Posted on 05/05/2009 6:11:12 AM PDT by SJackson
AIPAC delegates to lobby for two-state solution
By HILARY LEILA KRIEGER, WASHINGTON AND JERUSALEM POST
While Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is refusing to explicitly endorse a two-state solution to resolve the Palestinian conflict, participants at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee Policy Conference will this week be urging their elected representatives to press President Barack Obama for precisely that.
The pro-Israel advocacy group's annual conference culminates each year with a mass lobbying effort, in which the thousands of participants from across the United States spread out across Capitol Hill for meetings with their respective members of Congress and encourage them to endorse policies and positions that AIPAC believes will advance the American-Israeli interest.
In this year's lobbying effort, to take place on Tuesday, the AIPAC thousands will be asking their congressmen to sign on to a letter addressed to Obama that explicitly posits the need for a "viable Palestinian state."
It is expected that the overwhelming majority of the congressmen will sign it.
RELATED Analysis: AIPAC decision a victory - with qualifiers Netanyahu has been aware of the letter's content for some time, according to his senior adviser, Ron Dermer.
Dermer said that despite the letter's language, the important issue was that of underlying policy.
"On the substance, I don't think there's a difference in our position and the position of AIPAC," he said.
It is understood that the letter is being advanced despite its discrepancy with the prime minister's stated positions, because its content reflects both longstanding American policy and longstanding AIPAC positions.
The idea is that the letter would form a bridge between US and Israeli views on the diplomatic process at a time when neither country is looking to provoke arguments despite having different perspectives.
Furthermore, it is being noted here that Netanyahu has made plain that his government will honor previous agreements, which include the road map with its specific framework for a path to Palestinian statehood.
It is not known whether Netanyahu will publicly endorse a two-state solution when he meets here on May 18 with Obama, but it is widely assumed that, privately at least, he will make plain to Obama his government's commitment to previous accords.
Several versions of the letter are included in the kits being given out to participants in this week's AIPAC conference.
One version, bearing a "United States Senate" letterhead, addressed to Obama, and left open for signature, states: "We must also continue to insist on the absolute Palestinian commitment to ending terrorist violence and to building the institutions necessary for a viable Palestinian state living side-by-side, in peace with the Jewish state of Israel."
This version also gives explicit support for programs such as the US-supervised training of Palestinian Authority security forces.
"The more capable and responsible Palestinian forces become, the more they demonstrate the ability to govern and to maintain security, the easier it will be for [the Palestinians] to reach an accord with Israel," it states.
"We encourage you to continue programs similar to the promising security assistance and training programs led by Lieutenant-General Keith Dayton, and hope that you will look for other ways to improve Palestinian security and civilian infrastructure."
A second, similar version, also addressed to Obama and signed by staunchly pro-Israel Majority Leader Stony Hoyer and Republican Whip Eric Cantor, sets out a series of "basic principles" that, if adhered to, offer "the best way to achieve future success between Israelis and Palestinians."
Among the principles cited is the requirement for the two parties to directly negotiate the details of any agreement, the imperative for the US government to serve as "both a trusted mediator and a devoted friend to Israel," and the need for Arab states to move toward normal ties with Israel and to support "moderate Palestinians."
The clause that discusses statehood demands "an absolute Palestinian commitment to end violence, terror, and incitement and to build the institutions necessary for a viable Palestinian state living side by side in peace with the Jewish state of Israel inside secure borders."
It continues: "Once terrorists are no longer in control of Gaza and as responsible Palestinian forces become more capable of demonstrating the ability to govern and to maintain security, an accord with Israel will be easier to attain."
A third version of the letter, addressed to their colleagues, is signed by Senators Christopher Dodd, Arlen Specter, Johnny Isakson and John Thune.
It states that "we must redouble our efforts to eliminate support for terrorist violence and strengthen the Palestinian institutions necessary for the creation of a viable Palestinian state living side-by-side, in peace with Israel."
Netanyahu chose not to attend this week's AIPAC conference in part because a Washington visit now would have included, as its central element, talks at the White House with Obama, and Netanyahu preferred to defer that meeting by another two weeks in order to complete his ongoing foreign policy review.
Instead, the prime minister will address the AIPAC delegates by satellite on Monday. Hoyer and Cantor are set to address the same session.
President Shimon Peres is attending the Washington conference in Netanyahu's stead, and will speak on Monday along with Vice President Joseph Biden. Peres will meet with Obama at the White House on Tuesday.
Netanyahu has long indicated that his concerns about Palestinian statehood are practical, rather than ideological - arising from the fear that a fully sovereign Palestinian state might abuse its sovereignty to forge alliances, import arms and build an offensive military capability to threaten Israel.
Aides to the prime minister have also argued in recent days that it is unreasonable to demand that Israel formally endorse statehood for the Palestinian people when the Palestinian leadership is emphatically opposed to recognizing Israel as the state of the Jewish people.
The Hoyer-Cantor letter opens by acknowledging the "formidable" obstacles to peace, but endorses Obama's position "that every effort should be made to try to realize that peace at the soonest possible time."
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AIPAC decision a victory - with qualifiers
WASHINGTON (JTA) - Baruch Weiss, the young lawyer who helped cripple the US government's case against two former AIPAC staffers, says the prosecution's loss is a "great victory" for free speech and for Israel's friends.
He's not wrong, but - like any legal document - the government's motion on Friday to dismiss classified information charges against Steve Rosen, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's former foreign policy chief, and Keith Weissman, its former Iran analyst, begs for footnotes and qualifiers.
The decision upholds as a matter of law the right of lobbyists to relay information to allies such as Israel. The drawn-out case, however, unquestionably wounded the pro-Israel community's reputation as unassailable. It also defers a looming crisis for one of the fundamentals of reporting: the right of a reporter or lobbyist or anyone to listen to a source without running to tell the feds.
Rosen and Weissman had been awaiting trial ever since an FBI raid in August 2004 on AIPAC offices resulted in charges that they had obtained and relayed information relating to Iran's threat against Israel. In the last three years, the government's case suffered numerous setbacks in various pre-trial court rulings.
In a statement on Friday, Dana Boente, the acting US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, said, "Given the diminished likelihood the government will prevail at trial under the additional intent requirements imposed by the court and the inevitable disclosure of classified information that would occur at any trial in this matter, we have asked the court to dismiss the indictment."
Weiss, Weissman's attorney, said Friday's move by the government to drop the case represented a "great victory for the First Amendment and for the pro-Israel community."
But Boente made it clear that while Rosen and Weissman are free, the government likes the tool it unearthed in an obscure section of the 1917 Espionage Act - the ability to charge civilians with dealing in classified information - and it's going to keep it.
The 1917 statute criminalizes information that "could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation."
The problem for the government came in a pre-trial ruling in August 2006, when trial judge T.S. Ellis III interpreted that line to mean that prosecutors had to show that US interests were harmed, and not just that Rosen and Weissman relayed secrets to a foreign power: Israel.
Relaying secrets to friends of the United States, Ellis suggested, was not in and of itself criminal. For a crime to be committed, he said, the accused must have sought both benefit to another nation as well as harm to the United States.
Boente said that ruling went too far.
"The District Court potentially imposed an additional burden on the prosecution not mandated by statute," he complained.
The core of the indictment against Weissman and Rosen was that, as part of an FBI sting operation, they were told - falsely, it turns out - that Iranian agents were plotting to kill Israelis and Americans in northern Iraq. They allegedly relayed the information to Israeli diplomats, media and colleagues.
"Relaying information to a friendly power" describes the essence of what AIPAC and a roster of other Jewish groups do - and what any number of ethnic lobbies do.
With his 2006 ruling, Ellis enshrined that as legal, so long as it doesn't harm the US.
That might prove a relief to the pro-Israel community, but also raises questions for AIPAC on the eve of its annual policy conference about why it was so quick to throw Rosen and Weissman to the prosecutorial wolves.
AIPAC fired the two seven months after the charges were announced, saying their practices didn't comport with AIPAC's standards, without ever elaborating what those were.
With the notable exceptions of Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, and Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, prominent organizations and communal leaders took years to weigh in - if they did at all.
How does such behavior square with AIPAC's carefully cultivated reputation for standing tall and tough? Allowing Ellis' decision to stand also upholds the part of the statute that alarmed free speech advocates when Rosen and Weissman were first charged in 2005: The idea that anyone who even hears information that could harm the United States is liable to face 10 years behind bars if he or she doesn't immediately call the authorities.
Boente's statement on Friday suggested that the government may rely on that statute in the future when it comes to prosecutions.
In movie parlance, that leaves a hole big enough for a sequel.
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I support a two-state solution; but for a vastly different reason.
Once the Palis have their own “state” and they continue to attack Israel, the Israelis will be justified under international law to declare war and bomb every inch of the new “state” flat and kill every stinking one of the Pali terrorists.
End of problem; Game Over.
AIPAC is to the left of the Israeli electorate again. What will Soros’s excuse be for J-Street?
Yes, but probably not to the left of the American electorate.
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