Annual Lobbying on “Pro-Israel”, A Major Force in US Foreign Affairs: Summary for 2018

By Center for Responsive Politics

Global Research, March 29, 2019

Center for Responsive Politics 24 January 2019

One of, if not the most, powerful international issue lobby is that of the pro-Israel crowd. Well-financed and politically powerful, the pro-Israel lobby is a major force on American foreign affairs that looks to continue America’s military and fiscal support of the Jewish nation-state. The lobby has had recent policy success with the Trump administration moving the U.S. embassy in Israel from the internationally-recognized capital of Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a move long advocated by some in the pro-Israel lobby. Notably however, JStreet, one of the larger pro-Israel groups opposed the move. The administration is very friendly with the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and has taken a hard line on Israel peace talks, barely talking to the Palestinians and ending all foreign aid to the West Bank and Gaza.

Even with the policy victories coming under a Republican president, the lobby still remained staunch Democratic contributors, giving more than $14.8 million in the 2018 midterms to mostly Democrats. This marked their third-biggest cycle ever and their biggest non-presidential cycle.

The largest group which contributed was JStreetPAC which gave more than $4 million to candidates in 2018. Only one other pro-Israel group spent over $1 million on the cycle – NorPAC with more than $1.1 million.

The top recipient of pro-Israel funds in the 2018 midterms was Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) with $546,507. Menendez is the ranking member on the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee. Sen. Ted Cruz(R-Texas) received the second-most with $349,437.

2018 was an all-time high for money spent on lobbying for pro-Israel issues with more than $5 million. The robust lobbying force was led by the face of the pro-Israel movement the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). AIPAC spent more than $3.5 million on lobbying in 2018, making up the vast majority the entire lobby spent. A distant second was the Israeli-American Coalition for Action which dropped $550,000.

The pro-Israel lobby is not entirely unified on policy decisions. JStreet, the group with the biggest campaign contributions, differs from AIPAC which led the lobbying effort. JStreet is a more liberal organization and is often critical of the Netanyahu and Trump administrations. AIPAC on the other hand has a policy of not publicly criticizing the Israeli government and has been more supportive of Trump.

– Raymond Arke, February 2019

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Top Contributors, 2017-2018

BREXIT Would Assist Designation of Israel Lobbyists as ‘Foreign Agents’

Contributions to:
Democrats 
Republicans 
Liberal Groups 
Conservative Groups 
Nonpartisan 

Contribution Trends, 1990-2018

Top Lobbying Clients, 2018

Lobbying Totals, 1998-2018

Party Split, 1990-2018

Top Recipients, 2017-2018

Average Contributions to Members of Congress, 1990-2018

All lobbying expenditures on this page come from the Senate Office of Public Records. Data for the most recent year was downloaded on January 24, 2019.

Data for the current election cycle were released by the Federal Election Commission on Friday, February 01, 2019

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The original source of this article is Center for Responsive Politics

Copyright © Center for Responsive Politics, Center for Responsive Politics, 2019

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How Much Israel Is Spending to Buy Washington Politicians

Israel's Influence in Washington - 2019 Edition

By Viable Opposition

March 27, 2019 "Information Clearing House" - Thanks to the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics and its Open Secrets website, those of us on the outside, get a glimpse of how the "wheels" of Washington are "greased".  Open Secrets provides an up-to-date database of the role that money plays in politics through lobbying and campaign donations.  In this posting, I want to take a look at one of Washington's more influential parties, the nation of Israel. 

We will open this posting with an examination of the pro-Israel lobby in Washington.  Here is a summary of the pro-Israel lobby from Open Secrets:

"One of, if not the most, powerful international issue lobby is that of the pro-Israel crowd. Well-financed and politically powerful, the pro-Israel lobby is a major force on American foreign affairs that looks to continue America's military and fiscal support of the Jewish nation-state."
Here is a graphic showing how much the pro-Israel lobby has spent on convincing Washington to see things its way going back to 1998:

The pro-Israel lobby spent a record $5.02 million in 2018, up slightly from $4.96 million in 2017 but up substantially from $1.71 million a decade earlier in 2007.

Here are the biggest pro-Israel lobbying organizations in order of the amount spent on lobbying:
 

American Israel Public Affairs Committee or AIPAC is, by a wide margin, the biggest spender on lobbying, accounting for 70.1 percent of the total spent by all pro-Israel lobbyists.
Of the 26 reported lobbyists working for 9 clients, there are 6 "revolvers" as shown here:
 

Open Secrets defines "revolvers" as former federal government workers who now work as lobbyists, consultants and strategists.  These people have access to the key players and key decision makers in Washington that Main Street America can only dream of.Now, let's look at the pro-Israel campaign contributions.  Here is a summary of the top contributors during the 2018 midterm elections:

 

Here is a table showing the pro-Israel campaign contributions going back to the 1990 election cycle:
 

Here is the same data in graphic form:
 

 

 

You will note that among all groups donating to politicians running for office in Washington that the pro-Israel lobby is ranked between 24th place overall (in 1990) to 60th place in 2000 and, in 2018 was ranked in 50th place.  The 2018 midterm election saw the pro-Israel lobby donate a record amount of money to a midterm cycle with donations totalling $14.9 million compared to $12.1 million during the 2014 midterm election.  In addition, the pro-Israel lobby seems to prefer candidates running for the Democrats; over the nearly three decades, the pro-Israel lobby has donated 60 percent or $85.365 million to the Democrats compared to 40 percent or $54.308 million to the Republicans.Here is a graphic summarizing the political donations from the pro-Israel lobby during the 2018 midterm cycle for both political parties in the House and the Senate:
 

Here are the top 20 recipients of pro-Israel lobby during the 2018 midterm cycle:
 

 

Here are the top 20 recipients who are Members of the House:
 

Here are the top 20 recipients who are Senators:
 

 

I believe that is enough to absorb for this posting.  According to the Pew Research Centre, here is a breakdown of religious affiliation in the United States from its Religious Landscape Study:
 

Given that not all Jews and Evangelical Christians support Israel's agenda, it is interesting to see how less than one-quarter of Americans are driving Washington's pro-Israel agenda and its accompanying narrative.  This suggests the extreme power that the pro-Israel lobby exerts in the nation's capital.  Given all of this data, it is most important to keep in mind that taking an anti-Israel/anti-Netanyahu stance does not mean that one is anti-Semitic or that one doesn't believe that Israel has a right to exist, it simply means that there is not universal approval of Israel's actions in the Middle East and its ability to sway governments to see things its way by spending millions on lobbying and influence American elections through donations to its preferred candidates.This article was originally published by "Viable Opposition" - 

Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here

==See Also==

Top 2018 recipients of pro-Israel money
Infogram

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51331.htm



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Pro-Israel Lobby Caught on Tape Boasting That Its Money Influences Washington

By Ryan Grim

February 13, 2019 "Information Clearing House" - A debate about the power in Washington of the pro-Israel lobby is underway, after Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., responded sharply to reports that Republican leader Kevin McCarthy was targeting both Omar and fellow Muslim Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a Democrat from Michigan.

Omar quoted rap lyrics — “It’s all about the Benjamins baby” — to suggest McCarthy’s move was driven by the lobby’s prolific spending. Asked specifically who she was referring to, Omar responded, “AIPAC!”

The debate over the influence of pro-Israel groups could be informed by an investigation by Al Jazeera, in which an undercover reporter infiltrated the Israel Project, a Washington-based group, and secretly recorded conversations about political strategy and influence over a six-month period in 2016. That investigation, however, was never aired by the network — suppressed by pressure from the pro-Israel lobby.

In November, Electronic Intifada obtained and published the four-part series, but it did so during the week of the midterm elections, and the documentary did not get a lot of attention then.

In it, leaders of the pro-Israel lobby speak openly about how they use money to influence the political process, in ways so blunt that if the comments were made by critics, they’d be charged with anti-Semitism. 

David Ochs, founder of HaLev, which helps send young people to American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s annual conference, described for the reporter how AIPAC and its donors organize fundraisers outside the official umbrella of the organization, so that the money doesn’t show up on disclosures as coming specifically from AIPAC. He describes one group that organizes fundraisers in both Washington and New York. “This is the biggest ad hoc political group, definitely the wealthiest, in D.C.,” Ochs says, adding that it has no official name, but is clearly tied to AIPAC. “It’s the AIPAC group. It makes a difference; it really, really does. It’s the best bang for your buck, and the networking is phenomenal.” (Ochs and AIPAC did not immediately return The Intercept’s requests for comment.)

Without spending money, Ochs argues, the pro-Israel lobby isn’t able to enact its agenda. “Congressmen and senators don’t do anything unless you pressure them. They kick the can down the road, unless you pressure them, and the only way to do that is with money,” he explains. 

He describes a fundraiser for Anthony Brown, a Democrat running for Congress in Maryland, as typical. “So we want the Jewish community to go face to face in this small environment, 50, 30, 40 people, and say, ‘This is what’s important to us. We want to make sure that if we give you money, that you’re going to enforce the Iran deal.’ That way, when they need something from him or her, like the Iran deal, they can quickly mobilize and say look, we’ll give you 30 grand. They actually impact,” Ochs tells the reporter.

Such a claim is not so different from what Omar was describing, and for which she was roundly condemned. In the wake of Omar’s tweets, the Washington Post, for instance, reported, “The American Jewish Committee demanded an apology, calling her suggestion that AIPAC is paying American politicians for their support ‘demonstrably false and stunningly anti-Semitic.’” (On Monday, Omar apologized for her tweets, but insisted that AIPAC and other lobbyist groups are harmful to U.S. politics.)

In the censored documentary, Ochs went on to describe a fundraiser hosted by Jeff Talpins, a hedge fund giant, as similar as well. “In New York, with Jeff Talpins, we don’t ask a goddamn thing about the fucking Palestinians. You know why? ’Cause it’s a tiny issue. 

It’s a small, insignificant issue. The big issue is Iran. We want everything focused on Iran,” Ochs says. “What happens is Jeff meets with the congressman in the back room, tells them exactly what his goals are — and by the way, Jeff Talpins is worth $250 million — basically they hand him an envelope with 20 credit cards, and say, ‘You can swipe each of these credit cards for a thousand dollars each.’”

Ochs explains that the club in New York required a minimum pledge of $10,000 to join and participate in such events. “It’s a minimum commitment. Some people give a lot more than that.”

AIPAC, on its own website, recruits members to join its “Congressional Club,” and commit to give at least $5,000 per election cycle.

Eric Gallagher, a top official at AIPAC from 2010 to 2015, tells the Al Jazeera reporter that AIPAC gets results. “Getting $38 billion in security aid to Israel matters, which is what AIPAC just did,” he notes at one secretly recorded lunch. “Everything AIPAC does is focused on influencing Congress.”

The film, called “The Lobby,” was produced by Al Jazeera’s investigative unit, and features hidden-camera footage obtained by the reporter, who posed as a Jewish, pro-Israel activist from Britain who wanted to volunteer with the Israel Project.

Outfitted with a luxury apartment in Dupont Circle, the reporter hosted multiple gatherings and otherwise socialized broadly within the pro-Israel community, winning the confidence of senior officials, who divulged insider details, many of which have been leaked and created international news.

A companion version of the film, which looked at the Israel lobby’s influence in the United Kingdom, did make it to air and was the subject of intense controversy. It exposed a plot by an Israeli embassy official in the United Kingdom to “take down” pro-Palestinian members of Parliament, leading to his resignation.

That film, however, included a snippet of footage from the United States. Officials here quickly realized that they, too, had been infiltrated. In the U.K., the Israel lobby lodged an official complaint claiming the series was anti-Semitic, but the U.K.’s communications agency rejected the claim, finding that “the allegations in the programme were not made on the grounds that any of the particular individuals concerned were Jewish and noted that no claims were made relating to their faith.”

Pro-Israel officials in the United States, rather than file an official complaint, exerted political pressure. A bipartisan group of 19 lawmakers wrote to the Justice Department requesting an investigation into “the full range of activities undertaken by Al Jazeera in the United States,” and suggesting that the organization be made to register as a foreign agent. Ultimately, Qatar bent to the pressure and killed the documentary.

This article was originally published by "The Intercept "-

==See Also==

How Israel lobby fakes campus anti-Semitism

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51104.htm


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AIPAC Takes Newly Elected Congress Members, CNN’s Setmayer on Propaganda Trips to Israel

By Alison Weir

Newly elected Congressional Reps David Trone, Dan Crenshaw, Elaine Goodman Luria, Tim Burchett, Denver Riggleman, and Susie Lee on a December 2018 AIPAC trip to Israel. AIPAC’s educational arm spends about $10,000 a piece on these trips. By using a nonprofit entity, the Israel lobby gets around a U.S. law intended to prohibit Congressional junkets funded by lobbying groups.

January 03, 2019 "Information Clearing House" -    The Israel lobby has been busy taking a wide variety of government officials and opinion makers on fully expense paid trips to Israel this month. The trips cost in the range of $10,000 per person.
Six newly elected House members are on a 5-day visit to Israel, a delegation of northern California “progressive leaders” are on a week-long trip, media commentator Tara Setmayer has just returned from such a trip, and a delegation of southern California progressive leaders returned from their trip earlier this month.
The House participants include liberals and conservatives, Jewish representatives and Christian fundamentalists, Trump supporters and Trump opponents: Tim Burchett (R-TN), Dan Crenshaw (R-TX), Susie Lee (D-NV), Elaine Goodman Luria (D-VA), Denver Riggleman (R-VA) and David Trone (D-MD).
The California participants are County Supervisors John Gioia and Joe Simian, California Democratic Party Executive Committee Member Andrea Beth Damsky, and unknown others. The delegations are named “Northern Pacific Progressive Leaders” and “Southern Pacific Progressive Leaders,” but no one will divulge the rosters.

The AIPAC loophole

The trips are organized and funded by the American Israel Education Foundation (AIEF), the nonprofit arm of the powerful Israel lobbying group AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee). AIEF was founded in 1989 “to advance the purposes of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.”
AIPAC is widely believed to be the most powerful organization in the US lobbying Congress on behalf of a foreign country. An outgrowth of the 1939 organization “American Zionist Emergency Council,” AIPAC’s annual convention is attended by ambitious politicians from across the political spectrum (see this example; for more on AZEC, read my book on the history of the Israel lobby).

The goal of AIPAC – and of its trips – is to promote American support for Israel despite Israel’s violations of human rights, international law, U.S. law, and discrimination against Christians and others.
In particular, AIPAC is working to keep the over $10 million per day of American tax money going to Israel. While most Americans feel Israel already gets too much money, Congress is about to pass legislation that will increase the gift even further. This will be the largest military aid package in US history; it works out to about $23,000 for each Jewish Israeli family of four, or $7,230 per minute.
While an individual has recently been charged with acting as a foreign agent over her activities with Russia and the NRA, the Israel lobby has worked to influence U.S. policies on behalf of a foreign country for many years, with very few legal consequences. Even when top AIPAC officials were found to have handed over classified documents, the case was dropped (a Pentagon analyst was jailed for 12 years).
The trips to Israel used to be organized by AIPAC itself until Congress enacted legislation in 2007 intended to stop lobbying organizations from taking government officials on fully paid tours. However, the legislation contains a loophole (some call it the “AIPAC loophole“) that allows nonprofit groups to organize such trips, and AIEF officially took over the tours.
An $85 million operation, AIEF takes a wide array of American officials and opinion makers on the all the expense paid trips. It pays for their international flights, hotel accommodations, tourist excursions, meals, drinks, etc. In the past decade it has reportedly spent $12.9 million on bipartisan Congressional trips to Israel.
While some of the more savvy participants may be skeptical of an advocacy organization claiming to give them an unbiased, “educational” look at the region, they seem willing to go along. The Israel lobby is widely known to make or break careers.

Carefully Tailored Trips

The trips by AIEF and similar organizations are carefully tailored for each group. There are trips for military veterans, business leaders of all races and ethnicities, educators, athletes, students, individuals of every sexual and religious persuasion, and politicians at every level of office, from local to national.
The pro-Israel groups treat participants to a lavish tour replete with visits to historic sites, exciting night life, beaches, religious sites, official offices, border areas; whatever will appeal to the group members. LGBTQ advocates meet with gays, fundamentalist Christians are taken on carefully guided trips to Christian sites, military veterans meet with Israeli soldiers.
The meetings even include a few hand-picked “Palestinian representatives” and Druze Israelis, allowing the tours to be pitched as “educational” trips where participants allegedly see “all sides.” They are given inaccurate histories of the region and filtered information about the current situation. Not surprisingly, participants come back spouting the Israeli talking points they’ve been fed. (See some schedules and itineraries here.)
Whether or not they are taken in by the tour, it is likely that politicians understand the political calculus of allying with one of the most powerful lobbies in the U.S.
Most politicians and many others are acutely aware that this is a group that has the money and power to further their careers – or to impede them. As these extravagant trips exemplify, AIPAC and related groups possess hundreds of millions of dollars to devote to cultivating Congressional representatives and others.
Pro-Israel billionaires like Sheldon Adelson, Haim Saban, and Paul Singer donate massive quantities of money to promote Israel in the US. They and others fund numerous projects to inculcate pro-Israel beliefs in Americans. These trips are one of the ways they do it.
The new Congressional representatives and Setmayer have occasionally been tweeting about the trips. Below are a few examples:

Walking on a road where Jesus actually walked. Just incredible. #AIEF pic.twitter.com/2bDR72udOo

— Tim Burchett (@timburchett) December 12, 2018

We were invited to survey the Israeli border areas including the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Then they took us to a military base to inspect the terror tunnels. Our return trip took us over Jerusalem, where we saw the security wall between the West Bank and Israel. #VA05pic.twitter.com/DkZaOXejWr

— Denver Riggleman (@Denver4VA) December 12, 2018

One of the most intense experiences of my life was standing inside a bombed out former Syrian Army HQ, now on the Israeli side of the Golan Heights, just 150 yards from the Syrian border.That happened today.pic.twitter.com/9oSRW5VLqZ

— Tara Setmayer (@TaraSetmayer) December 7, 2018

CNN’s Setmayer & Marc Lamont Hill

Setmayer has also published a podcast about the trip that mentions her Jewish ancestry and repeats a number of Israel’s nonfactual talking points. In the podcast she shows little awareness of the situation in Gaza or the history of the region, despite – or perhaps because of – her “educational trip.”
Given that CNN commentator Marc Lamont Hill, a tenured professor, was just fired by CNN for a UN speech in which he supported full Palestinian rights, it is perhaps not surprising that Setmayer sings Israel’s praises.
Numerous other pro-Israel groups also take Americans on guided tours to Israel, including the American Jewish Committee’s Project Interchange (a 2012 trip brought university presidents), Passages Israel, (backed by hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer), the Jewish Public Affairs Committee of Northern California (JPAC), Birthright Israel, which targets Jewish students, and the American-Israel Friendship League, which has been operating since 1971 and largely targets young people. (Last year AIFL gave a special award to potential presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg. A fundraising video featured former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, New York Times columnist Bret Stephens, Elie Wiesel, and others.)
Meanwhile, U.S. media regularly provide Israeli-centric reporting to Americans. For example, almost no news organizations have told Americans about the current legislation before Congress to give Israel a minimum of $38 billion over the next 10 years, currently being held up by Republican Senator Rand Paul.

Alternative trip to the region

Perhaps for the first time ever, a Congressional representative is openly challenging AIPAC over these trips. Newly elected Democrat Rashida Tlaib has announced that she will be organizing an alternative trip to the region.
A Palestinian American citizen of Detroit, Tlaib explained:  “I don’t think AIPAC provides a real, fair lens into this issue. It’s one-sided. … [They] have these lavish trips to Israel, but they don’t show the side that I know is real, which is what’s happening to my grandmother and what’s happening to my family there.”
While most Americans desire fairness and would likely believe it reasonable for their representatives to either go on no lobby-funded trips, or go on trips by both sides, it is unclear how many politicians will be willing to do so. As Republican Congressman Paul Findley recorded in 1985, and many politicians from both parties havelearned since, defying the Israel lobby can be political suicide.
But as increasing numbers of Americans learn the facts on Israel-Palestine, a few politicians now are taking on the Israel lobby, and winning. One of them, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), has already announced that she will not be joining the annual AIPAC trip for freshman Congressional reps.
Videos about Israel lobby trips
The videos below give a feel for these pro-Israel funded trips:

Passages is backed by hedge fund billionaire and Israel advocate Paul Singer. (More information about Singer is here.)

Alison Weir is executive director of If Americans Knew and author of Against Our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Was Used to Create Israel.


http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50875.htm

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