Rep. McCollum (D-MN) orders AIPAC to stay clear of her office

[BurtWorm]

until they apologize for the actions of their lobbyists.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19063

A LETTER TO AIPAC
By Betty McCollum

The letter below was sent by Representative Betty McCollum, a Democrat from Minnesota, to the executive director of AIPAC. The bill mentioned, H.R. 4681, the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act of 2006, would place so many restraints on aid to the Palestinian people, and so many restrictions on the administration's ability to deal with the Palestinians, that even the State Department has opposed it. AIPAC has strongly backed it. The Senate version of the bill, S. 2237, would allow the administration far more flexibility. On April 6, the House International Relations Committee passed H.R. 4681 by a vote of 36 to 2; McCollum was one of the two nays. As of May 11, AIPAC has yet to respond to her demand for an apology.

—Michael Massing

April 10, 2006

Mr. Howard Kohr
Executive Director
American Israel Public Affairs Committee
440 First Street, NW; Suite 600
Washington, D.C. 20001

Dear Mr. Kohr:

During my nineteen years serving in elected office, including the past five years as a Member of Congress, never has my name and reputation been maligned or smeared as it was last week by a representative of AIPAC. Last Friday, during a call with my chief of staff, an AIPAC representative from Minnesota who has frequently lobbied me on behalf of your organization stated, "on behalf of herself, the Jewish community, AIPAC, and the voters of the Fourth District, Congresswoman McCollum's support for terrorists will not be tolerated." Ironically, this individual, who does not even live in my congressional district, feels free to speak for my constituents.

This response may have been the result of extreme emotion or irrational passion, but regardless, it is a hateful attack that is vile and offensive to me and the families I represent. I call on AIPAC to immediately condemn this un-American attack and disavow any attempt to use this type of threat and intimidation to stifle legitimate policy differences. I will not stand to be labeled or threatened in a manner that questions my patriotism or my oath of office.

Last week, I did vote against H.R. 4681 during mark-up of the bill in the House International Relations Committee. As a Member of Congress sworn to uphold the Constitution, and ensure the security of the US and represent the values and beliefs of the constituents who I serve, it was my view that H.R. 4681 goes beyond the State Department's current policies toward Hamas and the Palestinian Authority and potentially undermines the US position vis-à-vis the coordinated international pressure on Hamas. The language contained in S. 2237 accurately reflects my position.

Keeping diplomatic pressure on Hamas to renounce terrorism, recognize the State of Israel, dismantle terrorist infrastructure, and honor past agreements and treaty obligations, while preventing a humanitarian crisis among the Palestinian people, are all policy goals already strongly supported by myself, the Bush administration, Congress and the American people. But, if the purpose of H.R. 4681 was to send another strong message to Hamas and the Palestinian people, as Congress already has sent with the passage of S. Con. Res. 79, then I disagree with the vehicle for that message. In my opinion, Congress should be articulating clear support for the Secretary of State's present course of action; not creating a new law which likely diminishes the diplomatic tools needed to advance US policy goals with regard to the Palestinian people, potentially cuts US funding to the United Nations, and largely restates current law while creating on-going and burdensome unfunded reporting requirements.

As you well know, in Congress we do not shy away from condemning the vile words of despots and dictators who use anti-Semitism as a weapon to incite hatred, fear and violence. AIPAC should not have a lower standard for persons affiliated and representing its organization when they label a Member of Congress who thinks for herself and always puts the interest of our nation and people first a supporter of terrorists.

You and your colleagues at AIPAC have the right to disagree with my position on any piece of legislation, but for an AIPAC representative to say that I would ever vote to support Middle East terrorists over the interests of my country will never be tolerated by me or the families I serve. This incident rises to a level in which a formal, written apology is required.

Mr. Kohr, I am a supporter of a strong US–Israeli relationship and my voting record speaks for itself. This will not change. But until I receive a formal, written apology from your organization I must inform you that AIPAC representatives are not welcome in my offices or for meetings with my staff.

Betty McCollum
Member of Congress
4th District, Minnesota
Washington, D.C.

[originalpckelly]

1. I have never been able to figure out why the hell people supporting...

another nation get to participate in our political system. Why is that exactly? Ironic isn't it, the people who decry American citizens as un-American are lobbying on behalf of another nation?

[Xeric]

2. How's that AIPAC spy scandal going?

Can't talk abou that I guess.

[Kagemusha]

5. Latest is Prof. Turley saying if the govt wins, freedom is over.

(suppresses gagging reflex)

Unless I'm very wildly wrong the law does make some distinction between leaks that are published and publicly aired and leaks that are handed off to Israeli intelligence and not made public. Apparently professors and news corps and reporters are working very hard to imply that the law makes no such distinction, therefore, the AIPAC people had damn well better get off.

[me b zola]

3. Are lobbiest always that vile?

I guess they knew that they could not buy her off, so they went with the strong-armed approach.

Good response from Rep. McCollum, I'm glad that she exposed these creeps for what they are.

[BurtWorm]

4. This letter supplements an article Massing wrote

about "The Storm over the Israel Lobby" in the latest NYRB:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19062



Not since Foreign Affairs magazine published Samuel Huntington's "The Clash of Civilizations?" in 1993 has an academic essay detonated with such force as "The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy," by professors John J. Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen M. Walt of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. Published in the March 23, 2006, issue of the London Review of Books and posted as a "working paper" on the Kennedy School's Web site, the report has been debated in the coffeehouses of Cairo and in the editorial offices of Haaretz. It's been called "smelly" (Christopher Hitchens), "nutty" (Max Boot), "conspiratorial" (the Anti-Defamation League), "oddly amateurish" (the Forward), and "brave" (Philip Weiss in The Nation). It's prompted intense speculation over why The New York Times has given it so little attention and why The Atlantic Monthly, which originally commissioned the essay, rejected it.

The objects of all this controversy are two eminent members of the academic establishment. Mearsheimer is a graduate of West Point, a veteran of five years in the Air Force, and the author of three books, including The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. In 1989, Mearsheimer persuaded Walt to leave Princeton and to join the faculty at Chicago, and they worked closely together until 1999, when Walt left for Harvard's Kennedy School; he's been its academic dean for the last three years. Last year, he published Taming American Power: The Global Response to US Primacy. As their book titles suggest, both professors belong to the "realist" school of international relations, viewing national interest as the only effective ground for making foreign policy.

In their paper (the Web version runs eighty-two pages, forty of them footnotes), Mearsheimer and Walt argue that the centerpiece of US policy in the Middle East has been its unwavering support for Israel, and that this has not been in America's best interest. In their view, the "extraordinary generosity" the US showers on Israel— the nearly $3 billion in direct foreign assistance it provides every year, the access it gives Israel to "top-drawer" weapons like F-16 jets, the thirty-two UN Security Council resolutions critical of Israel that it has vetoed since 1982, the "wide latitude" it has given Israel in dealing with the occupied territories—all this "might be understandable if Israel were a vital strategic asset or if there were a compelling moral case for sustained US backing." In fact, they write, "neither rationale is convincing." Israel may have had strategic value for the US during the cold war when the Soviet Union had heavy influence in Egypt and Syria, but that has long since faded. Since September 11, Israel has been cast as a crucial ally in the war on terror, but actually, according to Mearsheimer and Walt, it has been more of a liability; its close ties to America have served as a rallying point for Osama bin Laden and other anti-American extremists. Morally, Israel qualifies as a democracy, the authors write, but it's a deeply flawed one, discriminating against its Arab citizens and oppressing the Palestinians who have lived under its occupation.

...

While other special-interest groups influence US foreign policy, Mearsheimer and Walt say, no lobby has managed to divert it "as far from what the American national interest would otherwise suggest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that US and Israeli interests are essentially identical." The result has turned the US into an "enabler" of Israeli expansion in the occupied territories, "making it complicit in the crimes perpetrated against the Palestinians." Pressure from AIPAC and Israel was also a "critical element" in the US decision to invade Iraq, they write, arguing that the war "was motivated in good part by a desire to make Israel more secure."

Finally, the professors maintain, the lobby has created a climate in which anyone who calls attention to its power is deemed anti-Semitic, a device designed to stifle discussion "by intimidation." They end with a call for a "more open debate" about the lobby's influence and the consequences it has had for America's place in the world.

...

[BurtWorm]

6. kick

[shadowknows69]

7. I wish Israel and the US would just start Armageddon

and get it over with. i really fuckin do. the waiting is going to snap my brain.

[Gabi Hayes]

8. Burt, why do you hate Amerika so much?

and Israel, too?

[BurtWorm]

9. I desperately need to undergo reeducation.

:spank:

[Gabi Hayes]

10. get thee to a FEMA, I mean NCLB camp, forthwith!