This year Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be in attendance and speak before the group. All the Republican presidential hopefuls presumably will be there as well. President Obama is expected to attend at some point, although it's not known whether he'll be there when Netanyahu takes the microphone. Surely that would be unseemly; giving the Israeli head of state status a rung above the man supposedly the most powerful in the world.
Be that as it may, both men are expected to meet at the White House the day after the AIPAC gathering breaks up with Obama presumably (hopefully?) telling Netanyahu NOT to attack Iran's nuclear installations.
But returning to AIPAC and its annual convention; this is an outfit that wields extraordinary power and influence over the majority of U.S. office holders who in typical knee jerk fashion support the organization and Israel unequivocally.
AIPAC operates in the background, without funding political campaigns directly under its own auspices, (thus giving them the "appearance" of non partisanship). What they do is get well heeled donors to help underwrite the electoral campaigns of those running for office thus assuring there is no real debate or criticism of them or Israeli policy. And if any legislator should dare to have the gumption to honestly assess what Israel does, particularly over its occupation of the West Bank, the illegal confiscation of Palestinian lands for settlement expansion, the general apartheid policies vis---vis the Palestinians or the illegal embargo of Gaza and its citizens, such legislator is branded as anti-Semitic, against Israel and the Jews.
So in a nut shell, that's pretty much what AIPAC is all about.
Luckily, there are activist groups in the U.S. that are onto AIPAC's insidious ways, notably Code Pink and the occupy movement that will be there in Washington during the AIPAC convention protesting the group, its influence on the Congress and rejecting AIPAC's call for Israel to attack Iran.
So call this short piece a heads up for those to come to Washington next weekend. Let your voice join others who recognize the outsized power and influence AIPAC holds on our decision makers and reject the escalating war drums instigating an attack on Iran.
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