{"id":38155,"date":"2021-10-05T13:39:10","date_gmt":"2021-10-05T21:39:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=38155"},"modified":"2021-10-05T13:39:10","modified_gmt":"2021-10-05T21:39:10","slug":"does-aipac-command-congress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2021\/10\/05\/does-aipac-command-congress\/","title":{"rendered":"Does AIPAC Command Congress?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In September, pro-Palestinian members of Congress banded together to stop the Democratic House leadership&#8217;s bid to slip $1 billion in additional military foreign aid to Israel into must-pass legislation. Within days the funding reappeared in a standalone bill that quickly passed 420-9 even as Congress was stalemated on other more pressing legislation to raise the debt ceiling and repair infrastructure. Though stuck in the Senate, the extra aid seems sure to pass.<\/p>\n<p><b>How does a lobby for a foreign government get its programs prioritized over those of the American people?<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Distinguished historian and author Walter L. Hixson sits down for an extended Q&#038;A with IRmep&#8217;s Grant F. Smith about Israel\u2019s foremost US lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Hixson draws on insights and primary research from his new, peer-reviewed book, <a href=\"https:\/\/irmep.us14.list-manage.com\/track\/click?u=c55d32755d0c00d9221e7345b&#038;id=c3ea4568b0&#038;e=a0488095a6\">Architects of Repression: How Israel and Its Lobby Put Racism, Violence and Injustice at the Center of US Middle East Policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/VIRdZRzR0uM\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><i> Grant F. Smith is the author of the new book <a href=\"https:\/\/virginia.israellobby.org\/chap3\/index.html\"> The Israel Lobby Enters State Government<\/a>. He is director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irmep.org\/\">IRmep<\/a> in Washington, D.C. which co-organizes <a href=\"https:\/\/www.israellobbycon.org\/\">IsraelLobbyCon<\/a> each year at the National Press Club.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In September, pro-Palestinian members of Congress banded together to stop the Democratic House leadership&#8217;s bid to slip $1 billion in additional military foreign aid to Israel into must-pass legislation. Within days the funding reappeared in a standalone bill that quickly passed 420-9 even as Congress was stalemated on other more pressing legislation to raise the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":105,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-38155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/105"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38155"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38155\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38157,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38155\/revisions\/38157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38155"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=38155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}