http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2006/sep/07/van_hollen_and_aipac_case_studyBy M.J. Rosenberg
Rep. Chris Van Hollen's move rightward on the Middle East has become a case study on how the politics of Israel works these days.
During the Lebanon war, Van Hollen urged the Bush administration to support an immediate cease-fire, a position at variance with the Israeli government and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. It was, however, standard US operating procedure. Before the advent of the current President, ending conflict between Israelis and Arabs was what the US did. Israel did not have to accept ceasefires but the role of the US, understood by all, was to call for them because war in the Mideast was considered bad for US interests.
But times have changed. And simply calling for a ceasefire was considered hostile to Israel by the lobby this time. (I, myself, don't have an opinion on the ceasefire issue itself. I do think any Member of Congress is obligated to tell his own President or Secretary of State if he views a particular policy as being in America's best interests).
For Van Hollen, all hell broke loose. Here is what Shmuel Rosner wrote in Ha'aretz about the firestorm. "Congressman Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, ran into a problem - he unintentionally found himself in the camp of Israel's enemies.... More
About the author:
M.J. Rosenberg works in Washington supporting US efforts to advance an Israeli-Palestinian agreement. Previously, he worked on Capitol Hill for various Democratic members of the House and Senate for 15 years. He was also a Clinton political appointee at USAID. In the early 1980s, he was editor of AIPACs weekly newsletter Near East Report. After the signing of the Oslo Accords, Rosenberg broke with the AIPAC position and became a strong advocate of the "two-state solution" to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
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