Zionist Jewish AIPAC's Influence On US Foreign Policy

Aparat: The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is voicing admiration for US President Donald Trump over his decision to recognize Jerusalem al-Quds as the Israeli regime’s capital. The powerful lobby group launched its annual conference at the Washington convention center on Sunday, with an appeal to “progressives.” Former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm (pictured above), a Democrat in the house, also gave a speech, turning a blind eye on the regime’s brutal policies against Palestinian citizens and its atrocities and expansionist policies in the region. “Israel can be a role model for other nations including America showing how citizens are cared for,” said Granholm, calling Israel a “progressive paradise.” According to Israeli daily Jerusalem Post, this year’s conference is hosting some 18,000 “activists.”
This year’s event is being held as the US is having one of its most pro-Israeli presidents in office. No account of US-Israel relations can ignore the American Israel Public Affairs Committee — AIPAC for short. AIPAC is America's largest pro-Israel lobby. Surveys of Capitol Hill insiders conducted by Fortune (1997) and National Journal (2005) ranked it the second-most powerful lobbying shop in Washington, after (respectively) the AARP and National Federation of Independent Business. Neither survey is particularly statistically rigorous, so don't take the specific rankings too seriously. And AIPAC loses on plenty of issues. However, the surveys do suggest that AIPAC is perceived as hugely powerful within Washington. Saying that AIPAC pushes US foreign policy in a more pro-Israel direction isn't controversial. The big, and extremely contentious, question is just how much AIPAC actually matters. Is the group actually steering US politics and foreign policy in a direction it wouldn't go on its own? The major flashpoint here is John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt's The Israel Lobby and American Foreign Policy, which began as an 2006 essay and evolved into a book. The two eminent international relations scholars argued that there's no way to explain the US-Israel relationship, from an IR perspective, other than as AIPAC and its allies pushing the US to act counter to its own interests. They reject that either strategy or shared values fully explain the US support for Israel, so lobbying must. "The unmatched power of the Israel Lobby," Walt and Mearsheimer write, is "the" explanation for America's continued strong support for Israel Pew data shows overall consistency in American Jewish views on the US-Israel relationship. 54 percent of American Jews think the US supports Israel the right amount — and 31 percent say it doesn't go far enough. By contrast, 31 percent of white evangelicals think the US has reached the right level of support, while 46 percent want the US to support Israel more. "This programme was produced by Aparat Ltd for Press TV"