MEDILL NEWS SERVICE > Power Trips: Congress hits the road

AIPAC foundation is third largest private sponsor of congressional travel
By ALANA Y. PRICE and LINDSAY BLAKELY
MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

WASHINGTON -- New office on Capitol Hill? Check. Orientation to congressional protocols? Check. All-expense paid trip to Israel? Add that to the freshman lawmaker's calendar.

Next year first-term members of Congress could be initiated into an unofficial Washington tradition -- flying to Israel, one of the top foreign destinations for privately sponsored congressional travel. Every two years -- the years between elections -- the American Israel Education Foundation invites House and Senate members to gain first-hand knowledge about a region they will influence through legislation.

The education foundation is a nonprofit arm of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee -- AIPAC, one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington. A 2005 National Journal survey of congressional insiders ranked AIPAC second most influential lobbying group among Democratic lawmakers and fourth among Republicans.

The pro-Israel organization made headlines in August when two of its former lobbyists were charged with conspiring to pass on national defense information to the Israeli government.

AIPAC's education foundation is the third largest private sponsor of congressional travel, having spent more than $1.5 million sending lawmakers and their staffers on trips since Jan. 1, 2000, according to a Medill News Service analysis of travel disclosure forms from 2000 through mid-August 2006. Most of the trips -- worth nearly $1.4 million -- were to Israel.

"Being on the ground in Israel, seeing the terrain, being there in person provides the perspective that one can't get from being in classrooms and reading media coverage," AIPAC spokesman Josh Block said.

Block declined to provide a full itinerary for any trip, saying AIPAC does not customarily release such agendas to the public. But he said a typical trip would include meetings with Israeli and Palestinian elected officials, academicians and journalists.

A trip three years ago included an afternoon at a Holocaust Memorial and visits with then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, then-Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas and the U.S. ambassador to Israel, according to Block.

Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., who went on the trip, said that new members of Congress who accompanied him were shocked by Israel's small size.

"Many realized for the first time that their districts were bigger" than Israel, he said. "Why would Israel [ever] want to give up land? They could never see that unless they went."

Sponsoring trips is hardly out of the ordinary. Lawmakers and their staff have taken 26,000 trips worth $54.8 million from Jan. 1, 2000, through mid-August 2006, according to the Medill News Service analysis.

As a registered lobbying group, AIPAC is barred from financing trips. However, the nonprofit education foundation attached to it faces no such regulations.

The American Israel Education Foundation has planned and paid for almost 220 trips to Israel for lawmakers and their staffers since Jan. 1, 2000. In the last six years, only two other groups spent more than the foundation's $1.5 million.

Even though lobbyists may not pay for trips, that doesn't stop them from regularly tagging along on excursions. For that reason congressional trips can offer a prime opportunity for lobbyists to gain lawmakers' undivided attention.

AIPAC lobbies for a strong U.S.-Israeli relationship and continued American economic and military aid for Israel. Often at odds with groups that favor more active peace negotiations with Palestinians, the committee presses for Israeli interests in the West Bank, Gaza and the greater region.

"The peace process presents great risks for Israel especially as it yields territory and control in exchange for intangible commitments from the Palestinians," AIPAC said in a position paper. "Only Israel can decide on the risks for peace it is willing to undertake."

Because of AIPAC's deep pockets and broad base of support, the 100,000-member organization dominates private sponsorship of travel to Israel: Since 2000, its nonprofit arm has financed more than half of all congressional visits to Israel; the next largest sponsor was the American Jewish Committee with about $133,000 worth of trips.

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee urges lawmakers to go see what life is like for Palestinians, but generally can't afford to pay for the congressional trips, said spokesman Tony Kutayli.

M.J. Rosenberg, Washington Director of the dovish Israel Policy Forum, said if his organization had as much money as AIPAC, it would send lawmakers "to meet with Israelis who favor our position, which is negotiating with Palestinians toward a solution." His policy forum advocates peace via the creation of separate Israeli and Palestinian states.

AIPAC wields influence in more ways than just travel. Although it can't make direct campaign contributions because it isn't a political action committee, AIPAC encourages other groups to donate to candidates it favors.

Rosenberg was quoted in a New York Review of Books article as saying, "I worked on Capitol Hill for almost 20 years and, basically, criticizing AIPAC or defying it on some resolution is a sure way to get a staffer in serious trouble. … They issue threats and they definitely believe they are more important than members of Congress."

AIPAC's influence in Congress has a long history, as the group has worked to ensure continued support for the state of Israel -- the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign aid since World War II.

Aaron Miller, a public policy expert from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, said AIPAC draws its power from a pro-Israeli predisposition among lawmakers, not from bullying tactics as some critics have suggested.

"The whole notion that AIPAC sort of blackmails or creates enormous pressures on congressmen and senators to 'vote the right way' I think is largely a misunderstanding," Miller said. The group is powerful simply because "there is no counter-constituency of any real consequence or meaning," he said.

No matter its source, AIPAC's influence is clear. The group reportedly attracted a majority of senators and a quarter of the House to its annual Washington policy conference in March, and the odds are good that next year a new group of freshmen lawmakers will take their first trip to Israel courtesy of AIPAC's education foundation.

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