Is AIPAC protecting State sponsors of terror? And if so, why?
There's a very disturbing column from Caroline Glick in Friday's JPost. In it, she discusses how AIPAC has been going around the United States weakening state legislation that would require state-sponsored pension funds to divest from companies with operations in countries that are State sponsors of terror like Iran, Sudan, Syria and North Korea.Christopher Holton is director of the Divest Terror Initiative at the Washington-based Center for Security Policy, where I serve as a senior fellow. In August 2004, the CSP launched its campaign to divest public employee pension funds from companies that do business with countries listed as state sponsors of terror by the US State Department. The decision was inspired by a study of companies invested in states that sponsor terrorism undertaken by Roger Robinson, the founder and president of the Conflict Securities Advisory Group.Read the whole thing.
Working from Robinson's research, the CSP discovered that on average, 15 percent-23% of US state employee pension funds were invested in companies that do business with state sponsors of terrorism. In 2004, the estimated total value of those investments was $188 billion. Some $70b. was invested in companies that did business with Iran, Syria and North Korea.
In 2005, after coming across the CSP's research, Missouri State Treasurer Sarah Steelman divested a portion of Missouri's pension plans from companies that do business with state sponsors of terror.
In late 2006, the terror divestment campaign received a major boost when Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu embraced it as a means of slowing down Iran's race to nuclear capabilities.
Encouraged by Netanyahu, Republican presidential hopefuls John McCain, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich announced their support for the plan in late 2006. Their announcements induced state legislators around the US to introduce bills that would follow the Missouri example and make their pension funds free of investments in countries that sponsor terror. Working with Robinson, London's FTSE financial index announced last November that it would begin providing a series of terror-free screened indexes that will allow public and private investors to easily screen their portfolios and divest from countries that do business with state sponsors of terrorism.
And then, AIPAC moved in.
Holton assists state legislators in their bid to introduce divestment bills. He explains that in Texas and California, AIPAC lobbyists led by AIPAC's policy director Brad Gordon, advocated that divest terror bill sponsors take North Korea and Syria off their bills. As they did in Ohio, they also strongly recommended that divestiture from companies invested in Iran be limited to companies that invest more than $20m. in Iran's oil and gas sector.
In Texas, AIPAC's interference so frustrated the bill's sponsor, State Senator Dan Patrick, that he allowed the initiative to fizzle out. In California, the bill passed into law reflected AIPAC's view, except that at the insistence of the bill's sponsor Assemblyman Joel Anderson, it also divested California from companies involved in Iran's defense and nuclear sectors.
In Florida, AIPAC pre-empted supporters of broad-based terror divestment. It advocated its pared-down, Iran only, oil and gas sector only divestment plan before a broader-based initiative could get off the ground.
Currently, AIPAC is working to pare down bills in Massachusetts, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Georgia. In the meantime, without AIPAC's intervention, the Louisiana legislature moved toward a broad-based divestment policy by establishing a terror-free investment index last year. Mississippi and Utah are also considering broad-based bills.
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AIPAC's arguments are not without merit. It is not the contentions that are strange, but their source. It is simply bizarre that of all the organizations in the US, the organization dedicated to strengthening America's alliance with Israel is leading the effort to shield the North Korean, Syrian and Sudanese economies from divestment and to limit the damage the divest terror movement can exact on Iran's economy.
Update 10:16 AM
As this post keeps getting hit, I realized that there's something Caroline didn't say here that she knows and I know but many of you may not know: AIPAC generally supports the government policy of whatever Israeli government is currently in power. There's no reason to believe it's not doing the same thing now. That makes the question even more intriguing.
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:39 AM
4 Comments:
This shouldn't even be controversial. All tools should be used against state sponsors of terror, including Iran. There is no good explanation for why a pro-Israel lobby group like AIPAC would block divestment from Iran. But it does illuminate one point that Steven Walt and John Mearsheimer have overlooked in their work on the Israel Lobby: sometimes it doesn't protect Israel's interests like its supposed to. In fact, the Jewish Lobby can work against Israel's interests. But don't look for them to acknowledge the Jewish Lobby is far from perfect, as revealed in AIPAC's bizarre conduct on the divestment issue.
And yet, when people like Ron Paul criticize AIPAC, people call them anti-semites.
Allanea,
There are many more reasons than that to consider Ron Paul an anti-Semite.
Heh.
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