Gary Rosenblatt writes that, “AIPAC has been … trying to shed the perception that it is more right than center” (“AIPAC Tries To Reclaim The Center,” March 31). But AIPAC is more left than center.
Historically, AIPAC and most large American Jewish organizations have taken more dovish positions than majorities of Israelis and American Jews.
Consider: a March 2017 Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs poll found that only 37 percent of Israelis support withdrawal from Judea/Samaria, retaining only major Jewish communities there, in the context of a peace agreement encompassing the creation of a Palestinian state, while 57 percent oppose this course of action.
Yet AIPAC supports creating a Palestinian state. How exactly does that render it “more right than center”?
AIPAC has supported U.S. funding for Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinian Authority, which most American Jews oppose (73 percent to 21 percent, according to the American Jewish Committee’s 2011 Survey of American Jewish Opinion). It has refused to support Jewish communities in the West Bank, even though most Israelis regard them as beneficial rather than damaging to Israeli security (40 percent vs. 30 percent, according to a March 2016 Pew Research Center survey) and 84 percent of American Jews favor maintaining at least major Jewish communities in the territories (AJC 2015 Survey of American Jewish Opinion).
On this record, AIPAC can scarcely be described as “more right than center.”
National President
Zionist Organization
of America
