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THE JEWS ARE ALRIGHT. The tricky part about talking honestly and openly about organizations like AIPAC is that, over the years, they've been able to conflate the lobby with American Jewry. To criticize the Lobby is to criticize Jews. The argument reached its logical end recently in a paper by Alvin Rosenfeld suggesting that progressive Jews are, themselves, anti-semites. So it's worth noting how deeply divergent the views of AIPAC are from those of America's Jews. Gregory Levy, reporting from AIPAC's annual conference, writes:
Particularly striking, though, was the predominant attitude at the conference about the administration still in office. During the opening night's events, large video screens behind the speaker's podium showed a chronological slide show of U.S. presidents and their Israeli prime minister contemporaries, and when the display eventually reached George W. Bush, the room erupted into applause -- far more applause than the crowd had given for Reagan, Kennedy or even Truman. And when Cheney first appeared on the stage on Monday morning, the crowd immediately rose to its feet and filled the room with loud applause, which continued intermittently through his predictably hawkish speech.According to exit polls, in 2006, 87 percent of Jews voted Democratic. In 2004, when Bush was actually on the ballot and hadn't yet descended into unrelenting unpopularity, 74 percent of Jews voted for Kerry. These are big differences. Indeed, Levy mentions that its policy director was booed by the assembled delegates for downplaying the chances of military attack on Iran. That's not typical. AIPAC is, by design or not, deeply right-wing. America's Jews are not. It is a pernicious lie to conflate the opinions of a subgroup that still idolizes George W. Bush and adores Dick Cheney with a group that voted nearly 9:1 against their party.--Ezra Klein
