wiretap talking to someone described by CQ’s Jeff Stein as a “suspected Israeli agent”—thought to be Haim Saban, a major AIPAC contributor. “I’m a one-issue guy and my issue is Israel,” Saban described himself to The New York Times. During the course of their conversation Harman agreed to lobby the Justice Department to reduce the charges against Rosen and Weissman; in exchange, Saban would pressure then-House minority leader Nancy Pelosi to appoint Harman chair of the House Intelligence Committee following the 2006 elections, which the Democrats were expected to, and did, win. (Harman, who ultimately was not appointed chair, recently left Capitol Hill to head the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars; a few blocks away, the Brookings Institution houses the Saban Center for Middle East Policy.)

Even though Pelosi resisted any pressure she may have received from Saban—reportedly because of personal animosity toward Harman as much as anything—she has demonstrated her sensitivity to AIPAC’s concerns. After Pelosi became speaker of the House following the Democrats’ 2006 victory, a provision was included in an Iraq war spending bill which would require the president to seek, with some exceptions, congressional approval before using military force against Iran. Since the Constitution grants the power to declare war to Congress, not to the president, this would appear to be uncontroversial. But AIPAC found it objectionable, and lobbied hard to have that provision struck from the bill. Speaking at AIPAC’s March 2007 annual meeting, Pelosi was booed when she described the Iraq war as being a failure on several counts. Shortly thereafter, the offending language was withdrawn from the pending legislation. After all, what’s an oath of office between friends?

Nor was that by any means the only legislation tailored to AIPAC’s wishes. Its tax-exempt fund-raising arm, the American Israel Education Foundation (AIEF), which AIPAC describes on its Web site as a “charitable organization affiliated with AIPAC,” spends the bulk of its $24 million budget paying for congressional trips to Israel. According to the Web site LegiStorm, “When Congress was working on strengthening the travel ban in 2006, reports indicated AIPAC lobbied for an exemption from the ban on lobbyist-sponsored travel. The organization did not receive a specific exemption, but the loophole on allowing non-profit travel allows the organization to continue to sponsor travel.” The non-profit AIEF simply certifies that it “does not retain or employ a registered federal lobbyist.”

That this was no accident was confirmed, perhaps inadvertently, by Melanie Sloan of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. In a 2009 C-SPAN interview, host Brian Lamb asked about the 2006 travel rules adopted as a result of the Jack Abramoff scandal whereby an “institution of higher learning” can sponsor trips. “Well,” Sloan blithely responded, “this was initially even called the AIPAC exception, there was this exception that 501(c)(3) organizations and universities could, in fact, still sponsor trips.” To Lamb’s characteristic “Why?” she replied vaguely, “That was the compromise that was reached in the House. They didn’t want to ban all private travel and they thought that these were the kind of trips that were more easily explained and didn’t have the same kind of appearance of corruption.”

More recent sightings of AIPAC’s “invisible hand” include a May 2009 letter to President Barack Obama ostensibly written by then-House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and Republican Whip Eric Cantor of Virginia—among the top five House recipients of pro-Israel PAC contributions. As the Washington Post’s Al Kamen discovered, however, the e-mail attachment of the letter, which called on the president to act as a “trusted mediator and devoted friend of Israel,” revealed its true origin: it was titled “AIPAC Letter Hoyer-Cantor May 2009.pdf.”

Do Americans want their laws and foreign policies drafted to serve the interests of a foreign government? At the very least, AIPAC’s funding sources and expenditures should be available for scrutiny by the citizens of its host country. In the meantime, the upcoming Move Over AIPAC conference, to be held in Washington, DC May 21-24—at the very time AIPAC will be hosting Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his congressional supplicants at its annual Washington policy conference—will shine a critical and much-needed light on the means and ends of the Israel Lobby’s flagship organization. There concerned Americans can discover, among other things, whether their elected representatives put the needs of their constituents ahead of Israel’s demands—and visit Capitol Hill to register their opinions. For more information, visit www.moveoveraipac.org.

— Janet McMahon is managing editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, www.wrmea.com, whose May/June 2011 issue includes totals for 2010 pro-Israel PAC contributions to all congressional candidates.

Take action by attending Move Over AIPAC, a gathering in Washington DC from May 21-24, 2011, to expose AIPAC and build the vision for a new US foreign policy in the Middle East! More information can be found at www.MoveOverAIPAC.org.

“No lobby has managed to divert U.S. foreign policy as far from the American national interest… while simultaneously convincing Americans that U.S. and Israeli interests are essentially identical.” – John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, authors of The Israel Lobby, keynote speakers at Move Over AIPAC gathering May 21-24

From May 21 to 24, 2011, in Washington DC, join Global Exchange, CODEPINK, the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation and a coalition of over 100 organizations at the historic gathering to Move Over AIPAC and building a New US Middle East Policy!

Move Over AIPAC is timed to coincide with the annual policy meeting of AIPAC, which will feature Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, members of the Obama administration and hundreds of members of Congress. The gathering will expose AIPAC’s negative influence on U.S. foreign policy and promote an alternative approach that respects the rights of all people in the region.

Dalit Baum, Global Exchange’s Director of the Economic Activism for Palestine Program will lead workshops about divestment and effective campaigns in the U.S. She will be joined by an impressive list of speakers that include The Israel Lobby authors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein, writer Alice Walker, consumer advocate Ralph Nader, author Nadia Hijab, Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, union organizer Bill Fletcher, US Campaign to End the Israel Occupation national organizer and human rights advocate Anna Baltzer and many more!

There will be trainings, workshops, press conferences, book signings, cultural events, and culminate with peaceful, creative protests outside the AIPAC convention itself.

Still need some convincing? Read blog posts from CODEPINK’s Rae Abileah and Holocaust survivor, Hedy Epstein on why they are going to Move Over AIPAC.

Register today to join us in DC! Plus, sign up here and RSVP on facebook. Spaces are limited and will fill up quickly, so sign up today! The cost for the summit is a modest $50-100, and only $20 for students and low-income. All other actions and events are FREE.

We have a growing scholarship fund to support travel costs for students. You can apply for a scholarship or find out more here.

If you can’t come, please help students attend by donating to the scholarship fund.

Global Exchange is hosting a series of blog posts from allies who are headed to the Move Over AIPAC conference taking place in Washington, D.C. on May 21-24, to expose the AIPAC lobby and build the vision for a new US foreign policy in the Middle East. Sign up today. The following post was written by Holocaust survivor, Hedy Epstein.

By Hedy Epstein

At the end of one of my first journeys to the Israeli-occupied West Bank in 2004, I endured a shocking experience at Ben-Gurion Airport. I never imagined that Israeli security forces would abuse a 79-year-old Holocaust survivor, but they held me for five hours, and strip-searched and cavity-searched every part of my naked body. The only shame these security officials expressed was to turn their badges around so that their names were invisible.

The only conceivable purpose for this gross violation of my bodily integrity was to humiliate and terrify me. But it had just the opposite effect. It made me more determined to speak out against abuses by the Israeli government and military.

Yet my own experience, unpleasant as it was, is nothing compared to the indignities and abuses heaped on Palestinians year after year. Israel’s occupation of the West Bank is based not on equal rights and fair play, but on what Human Rights Watch has termed a “two-tier” legal system – in other words, apartheid, with one set of laws for Jews and a harsh, oppressive set of laws for Palestinians.

This, however, is the legal system and security state AIPAC (The American Israel Public Affairs Committee) will defend from May 22-24 at its annual conference. And, despite this grim reality, members of Congress will converge to hail AIPAC and Israel. The Palestinians’ lack of freedom is bound to be obscured at the AIPAC conference with its obsessive focus on security and shunting aside of anything to do with upholding fundamental Palestinian rights.

Several years ago near Der Beilut in the West Bank, I saw the Israeli police turn a water cannon on our nonviolent protest. As it happened, I recalled Birmingham, Alabama in 1963 and wondered why an ostensibly democratic society responded to peaceable assembly by trying, literally, to drown out the voice of our protest.

photo: Palestine Solidarity Committee

In Mas’ha, also in the occupied West Bank, I joined a demonstration against the wall Israel has built, usually inside the West Bank and occasionally towering to 25 feet in height. I saw a red sign warning ominously of “mortal danger” to any who dared to cross in an area where it ran as a fence. I saw Israeli soldiers aiming at unarmed Israelis, Palestinians and international protesters. I also saw blood pouring out of Gil Na’amati, a young Israeli whose first public act after completing his mandatory military service was to protest against the wall. I saw shrapnel lodged in the leg of Anne Farina, one of my traveling companions from St. Louis. And I thought of Kent State and Jackson State, where National Guardsmen opened fire in 1970 on protesters against the Vietnam War.

So as AIPAC meets and members of Congress cheer, I hold these images of Israel in my mind and fear AIPAC’s ability to move US policy in dangerous directions. AIPAC does a disservice to the Palestinians, the Israelis and the American people. It helps to keep the Middle East in a perpetual state of war and this year will be no different from last year as it keeps up a steady drumbeat calling for war against Iran.

AIPAC pretends to speak for all Jews, but it certainly does not speak for me or other members of the Jewish community in this country who are committed to equal rights for all and are aware that American interventionism is likely to bring further disaster and chaos to the Middle East.

Israel, of course, would not be able to carry out its war crimes against civilians in Lebanon and Gaza without the United States – and our $3 billion in military aid – permitting it to do so. At 86 years old, I use every ounce of my energy to educate the American public about the need to stop supporting the abuses committed by the Israeli government and military against the Palestinian people. Sometimes there are people who try to shout me down and scream that I am a self-hating Jew, but most of the time the audience is receptive to hear from someone who survived the Holocaust and now works to free the Palestinians from Israeli oppression.

The vicious discrimination brought to bear against Palestinians in the occupied territories deserves no applause this week from members of Congress attending the AIPAC conference. Instead, they should raise basic questions with Israeli officials about decades of inferior rights endured by Palestinians both inside Israel and the occupied territories. As for me, I will be across the road at an alternative convention called Move Over AIPAC. To sign up and join me, visit www.MoveOverAIPAC.org.

Hedy Epstein is a Holocaust survivor, who writes and travels extensively to speak about social justice causes and Middle Eastern affairs.

Take action by attending Move Over AIPAC, a gathering in Washington DC from May 21-24, 2011, to expose AIPAC and build the vision for a new US foreign policy in the Middle East! More information can be found at www.MoveOverAIPAC.org.

The following post was written by Rae Abileah, Middle East Coordinator at our sister organization, CODEPINK. Global Exchange has partnered with CODEPINK, the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation and over 100 peace and justice groups for the Move Over AIPAC! conference taking place in Washington, D.C. on May 21-24, to expose the AIPAC lobby and build the vision for a new US foreign policy in the Middle East. Sign up today.

One year ago, on April 14, 2010, I was pulling a bleary-eyed all-nighter at the heated divestment on the UC Berkeley campus about divestment from US corporations profiting from the Israeli occupation. I was there to testify in support of the bill as a young Jewish-American of Israeli descent. On March 18, UC Berkeley’s student senate had voted 16 to 4 in favor of divestment. A week later, the vote was vetoed by the student senate president. What was behind the defeat of the resolution? One primary influence: The American Israel Public Affairs Committee – AIPAC.

In a shocking video, top AIPAC official Jonathan Kessler responded to a question about the divestment fight at Berkeley by saying, “We’re going to make sure that pro-Israel students take over the student government and reverse the vote…This is how AIPAC operates in our nation’s capital. This is how AIPAC must operate on our nation’s campuses.” And indeed, this year, the perfect AIPAC-Manchurian candidate has taken office: UC Berkeley student body president Noah Stern is a former AIPAC intern (who committed well-documented voter fraud to get elected).

This year, from May 21-24, AIPAC will hold its annual convention, bringing more than 8,000 people from all over the country to our nation’s capital to discuss, commemorate and strengthen the special relationship between Israel and the United States. In addition to AIPAC’s die-hard supporters, more than 1,000 of those attending will be college students representing over 300 campuses from all 50 states, over a quarter of whom are student body presidents selectively targeted by AIPAC. Each year these students receive formal invitations in the mail, offering them a free trip to Washington, D.C. to participate in the weekend-long AIPAC seminar followed by a full day of lobbying on Capitol Hill. The goal of this gathering: To secure the relationship between Israel and the United States, to promote further sanctions on Iran, and to ensure continued- if not increased- military aid to Israel. “A great resume builder,” the invitations typically say.

Some of the students who will be attending are already informed about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but many others are not. Once the convention begins, they are inundated with the fear-mongering policies of the second most powerful lobbyist organization in Washington D.C. (just behind the AARP). This year, the gala keynote address will be given by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who will most likely invoke rhetoric about the “global delegitimization of Israel”- a new term given to advocates of justice critiquing Israel’s human rights violations. There will likely be little, if any, discussion of the expansion of illegal settlements, the ongoing construction of the illegal apartheid wall (in many places built with 24-foot high concrete), Israel’s exploitation of Palestinian water resources, the violence of Jewish settlers toward Palestinians, the suffocation of the people in Gaza, or any of the other serious offenses occurring every day in the Occupied Territories. Speakers and workshops include topics such as critical examination of the Arab world uprisings and the implications for Israel, the “threat” of Iran, and many sessions on the history of the region that will undoubtedly exclude the Palestinian narrative and current reality under occupation. One session is even titled “Israel Improving Palestinian Lives”!

AIPAC’s central focus is to ensure continued U.S. aid for Israel, financially (to the tune of over $3 billion a year of our tax dollars), and politically. The U.S. hesitated to condemn the dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak during the Egyptian revolution, because it was well aware that a genuine democracy in Egypt might not be beneficial for Israel. In response to the uprisings in the Arab world, the Israeli government wants even more American dollars (out of our pockets) to “secure itself.” And recently the U.S. vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling for an end to illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian land. American support for, and enabling of, continued Israeli violations of international law and human rights encourages anti-American sentiment in the Middle East and works in direct contrast with our national interests.

AIPAC’s relentless pressure on Congress now extends to our nation’s college campuses as well, where it seeks to influence student elections and opinions. But as Peter Beinart’s now viral piece noted, the next generation of American Jews are committed to standing on the side of justice, rather than the AIPAC-endorsed story. And in the case of the UC Berkeley campus divestment campaign, as is the case with the growing youth movement across the country, the diverse array of student cultural groups stood committed to human rights and divestment. The tide is turning, and it’s time for AIPAC to move over and make way for a new US foreign policy in the Middle East, one that includes the end of military aid to Israel until it complies with international law. As the main financier of the Israeli occupation, the fulcrum of change must happen here in the U.S.

CODEPINK Women for Peace has partnered with the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, the US Palestinian Community Network (USPCN), Jewish Voice for Peace, and more than 100 peace and justice groups to organize Move Over AIPAC – a simultaneous policy summit along with a series of creative actions and cultural performances in Washington, D.C. timed to coincide with AIPAC’s annual policy meeting. Move Over AIPAC will expose the negative implications of the lobby’s influence on U.S. foreign policy and promote an alternative approach that respects the rights of all people in the region. Speakers at the events will include life-long journalist Helen Thomas, Ralph Nader, Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein, The Israel Lobby authors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, Palestinian writer Laila El Haddad, Dr. Patch Adams, CODEPINK and Global Exchange cofounder Medea Benjamin, and many more widely renowned experts and activists.

From UC Berkeley to Florida International University, over a dozen chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine have signed onto Move Over AIPAC and there is a growing student scholarship fund to support young people who want to be in DC for this momentous occasion. As a college student I may have been unsure about AIPAC’s policies, but with the knowledge I have now about the lobby’s work on behalf of Israel’s military violence and abuse, I can clearly see that as a young Jew, AIPAC does not speak for me. Don’t let your tax dollars continue to buy occupation – join us in DC to move over AIPAC!

Rae Abileah is the Middle East Coordinator at CODEPINK Women for Peace and a member of Jewish Voice for Peace / Young Jewish Proud. She invites you to register today to attend Move Over AIPAC. Rae is an American Jew of Israeli descent living in San Francisco, CA and can be reached at rae@codepink.org.