Juan Cole continues his thoughts on why protests in the streets have little, if any, effect on the US policy towards Israel, and what needs to be done.
The US Senate and the US House of Representatives are not afraid of street protests in San Francisco. And why should they be? What sort of threat is it to them, that we say if they don’t change their legislation we will . . . walk in the street?
The reason AIPAC and its constituencies among the Evangelicals and American Likudniks has been so successful is that there is virtually no countervailing political force.
He proposes a coordinating committee that will mobilize hundreds of organizations to send millions of emails when, say, an Israeli funding bill is before Congress, along with major fund raising to support anti-war candidates, plus bricks and mortar lobbying offices in DC.
All we would need to do is win a couple of rounds with AIPAC and suddenly congressional votes would be much closer.