The last time I went to my synagogue, I heard something that vexed me: President Carter was very anti-Israel until he got cancer and was saved by/(using?) (an) Israeli treatment. The audacity of that statement is astounding given the context. After all, President Carter presided over the Camp David Accords, which, according to the former foreign editor and chief diplomatic correspondent for Newsweek, Michael Hirsch, “create[d] a world where today Israel no longer has to fear a traditional military attack by any Arab enemy.” President Carter has criticized Israel, but to condemn him as anti-Israel, would imply a binary world where being pro-Israel is to treat its far right wing leaders, the Likud party, as infallible, and anything less as heresy. Unfortunately, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, AIPAC, has monopolized the term “pro-Israel” and as a result we live in that grim reality.

This all or nothing policy was clearly evident in the text of last May’s trade promotion authority, which contained an amendment that instructed the US Trade Representative to discourage EU members from boycotting “Israel or persons doing business in Israel or Israeli-controlled territories.” This would include the controversial settlements in the West Bank. When there was a proposal to change the text to remove the reference to the settlements, an email was circulated by Senator Cardin (D-MD) saying, “AIPAC will not support anything less than our amendment” which quelled dissenting efforts and allowed the amendment to stand. This follows the official Likud party line, but it ignores the fact that, according to the Pew Research Center, a plurality (44%) of American Jews oppose the settlements. This action is indicative of a larger problem, in which AIPAC will demand absolute compliance with their official likudnik stand, despite the fact that a plurality of American Jews disagree.

Another example of AIPAC usurping the voice of American Jews in order to push their own likudnik agenda was their protracted campaign to derail the recent Iran nuclear deal. Their proxy, Citizens for a Nuclear Free Iran reportedly spent over $20 million in its quest to stop the deal. This in the face of Jewish Americans’ strong support of the deal (49% in favor, 31% oppose) which actually exceeded the deal’s support among Americans in general .

These Congressional efforts have been disingenuous, but not explicitly harmful. There are perfectly valid arguments for the Likud position, and while I personally disagree with them, I have no problem with a group lobbying for them. What is harmful is that they have convinced Congress that they speak for a population of which they can count fewer than two percent as members. In recent Congressional testimony, AIPAC Executive Director Howard Kohr described AIPAC as, “representing all of the major American Jewish organizations” which implies that AIPAC speaks for American Jews, even though eighty two percent of us do not belong to a Jewish organization at all.  This deception allows them to define the conversation about Israel in their own rigid terms with impunity.

To combat this I will say this, I am an American Jew, and I support Israel and feel that it must exist as a sovereign nation. I also believe that the only way to ensure its survival is to give Palestinians their own independent State. I believe that the current government is acting in a way that is harmful to this long-term goal, and that the settlements must be rolled back to accommodate a two State solution. I think Israel has done an excellent job of modernizing and that its foreign aid efforts around the world have been a credit to humanity. I also think that Israeli human rights violations, while less severe than their enemies’, must be punished. Israel is not perfect. To AIPAC, these thoughts are blatantly anti-Israel, and I have friends and relatives who will most likely shun me for my opinions, but I would urge them to consider the fact that I still support the State of Israel. Criticism is not necessarily condemnation, and it does not come from a place of animosity.