Sen. Barbara Boxer cited a father and daughter recently “blown to bits” on the eve of her wedding in Jerusalem as justification for Israel building a wall to defend itself from suicide bombings.
And in the only mention of the Geneva accords — the unsanctioned plan to end the conflict — Rep. Tom Lantos (D-San Mateo), in an unscheduled turn at the microphone, blasted it as “phony.”
“Two men in well-cut suits and ties do not a negotiating table make,” he said, referring to Israeli and Palestinian negotiators without portfolios, Yossi Beilin and Yasser Abed Rabbo. “This is not Norway and Sweden,” he added, to receiving a standing ovation.
These political leaders and others proclaimed their support of Israel and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s government at the annual AIPAC membership event Monday, Dec. 8, at the Westin St. Francis.
The San Francisco luncheon — during which political activist and event chair Julie Brandt asked people to “take back Zionism” — was one of four AIPAC gatherings that took place Sunday and Monday. (The others were in Oakland, San Jose and Sacramento.) They drew a total of 3,700 people.
Basically, they were all Israel pep rallies.
The security wall, for which Israel has been criticized by many around the world, was deemed necessary. “There is no partner to talk to on the other side,” was a common refrain.
“It’s clear that the isolation of Israel is growing,” said Howard Kohr, AIPAC’s national executive director. Citing France’s chief rabbi, who recently warned Jews to cover their kippot with baseball caps, and the October speech by Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad, in which he said that Jews rule the world, Kohr declared, “Every one of these countries seeks to play a greater role in the Middle East. After spewing such hatred, these are the very countries that want to tell Israel what to do.”
Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican and a strong supporter of Israel, gave the keynote address, telling the audience she would be soon be making her first trip to the Jewish state.
Though Collins spent most of her speech talking about Saudi Arabia as the “epicenter of financing terrorism,” she also explained her own support for Israel with an anecdote. Not too long ago, she said, some women came to visit her in her district office in Maine, demanding to know why she was so supportive of Israel, and not the Palestinians.
“Tell me, where in the Middle East are the women free, where women are given the same rights as men?” Collins asked them. “It was one question they did not want to answer.”
Boxer proudly spoke of how she teamed up with an unlikely ally, Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pennsylvania), to sponsor the Syria Accountability Act, which recently passed in the Senate, 89-4.
“I feel so strongly about that,” she said of the law, which allows the United States to impose sanctions against Syria and refrain from supplying it with weapons. “It should be a model as to how we deal with such countries. If you’re going to be a leader in the world, you need to be sure to speak the truth. We tell the truth about Syria’s support for terrorism.”
The most emotional speech came from a young woman, Sarri Singer, a New Jersey native who moved to Israel a year after 9/11, without her parents’ support.
An administrator of a girls school in Jerusalem, Singer was riding Jerusalem bus No. 14a on June 11 of this year, when a suicide bomber blew up the bus, killing 17 and wounding hundreds.
Singer had to be helped from the bus and needed surgery to remove shrapnel from her shoulder. Had she been just a little bit taller, her doctor told her, the shrapnel would have pierced her heart. Her father, a New Jersey state senator, flew to Israel the next day.
“He said, ‘I’m here to take you home,’ and I said, ‘I am home,'” she said. “Finally, he realized the importance of my living there.”
There are two ways to handle such trauma, she concluded. You either “let it eat you up inside, or you do something about it.”
Singer is clearly of the latter mindset. “We in Israel are not going to give up,” she said. “We’re not going away. We’ll do our part, but we need your help with world support.” She then promptly asked the crowd to give generously to AIPAC.
Singer thanked national AIPAC President Amy Friedkin, a San Francisco resident, for visiting her in the hospital.
Meanwhile, a handful of Jews stood outside the St. Francis, protesting the event. A group of about 30, both Jews and non-Jews, protested outside the Oakland Marriott at an AIPAC dinner that same evening.
Among the Jewish protesters in Oakland was David Bolanos, a member of Jewish Voice for Peace, who held a sign declaring, “Security for Israel Requires Justice for Palestinians.”