AIPAC Nation

Via Suburban Guerrilla. Foreign interest lobbying for the foreign country your organization is ostensibly representing is soooooo passe. It's not even retro cool:

On Tuesday night, the House Appropriations Committee, under the watchful eyes of AIPAC, took President Bush's $200 million aid package for the Palestinians and tore it to shreds. Following AIPAC's lead, the committee endorsed the aid in principle and then attached so many conditions to it (mosques and the Internet must be monitored to prevent criticism of Israel, was one of them) that the aid package becomes one big slap in the face to Abu Mazen. (Arafat did not have so many conditions on aid). But no matter. All legislation like this has a "national security waiver" that the President can invoke to provide the aid for national security reasons even if every demand by Congress is not met. So, under intense pressure from AIPAC, the waiver was removed. Bush's hands are tied. It is worth noting that the government of Israel supports the aid, without onerous conditions, as being in Israel's best interests. The Administration says it needs the aid to promote peace and an end to terrorism. And the Jewish Council on Public Affairs (JCPA) which represents virtually every major Jewish organization in the country -- including all the local federations -- endorsed the aid without killer amendments. But AIPAC is apparently its own sovereign state so it does what it likes.