AIPAC’s focus
I’ve noted it before, but isn’t it odd that in a year that has seen Hamas come to power in the Palestinian occupied territories, AIPAC is focusing its annual meeting on Iran? And whatever happened to the fallout there was supposed to be from those convicted spies anyway?
(The above ad was posted on the Haaretz website.)
Categories: Israel/Palestine, US policy.
At a guess - and only a guess - the emphasis on Iran has to do with the nuclear issue. Hamas doesn’t seem to be scaring too many people - the organization has been relatively low-key during the past year, its leadership is sending mixed messages and some kind of modus vivendi seems possible. Ahmadinejad, on the other hand, has been using anti-Jewish rhetoric not heard from a head of state since the 1930s, and the prospect (however remote) of him being able to back that rhetoric up with nukes is much scarier than Ismail Haniyeh as Palestinian PM.
Not so fast!
Isolation of Hamas, Iran focuses
of AIPAC’s upcoming conference
WASHINGTON, Feb. 20 (JTA) Activists attending this year’s American Israel Public Affairs Committee policy conference will pause briefly to savor Iran’s long-awaited isolation, and then get to work making sure the Palestinian Authority gets the same treatment.
A central focus of this year’s policy conference will be legislation that includes the toughest conditions to date for American assistance to the Palestinian Authority, in the wake of Hamas’ landslide victory in Palestinian legislative elections last month.
The policy conference, taking place this year from March 5-7, draws between 5,000 and 6,000 activists to Washington and is the annual centerpiece for the pro-Israel lobby. The final day of the conference is reserved for lobbying on Capitol Hill, and organizers tell JTA that lobbying for the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act will top the agenda.
That presents a change from recent years, when the principal focus of such lobbying was Iran’s nuclear program; last year, the conference featured a virtual tour of an Iranian nuclear weapons lab. [..]