AIPAC Must Stay Non-Partisan

AIPAC holds its annual conference next week and, as it does every four years, has invited presidential candidates from both parties to speak. Donald Trump is among those who accepted the invitation. While many Jewish leaders, activists, and journalists have called on AIPAC to disinvite him, Jonathan Tobin contends that the organization must stick to its usual policy of bipartisanship:

AIPAC can’t afford to write off either party. Its job is to fight for support for Israel on both sides of the aisle, and it has been largely successful in that effort even in an era where many rank-and-file Democrats are increasingly likely to be hostile or indifferent to it. . . .

[I]t’s important to understand that AIPAC as an organization—as opposed to what some of its members think—must do its best to stay away from partisan warfare. Expecting it to fight other battles is a formula for its dissolution, not one that can save its soul. Once it starts down that path, there will be no stopping.

Of course, some on the left would like nothing better than to see AIPAC dissolve or be weakened. That cannot be allowed to happen. The lobby will continue to play a responsible role in speaking up for Israel no matter who wins in November. But, as they always have, its members are free to speak out as they like about the candidates.

Read more at Commentary

More about: AIPAC, Donald Trump, Israel & Zionism, U.S. Presidential election, US-Israel relations

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF