Next week’s annual AIPAC policy conference in Washington will focus on Congress enacting legislation that would designate Israel a “major strategic ally” of the United States — a relationship not enjoyed by any other nation — and on facilitating a US green light should Israel decide to strike Iran.
According to a report in the Times of Israel, should the measures currently “being considered by the Senate and the House of Representatives pass, it would constitute the most explicit congressional sanction for military action against Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons program.”
The conference runs Sunday to Tuesday, ending with the annual AIPAC lobbying blitz on Capitol Hill.
An official with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee who spoke on condition of anonymity said the thinking behind this year’s theme is the twin urgencies of what appears to be an accelerated Iranian nuclear program and turbulence in Syria and Egypt, both Israel’s neighbors.
Vice President Joe Biden, who will address the conference on Monday morning, has been sent in the place of Barack Obama, who will be in Israel.
AIPAC expects 13,000 activists, including 2,000 students, to attend the conference.
An AIPAC official interviewed by the Times of Israel said that part of what motivates the push to name Israel a major strategic ally is an appeal to maintain defense assistance funding, averaging more than $3 billion annually.
“This is no time to cut aid to an ally,” the AIPAC official said. Conferring major strategic ally status upon Israel “would mean that the United States and Israel would work together on a cooperative basis on missile defense, homeland security, energy independence, medical research and innovation and military technology,” the official said.
The push to name Israel a major strategic ally comports with a longstanding preference among some leading Republicans to set assistance for Israel apart from other foreign aid, which the conservative wing of the party advocates slashing.
The overriding consideration in such a designation, however, is Israel’s increasingly close security ties with the United States, in the Middle East and across the globe, where the two nations have collaborated on cyber-security issues, the AIPAC official said. The major strategic ally legislation will be introduced in the House and Senate in the coming days.
Separately, a nonbinding resolution that would call on the president to support Israel “if it is compelled to act against the Iranian nuclear threat” will be introduced in the Senate. The House will consider legislation that would authorize the president to sanction any entity that trades with Iran.
The conference schedule heavily emphasizes the Iranian threat, Middle East turmoil and the perceived need to intensify further the US-Israel security alliance.
