AIPAC and Pro-Israel PACs: The 1988 Winners and Losers

By Richard H. Curtiss

"I see tens of billions of dollars worth of jobs going abroad instead of sustaining our key defense industries and bolstering the US economy.”

—Secretary of Defense Frank C. Carlucci, Oct. 21, 1988.

Pro-Israel political action committees (PACs) had contributed $2,647,798 to 262 candidates for seats in the 101st Congress as of Sept. 30, 1988, according to information filed with the Federal Elections Commission (FEC). By contrast, PACs calling for an evenhanded Middle East policy had contributed $22,920 to 38 candidates in the same time frame. To date, Pro-Israel PACs have outspent their opposition by $116 to $1.

PACs may be just the tip of the iceberg, but the FEC's records on them provide the best evidence of what lies below. It is the source of figures cited in this article and in the charts on the following pages listing candidates in the 1988 congressional elections who have accepted donations from pro-Israel PACs in the 1984, 1986, and 1988 election cycles.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the pro-Israel PACs that follow its lead reward members of Congress for voting against arms sales to Arab countries and for foreign aid. At present, this foreign aid to Israel is an annual $3 billion in military and economic grants, about one-third of total US foreign aid worldwide. Since pro-Israel PACs invested about $4 million in 1984 and again in 1986, and will spend about the same amount again this year, it means that for every PAC dollar invested in congressional campaigns, Congress returns $750 in grants to Israel.

As for congressional votes against sales of defensive weapons to Arab states friendly to the US like Saudi Arabia, Frank Carlucci is not alone in estimating the loss to the US at "tens of billions of dollars worth of jobs." The US loss to British suppliers of Saudi Arabian military aircraft sales and training this year alone has been estimated by the US media at $36 billion, and by the Saudi Ministry of Information at $68 billion.

At 40,000 American jobs for every billion dollars in sales lost, a figure used by both the Defense and Commerce departments, that's between 1,440,000 and 2,720,000 American job years, depending upon whether you choose the US media or the Saudi government estimate.

How can pro-Israel PACs persuade members of Congress to so ignore the interests of their constituents, both as American taxpayers and as American workers? The rules, as you study the pattern of donations in this year's election campaigns, are not difficult to understand.

The first rule is that if the incumbent has voted in accordance with the instructions of AIPAC, the Israel lobby,the congressman is to be supported—even if his challenger is Jewish. This is best illustrated by pro-Israel PAC support for Republican Sen. Lowell P. Weicker, Jr., of Connecticut, who is not Jewish but who has used his position on the defense subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee to support AIPAC wishes.

Weicker's Democratic opponent this year, Connecticut Attorney General Joseph Lieberman, is Jewish. Pro-Israel PACs have so far contributed $99,500 to Weicker's 1988 campaign, and $1,000 to Lieberman.

Retribution for recalcitrant congressmen is even surer. Here again, Jewishness doesn't help. Republican Sen. Chic Hecht of Nevada angered the Israel lobby when he supported the administration with votes for arms packages both to Saudi Arabia and to Jordan, and when he opposed a bill to allow Orthodox Jews in the military to wear the yarmulke headgear prescribed by their faith. Although Hecht is Jewish, he has so far received only $11,500 from pro-Israel PACs. His non-Jewish challenger, Nevada Democratic Gov. Richard Bryan, has received $49,750.

AIPAC generally lays down a marker at the beginning of each campaign. At least one member of Congress who holds a key committee position and who has voted against AIPAC's recommendations is publicly targeted for defeat. Two Illinois Republicans, Sen. Charles Percy and Rep. Paul Findley, were targeted in 1984 and 1982 respectively, and each was defeated. Sen. Jesse Helms was targeted in 1986, but won. His narrow escape changed his voting pattern, however, and now he pays lavish lip service to Israel as well.

This year's early AIPAC target was Rhode Island Republican Sen. John Chafee, whose sin was a vote in the fall of 1981 in favor of selling AWACS aircraft, clearly defensive weapons, to Saudi Arabia. To date, pro-Israel PACs have lavished an astonishing $172,000 on Chafee's Jewish challenger, Lt. Gov. Richard Licht, a long-time fund raiser for United Jewish Appeal. Despite this astronomical sum for a campaign in tiny Rhode Island, Licht lags in the polls. If he loses, it may be a shattering blow to the aura of fear and invincibility that AIPAC works so hard to maintain.

AIPAC, and the PACs it says it doesn't coordinate (since such coordination would be illegal), have undertaken some other big campaigns this year. In Ohio, pro-Israel PACs have lavished $203,535 on the campaign of Democratic Sen. Howard M. Metzenbaum, who is Jewish and who serves on the Senate Intelligence Committee. His Republican opponent, Cleveland Mayor George Voinovich, has received not a cent from any of the 112 pro-Israel PACs this year.

In New Jersey, Democratic Sen. Frank Lautenberg, who sits on the important foreign operations subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee, is being challenged by retired Gen. Pete Dawkins, a war hero who has been in the national limelight ever since his college football days. Dawkins boldly sought to capture the important New Jersey Jewish vote with statements implying he was even more pro-Israel than his Jewish opponent. Dawkins is playing well in the polls, but not with the pro-Israel PACs. They have given $142,800 to Lautenberg, and nothing to Dawkins.

Sometimes things aren't so clear, as in the California re-election campaign of Republican Sen. Pete Wilson, a former San Diego mayor who was first induced to run for the Senate in 1982 by the pro-Israel lobby in order to head off, in the primaries, a senatorial bid by former Rep. Paul N. (Pete) McCloskey, a Republican who criticized the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Wilson has received $52,600 from pro-Israel PACs this year. His Democratic challenger, California Lt. Gov. Leo McCarthy, has received $10,000.

The apparent lack of coordination among pro-Israel PACs stems from the recent emergence of self-styled "multi-issue" Jewish PACs. Their mostly Democratic backers have reproved AIPAC and the PACs that follow its lead for ignoring so-called "Jewish issues," and supporting candidates identified with the religious right on such issues as school prayer and abortion. The multi-issue PACs warn that other pro-Israel PACs, in their zeal to support any candidate who supports Israel, could create a very different America from that desired by most American Jews.

Of special interest this year are pro-Israel PAC contributions to the two senators who have/become the vice presidential candidates. Indiana Republican Sen. Dan Quayle has voted against foreign aid and has a mixed voting record on Arab arms sales. He has accepted nothing from pro-Israel PACs. Texas Democratic Sen. Lloyd Bentsen received $7,500 prior to 1984, $5,000 in 1986, and $7,000 to date in 1988.

Similar dramas are underway in races for the House of Representatives. Although average donations are not so high, the same general rules apply. An incumbent who is on committees important to Israel (foreign affairs, appropriations, military affairs, and intelligence), and who votes right, gets help if he needs it. An incumbent on a key committee who has voted wrong is punished. That explains such astonishing sums as the $24,800 contributed to Florida Democrat Lawrence Smith, a tireless Jewish supporter of Israel on the Europe and Middle East subcommittee of the Foreign Affairs committee, who also received $42,230 in 1984 and $55,550 in 1986.

Other major House recipients of pro-Israel PAC contributions this year are Samuel Gejdenson (D-CT) $24,000, Dante B. Fascell (D-FL) $17,750, Vin Weber (R-MN) $32,000, Peter Kostmayer (D-PA) $22,750, John Miller (R-WA) $34,698, and David Obey (D-WI) $22,500. All are incumbents, on either the House Foreign Affairs or Appropriations committees.

Pro-Israel PACs are almost unique in three respects. Virtually every other kind of PAC takes pains to describe its purpose in its title. However, of 112 pro-Israel PACs identified for this article, only seven mention either Israel or Judaism in their titles. Of those, only two, Jewish Republican PAC and Yale Student Friends of Israel, are active this year.

All the rest of the 60 pro-Israel PACs active so far this year bear non-descriptive titles such, as Americans for Good Government, Arizona Politically Interested Citizens, National PAC, Gold Coast PAC, Badger PAC, BAYPAC, City PAC, Desert Caucus, Hollywood Women's Political Committee, and, would you believe, ICEPAC. These are the only political action committees that set out deliberately to conceal their purpose.

A second respect in which pro-Israel PACs are unique is in their unabashed support of policies of a foreign country, Israel. Or is this unique?

What about the PACs formed to support an evenhanded US Middle East policy? The Israel lobby calls them the Arab lobby. Over the years there have been 10 PACs registered that might fit this description. Of these, only one, the National Association of Arab Americans PAC, actually made contributions to candidates in 1984 ($17,350) and in 1986 ($49,225). To date in 1988, NAAA PAC has donated $20,150 and a newly formed American Council PAC (whose name derives from the Council of Presidents of National American-Arab Organizations), has donated $2,770. An even newer Israeli-Palestinian Peace Political Action Committee (I-PPPAC), formed by University of Maryland Professor Jerome Segal and others to support both Israeli and Arab peacemakers, had made no donations as of Sept. 30.

This illustrates the third unique characteristic of pro-Israel PACs. They have virtually no opposition. Unless or until Congress clamps down on lobbies as a whole, they will continue to be extraordinarily effective.

Consider the numbers: There are 112 pro-Israel lobby and 10 counter lobby PACs registered. Of those, 60 pro-Israel and two Arab-American PACs are active. Donations to congressional candidates to date in 1988 total $2,647,798 from pro-Israel PACs and $22,920 from their opposition.

Consider the results: On the Israeli side, $3 billion a year in US taxpayer grants to Israel, a subsidy that makes it possible for Israeli right-wingers to refuse a US-backed land-for-peace settlement. On the other side, the loss to the US of "tens of billions of dollars worth of jobs" to European, Japanese, Chinese, and Soviet suppliers.

The winners, are Israeli extremists. The losers are the people of the United States. In the 1988 elections, will it be winner take all?

Richard H. Curtiss, a retired Foreign Service information officer, is author of A Changing Image: American Perceptions of the Israeli-Arab dispute and editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.