washington | Amid lavish multimedia presentations at this year’s policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, there was a strong sense of business as usual.
The powerful pro-Israel lobby was working hard to show it is the same organization it had been before reports of a federal investigation surfaced and two senior officials, who allegedly received and passed on classified information to Israel, were dismissed.
At the same time, it was trying to broaden its appeal, highlighting the American part of its name over the Israel part, placing a more human face on its lay leadership and diversifying its ranks.
Its membership seemed unruffled by the scandal, more focused on such policy issues as the Iranian nuclear threat and Israel’s disengagement plan.
Since allegations first surfaced last August, supporters and political officials have rallied behind the organization, giving money and lending support.
They gathered in Washington this week in record numbers for the policy conference. The 5,000 delegates, including some 800 students, hoped to send a message that the organization is the same group it always has been.
Dania Kier Kronick, 49, a public relations official from Boca Raton, Fla., said she doesn’t believe that any of the charges leveled at the group are valid, but she wouldn’t worry even if some were true.
“We have such a strong message that even if a few flounder, and I don’t think they did, it doesn’t diminish the cause,” she said.
Inside the convention, AIPAC leaders were making the case that the organization works for the good of the United States, not just Israel. This year’s theme, “Israel. An American Value,” included an opening plenary featuring non-Jewish AIPAC backers. The delegates to the conference include many non-Jewish student leaders, including some from Christian and historically black universities.
“It’s important that it not just be about Jewish people coming together to support Israel,” said Ryan Berni, president of College Democrats at Louisiana State University, standing with the school’s College Republicans president this week.
The unstated goal, it seemed, was to quash suggestions that AIPAC acts more as a foreign agent for Israel than as an American lobby, allegations that many believe prompted the federal probe.
In a noted break from tradition, “Hatikvah,” Israel’s national anthem, was not played at a party on May 23.
In his annual address, AIPAC’s executive director, Howard Kohr, thanked members for standing with the organization, and suggested the investigation was a test of AIPAC’s collective resolve.
He said the organization has learned directly from the government that no current AIPAC staffers are a target of the federation investigation. Neither is the organization. Kohr also stressed that the organization would work harder to be above reproach.
Steve Rosen, AIPAC’s former director of foreign policy, was quoted in the New York Times as saying that he had done nothing wrong.
The same article suggested that AIPAC fired Rosen and Keith Weissman, an Iran analyst, last month after lawyers heard a tape of a conversation Weissman had with Larry Franklin, a former Pentagon analyst since indicted for passing classified information.
According to the report, the tape caught Franklin, who was cooperating with the FBI at the time, telling Weissman that he was giving him classified information about the threat to American and Israeli agents in the Kurdish part of northern Iraq, at the hands of Iranians.
Rosen and Weissman passed the information onto an Israeli Embassy staffer and a reporter at the Washington Post, sources said.
Franklin will be in court for a preliminary hearing this week. Sources close to Rosen and Weissman say the two expect to be indicted as well.
Franklin now faces additional charges. This week, he was charged with possessing classified information at his West Virginia home.
Some AIPAC members at the conference questioned whether the organization should have dismissed Rosen and Weissman, believing they did nothing wrong.
Rosen, in particular, spent 23 years with the lobby and was famous for briefings to board members and other donors.
“It’s a regrettable situation, but probably the right thing to do,” said David Hirsch, 43, a real estate developer from Greenwich, Conn.
“Those two individuals were extraordinary people and enormous contributors, but they became too much of a political liability and we are a political organization.”
Supporters said this week’s convention provided a major boost to the group’s image.
“I don’t think any less of AIPAC, but I have concerns about whether it will make a difference in its effectiveness,” said Joseph Sitrick, 84, a retired foreign service officer from Chevy Chase, Md.
“But look at the turnout. You couldn’t have greater support than that.” n