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Cynthia McKinney is running again
Defying pro-Israel lobbyâs efforts to control Black agenda
by Jeff Blankfort
Cynthia McKinney, an even more popular speaker since her re-election defeat, challenges tyranny on the right and disunity on the left at rallies around the country, including last yearâs protests in San Francisco that drew hundreds of thousands.
Cynthia McKinney has announced that she will be running to regain her old seat in Congress this year, the one she lost in 2002 by failing to express her devotion to the state of Israel and to the dictates of its domestic lobby.
While there is nothing in the U.S. Constitution, at least not yet, that demands of our members of Congress that they swear their fidelity to Israel, there is considerable evidence that such a requirement does, in fact, exist. San Francisco Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic Whip, and therefore the partyâs most powerful member in the lower house, set what was, perhaps, a new standard for such subservience when she pledged her âunshakableâ bond to Israel at least a dozen times in a speech in Washington last April to 5,000 members of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) at the organizationâs annual convention.
AIPAC is Israelâs officially registered lobby with headquarters in the nationâs capital and branch offices throughout the country. To give the reader a good idea of how deeply Israel has penetrated our political system, AIPAC representatives, uniquely, do not have to register as agents of a foreign government.
If they did, organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the American Jewish Committee (AJC), for example, would also be required to register because much of their work is done in behalf of Israel. The AJC, not as well known outside of the Jewish community, quietly lobbies foreign governments in behalf of Israel.
Moreover, it is not just organizations that are doing this. According to the Jerusalem Post, San Franciscoâs other representative in Congress, Tom Lantos, a Hungarian-born Jew, has represented Israel in countries where it has no diplomatic relations, such as Syria and, most recently, Pakistan and Libya. Whether as an organization or as an individual, this is an activity that normally requires those engaging in it to register as foreign agents.
Half of the Senate attended that AIPAC meeting last year as did a third of the House. Two of the members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) who were reportedly among the guests were Artur Davis and Denise Majette, both African-Americans, who, with the support of AIPAC, the Anti-Defamation League and pro-Israel Jewish donors from across the country, defeated veteran civil rights activist Earl Hilliard and his younger colleague, Cynthia McKinney, in the 2002 Democratic Party primaries in Alabama and Georgia, respectively.
Controlling the Black political agenda as well as Black leadership have long been high priorities of the overall pro-Israel lobby and the CBC has always been one of its main concerns. Those who speak up for the Palestinians, who refuse to support Israel and genuflect to the lobby, and who donât feel obliged to repeatedly sanctify Jewish suffering have found themselves hounded by the ADL, added to its list of âBlack Demagoguesâ and shunted to the political margins. The lobby will not necessarily target a member of Congress that doesnât always vote its way, but it will not tolerate any Black politician who has the guts to stand up to it, to challenge Israel publicly or to speak up for Palestinian rights.
One of those who stood up and paid the price was Gus Savage, a Chicago congressman who in 1993 was the only member of the Congressional Black Caucus to vote against the Foreign Aid Bill that raised U.S. aid to Israel to $4.5 billion, or one third of the aid budget and nearly seven times the allocation for sub-Saharan Africa.
When AIPAC put up Mel Reynolds, another African-American candidate, and started soliciting funds from Jews across the country to defeat him, Savage went public with the names of the Jewish contributors, none of whom lived in the district. For that he was attacked as an âanti-semite,â described as âSavage Savageâ in a racist headline in Washington Jewish Week, and denied funds by Democratic party chair and lobby favorite Ron Brown. Two years later, he was redistricted and defeated by Reynolds.
This time around, Hilliard was the first to go. The mainstream Israeli newspaper Haâaretz found his defeat significant, citing it as one reason for President Bushâs newfound affection for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Here is how Akiva Eldar, a Haâaretz columnist, described it:
âItâs worth taking a look at the Web site of the U.S. Federal Election Commission. Look for contributors to Artur Davis, a Black lawyer who won the Democratic primaries in the 7th Congressional District in Alabama â. Davis beat his rival, the 60-year-old, five-term Earl Hilliard, who is also Black, by a 56-44 percent vote. Here are some of the names from the first pages of the list of his contributors: there were 10 Cohens from New York and New Jersey, but before one gets to the Cohens, there were Abrams, Ackerman, Adler, Amir, Asher, Baruch, Basok, Berger, Berman, Bergman, Bernstein and Blumenthal. All from the East Coast, Chicago and Los Angeles. Itâs highly unlikely any of them have ever visited Alabama, let alone the 7th Congressional District. (Now recall what happened when Savage named names like that.)
âWhat do the Adlers and Bergmans have to do with an unknown lawyer running for a Congressional seat from Alabama. Why should Jews from all over the United States send hundreds of thousands of dollars to his campaign coffers, which reached $781,000 - compared to the $85,000 he had in his coffers the last time he ran, and lost? The answer can be found in the AIPAC index of pro-Israel congressmen. Hilliard, who once visited Libya, is paying (with) his Congressional seat for a number of votes the Jewish lobbyists didnât like.
âThe most recent vote was when he did not vote with the overwhelming majority of congressmen who passed a resolution in support of Israelâs war on terrorism. A little while later, his opponent, Davis, discovered that a shower of checks was pouring into his campaign chest. Most of the signatures on the checks had Jewish names. The message was clear - this is what happens to politicians who upset Israelâs friends.â
Apart from what it says about the subversion of our political system, can anyone imagine an article like that appearing in an American daily newspaper?
McKinney was to meet the same fate. In 1999, Bill Nigut of the Atlanta Jewish Times did a sympathetic background article on her, noting, âIn 1992, in her first race for Congress in what was then Georgiaâs 11th District, McKinney made it clear she wouldnât be beholden to â AIPAC,â which was âheavy-handed in demanding her endorsement of its positions in return for its support.â
McKinney refused to play ball. Nigut quoted a one-time Jewish supporter who told him, âHere was a young woman who had not yet been elected to Congress, and AIPAC was saying, âThis is our point of view; sign off on this.â Cynthia being Cynthia was not going to do that. â I think Cynthia was taken aback by the aggressiveness that is how AIPAC does business.â
On the eve of her defeat, the New York Timesâ Philip Shenon, described â(t)he races in Alabama and Georgia â as evidence of new strains between African-Americans and Jewish Americans, who for decades were seen as unshakable political allies, given their shared history of discrimination.â (To suggest that American Jews and American Blacks have hardly shared discrimination equally is, of course, taboo.)
âUnfortunately, this is symptomatic of the tensions between the Black and Jewish communities,â the ADLâs National Director Abraham H. Foxman, told the Times. âBut, Mr. Foxman said, it made sense that Jewish Americans would want to contribute to efforts to replace Ms. McKinney and Mr. Hilliard because of the lawmakersâ records on matters of interest to the Jewish community.â
What are those interests? As reported in the Jewish weekly Forward more than a dozen years ago, Sen. Howard Metzenbaum, D-Ohio, told the annual conference of the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council, âThereâs only one issue members (of Congress) think is important to American Jews â Israel.â
McKinney had further angered the lobby by calling for an investigation of Israelâs prolonged attack on the USS Liberty during the 1967 Six-Day War, which took the lives of 34 U.S. sailors and wounded 171. This attack on a lightly armed U.S. spy vessel, which Israel claimed to have been a case of âmistaken identity,â has been covered up by the White House and Congress for the past 36 years and only recently has begun to attract national attention. That the Israelis were able to kill U.S. servicemen and get away with it is considered by many to be the defining act in the U.S.-Israel relationship.
McKinney and Hilliard were the last of the outspoken members of the Congressional Black Caucus, and their departure was a major victory for the lobby. But itâs not content with that. As part of its 2003 convention, AIPAC honored CBC Chair Elijah Cummings, D-Md., and on its eve, it hosted the rest of the caucus at a special dinner, attended by nearly 1,000 AIPAC donors from around the country. According to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, AIPAC wanted to honor Cummings âand the members of the CBC for their long-standing support of Israel and to reaffirm to our own community that most members of the Caucus support a strong and secure Israel.â
The results of that effort have been mixed. A letter to President Bush, drafted that month by AIPAC and expressing concerns about the U.S.-supported âroad map,â was signed by 313 House members, but only 18 of 39 members of the CBC were willing to affix their names.
And Cynthia McKinney is running again and running to win. What will you do to help?
Email Jeff Blankfort at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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