This past week AIPAC alienated everyone in the American political world. After the group’s decision to run Facebook ads calling out some Democrats as 'radicals' and 'anti-Semitic' only to apologize for doing so, liberals and conservatives were disgusted with the pro-Israel lobby, accusing it of political bias and incompetence. While there was much to criticize about its choices, maybe it’s time to acknowledge that in the 2020 election year, AIPAC has been given an impossible task with no possible path to success.
The problem facing the pro-Israel lobby is that the political climate simply isn’t conducive to the way it has carried out its mission for the last several decades. In normal political times, it was easy for the group to act as an umbrella group uniting supporters of Israel from the right, left and center behind a common agenda of supporting the Jewish state’s security.
At www.haaretz.com
