“Occupy AIPAC” aims to disrupt the annual AIPAC confab during March 2-6, 2012 in Washington, D.C. This action is based on the same group of organizations that has been re-invigorated—or at least re-branded—from their previous name of “Move Over AIPAC,” which they used when they disrupted last year’s AIPAC conference.

Last year they got headlines when they sent five protesters to disrupt Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech to the AIPAC conference and were even able to get one protestor into the US Congress in order to demonstrate during Netanyahu’s speech there.

The primary group organizing the Occupy AIPAC conference is CODEPINK Women for Peace. Rae Abileah is the person responsible for coordinating their activities against Israel. And, as you could probably guess, most of Occupy AIPAC’s organizers are Jewish. Abileah grew up in a Reform Jewish community in the Bay Area of California.

Code Pink is an American anti-war group composed mainly of women that they state is working to end U.S. funded wars and occupations, to challenge militarism globally, and to also redirect resources into health care, education, green jobs and other life-affirming activities. While the group was initially focused on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, this changed in 2009 with the conflict between Israel and the terrorist organization Hamas in Gaza, and they began to put more of their efforts into promoting boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) and opposing American aid for Israel.

While claiming to be human rights and anti-war activists, the themes of the conference will be the standard ones used to attack the legitimacy of the State of Israel. They will ignore the reality of the Middle East and instead use all the anti-Israel buzz words: occupying land, starving Gaza, silencing dissenters, and bulldozing homes.

They will emphasize their contention that the Israel lobby (meaning AIPAC) has a hold over the US government. They will be accusing AIPAC of trying to drag the USA into a disastrous conflict with Iran - just as they claim AIPAC pushed for the Iraq war. “AIPAC’s underhanded tactics and their manipulation of our political process destroys the possibility of a just peace in the Middle East.”

“The mission,” Abileah said “is to expose AIPAC as a lobby not representing the best interests for the American people, putting the Israeli government’s agenda before most Americans—a lobby that is in opposition to what the 99 percent want. To show that they’re pushing for military aid to Israel when we need cuts to our military budget given the austerity.

The conference changed it name to Occupy AIPAC (along with that 99 percent rhetoric) in order to piggyback on the popularity of the Occupy movement. Abileah clarified: “Occupy is focusing on ending corporate personhood, economic justice, and fair/real democracy where corporate and one percent cash doesn’t drive politics, election, and legislation; AIPAC is a natural target within those demands/issues as a huge K Street lobby with a stranglehold on Congress.” (“A typical example of a one percenter,” she noted, “is Sheldon Adelson.”)

Indeed, it was Kalle Lasn, the editor of Adbusters, the Canadian magazine that put out the initial call for an occupation in Manhattan’s Financial District, who told the left-wing blog Mondoweiss, “I’m hoping that a lot of people of like mind from this Occupy movement will move into this area, and we will be as aggressive as AIPAC, as aggressive as some of these neocons have been, and fighting back against them. “The time has come for the Occupy Movement to demand an end to the Occupation of Palestine… We need a hashtag, #occupyAIPAC.”

So is this a legitimate harnessing of the Occupy cause? “Having a movement for justice for some people and not others seems absurd,” argued Abileah. “Occupy was inspired by the Arab Spring. We need global solidarity with the 99 percent.” Lasn’s magazine, however, has a long history of trafficking in conspiracy theories of Israeli perfidy and outsize Jewish power. Commentary’s Jonathan Tobin claims that “The occupiers and the Israel-haters are natural allies.”

The Occupy AIPAC summit has been advertised as a weekend of teach-ins, cultural performances, protests and creative direct actions, and a sneak preview of the forthcoming film Roadmap to Apartheid. There will be educational panels on Iran, Palestine, the Arab Uprisings and the Occupy Movement.

Some of the anti-AIPAC activists will try to register as delegates so they can disrupt the conference from the inside, according to their website. Others may try to occupy AIPAC's headquarters at 251 H Street NW in Washington.

Besides CODEPINK Women for Peace, other left-wing groups endorsing Occupy AIPAC, include Just Foreign Policy, the Institute of Policy Studies, Jewish Voice for Peace, the Muslim Student Union at UC-Irvine (much in the news), U.S. Boat to Gaza, U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, and even The Nation. (A recent addition, the magazine has confirmed it is co-sponsoring the conference, though its involvement is limited to promoting it).

Last year’s “Move Over AIPAC conference” was held on May 21-24, 2011 in Washington, DC. The organizers were somewhat disappointed since only a few hundred attended instead of the thousands they sought. The conference lacked a substantial Arab and Palestinian presence. Other than a handful of individual Arabs who made the effort to attend the conference, the vast majority of the attendees seemed to be leftist or liberal American Jews.

The demonstrators protested as AIPAC delegates entered and exited the Washington convention center, with some individuals gaining admittance and staging impromptu demos. The demonstrators used chants, music, and visuals like an apartheid wall that turned into a Palestinian village scene and a human-powered flotilla to Gaza.

Events at the “Move Over AIPAC” conference were initiated with a talk by Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, the authors of The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy. Walt began by stating that “people should be able to discuss AIPAC without being smeared or slandered, being charged with anti-Semitism or Nazi sympathizing.” He reiterated the objective of the loose coalition of individuals and groups called AIPAC which actively works to support the relationship of unconditional US support for Israel.

Walt noted that the strategies employed by this lobby group are, firstly, to keep people who are sympathetic to Israel in office. Secondly, the lobby shapes public discourse on this issue so Israel is viewed favorably by all Americans by monitoring and attacking media outlets and their financiers.

The conference was heavily centered on directing efforts towards the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign. Panels headed by activists and BDS leaders from organizations such as CODEPINK, Who Profits and Adalah-NY educated activists on how to get involved in the myriad of global BDS campaigns currently taking place.

Strategy and skill-building workshops focused on creative tactics to oppose US military aid to Israel. Examples of such tactics included billboards, digital displays and flash mobs.

During his talk, Stephen Walt urged peace groups like Coalition of Women for Peace and Jewish Voice for Peace to “put pressure on politicians to do what is right rather than what is politically expedient.”

On Friday there was a demonstration outside the White House, and a Hava Nagila parody flashmob. Evening programs were held at Busboys and Poets to honor peacemakers and hear poetry and music for Palestine. The event featured “young Jewish pride,” singing in Hebrew and baking challah while opposing AIPAC so as to give the message that “AIPAC is bad for the Jews.”

Grant Smith raised the issue of AIPAC’s registration as a foreign agent with the Department of Justice. He met with Heather Hunt, head of the Foreign Agent Registration Act section. Smith led a demo outside the Justice Department demanding AIPAC be registered as a foreign agent on May 23 with 70-80 people. They marched around the building chanting and wrote letters to Attorney General Holder and Heather Hunt at the main doors on Constitution Avenue.

That night during the AIPAC gala, five demonstrators stood up to disrupt Netanyahu’s speech with messages about what is really “indefensible” – occupying land, starving Gaza, silencing dissenters, bulldozing homes. Meanwhile activists handed out a spoof Gala Banquet Program Update during the rally outside.

On Tuesday “Move Over AIPAC” participants lobbied members of Congress, while Abileah interrupted Netanyahu’s Congressional address by unfurling a banner that said “Occupying Land Is Indefensible” and shouting, “No more occupation; Stop Israel war crimes; Equal rights for Palestinians; Occupation is indefensible.”

Smith led another demonstration on Tuesday morning at the US Trade Commission, in support of a suit filed by a group of businesses who’ve been hurt by the US-Israel free trade accord passed in the 1980s. Israel got a copy of the classified document outlining the US negotiating position, full of confidential data from those companies.

Further Reading:

Richard Allen fights Jewish organizational support for the boycott of Israel (BDS)

Helen Freedman fights hatred in a demonstration at Columbia University against the Israel boycott platform of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) 

Hind Awwad: Palestinian boycott coordinator provides a Sweet Face for Hatred against Israel 

Ben Cohen and the Fight against Hatred  

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