WASHINGTON, 24 May 2005 — AIPAC, America’s pro-Israel lobby, opened its 2005 policy conference on Sunday in Washington with 5,000 delegates and dignitaries in attendance.
One of Washington’s most powerful and effective lobbying groups, AIPAC’s annual convention was attended by half of the Senate and over a third of the US House of Representatives.
Last night, its members heard speeches by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. On Sunday, Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean and former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, speaking for the Republican National Committee, and the top leaders of both chambers of Congress, also showed up to address attendees.
Not bad for an organization involved in a federal investigation over allegations that two of its former employees may have illegally passed on top-secret information to Israel.
Earlier this month, federal prosecutors charged Larry Franklin, an Iran analyst at the Pentagon, with disclosing classified information about potential attacks on US forces in Iraq. Franklin is accused of providing the information to two former AIPAC officials — Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman.
The news seems to have done little to harm AIPAC’s reputation. After CBS News broke the story of the probe last summer, “AIPAC had one of our biggest fund-raising weeks in history,” AIPAC spokesman Josh Block told reporters. Membership has continued to climb — it’s now over 100,000, he said.
