AIPAC CEO Howard Kohr speaking at the annual AIPAC Policy Conference in Washington, D.C., March 2, 2020. Photo: AIPAC.

In the age of websites tracking “pro-Israel money” and politicians questioning American support for Israel, one claim has become a rallying cry: AIPAC should register as a foreign agent. It’s repeated so often that many accept it as fact. But repetition doesn’t make something true, and this claim reveals more about the accusers than about AIPAC.

The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) requires registration by those who act “at the order, request, or under the direction or control” of a foreign entity while engaging in political activity on that entity’s behalf.

Notice what’s required: not merely sympathy with a foreign country or advocating for policies that benefit it, but actually operating under its direction or control. This crucial distinction is what AIPAC’s critics ignore.

If the Department of Justice, which has dramatically ramped up FARA enforcement since 2016, believed AIPAC met the legal threshold, it would be an obvious target. Yet the DOJ hasn’t pursued AIPAC. Professional prosecutors evaluating the actual legal standards apparently don’t find the case compelling. But that hasn’t stopped the pundit class.

The claim that AIPAC operates under Israeli government control crumbles under scrutiny. DOJ guidance asks whether an organization acts independently or as “an agent or alter ego of the foreign principal.” The evidence overwhelmingly supports AIPAC’s independence.

When Isaiah “Si” Kenen founded what would become AIPAC in the 1950s, he described the idea that he was an Israeli “agent” as ludicrous, pointing to constant disagreements with Israeli diplomats. When the US planned to arm Iraq, Israeli diplomats wanted to immediately campaign for arms to Israel. Kenen disagreed, arguing that opposing arms to the entire region was the better strategy.

During the Oslo Accords, AIPAC publicly supported the agreement while internally opposing Israel’s request to send US aid directly to Yasser Arafat, insisting instead that it go to Palestinians more broadly with proper monitoring.

These aren’t the actions of an organization under foreign control. They’re the actions of an independent American organization whose members at times disagree with Israeli policy and advocate for their opinion of what’s best.

Organizations like the United States India Political Action Committee (USINPAC) operate nearly identically to AIPAC. Founded in 2002, USINPAC helped secure the landmark 2008 US-India Civil Nuclear Agreement. Additionally, a 2009 Foreign Affairs article stated that “the India Lobby is the only lobby in Washington likely to acquire the strength of the Israel lobby.”

Yet when you search for “FARA” and “USINPAC” together, you find essentially nothing. Meanwhile, countless articles, entire books, and dedicated websites exist solely to “expose” AIPAC and its alleged foreign agent status.

This isn’t about legal analysis. It’s about targeting one ethnic lobby while giving identical organizations a pass. Irish, Armenian, and Cuban lobbies have all shaped American foreign policy throughout our history. AIPACis targeted because its members are Jews.

What if AIPAC did register under FARA? According to FARA specialist Matthew Sanderson, it would mean filling out a few extra documents with essentially no practical effect.

AIPAC already operates under the Lobbying Disclosure Act, requiring extensive public disclosure: lobbying expenditures, specific issues and officials lobbied, lobbyist identities, funding sources, and political contributions.

Since AIPAC doesn’t accept money from foreign entities, the FARA funding disclosure forms would be blank. Since it doesn’t lobby under foreign control, it wouldn’t need to file interpersonal disclosure documents detailing who it contacted or announce itself as a foreign agent during lobbying calls — requirements that only apply when an organization operates as an extension of a foreign principal. The only potential requirement might be labeling some materials as coming from a “foreign agent,” but in today’s climate, where everyone already has opinions about AIPAC, this would have a negligible impact.

If FARA registration would change nothing practically, why does this matter?

First, truth matters. The claim is false. When bad-faith actors misrepresent AIPAC’s history as sinister subterfuge, often with antisemitic overtones reminiscent of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, capitulation legitimizes their framing.

Second, selective scrutiny reveals troubling double standards. The vast chasm between scrutiny of AIPAC versus identical organizations, suggests factors beyond legal analysis drive this narrative. When the campaign focuses overwhelmingly on the Jewish State’s supporters while ignoring others, we should call it what it is.

Third, FARA’s ambiguity makes it a potential weapon. A statute so broad it could require registration for “routine business activities” becomes dangerous when applied selectively based on political preferences. This sets a disturbing precedent.

AIPAC is an American organization, funded by Americans, run by Americans, advocating for what its American members believe serves American interests. That some disagree doesn’t make it a foreign agent. It makes it a lobby, like hundreds of others in Washington.

The next time someone claims AIPAC should register as a foreign agent, ask: Where’s the evidence of foreign control? Why don’t they make the same claim about similar organizations? And why aren’t DOJ prosecutors, who’ve ramped up FARA enforcement dramatically, pursuing this supposedly obvious case?

The answers reveal this isn’t about law. It’s about politics — and prejudice.

Alexander Mermelstein, a recent USC graduate with a Master’s degree in Public Policy and Data Science, is an aspiring policy researcher with a focus on Middle East affairs and combating antisemitism.

A general view shows the plenum at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Jerusalem. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

On October 13, the Israeli Knesset met to mark a ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel that included the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke first, for 30 minutes. Yair Lapid, representing the Opposition, spoke next, for 15 minutes. Then, President Donald Trump delivered a largely extemporaneous speech lasting a little more than an hour.

A few minutes into President Trump’s address, there was a disturbance, a common feature of Knesset sessions. Two elected members of the left-wing party, Hadash — Ofer Cassif, an Israeli Jew, and Ayman Odeh, an Israeli Arab — held up signs saying “Recognize Palestine.” After a few moments of shouting, the two were removed from the Knesset chamber. (Note: They were not arrested. They continue to represent their constituency in the Knesset.)

This kind of democracy and dissent would not be possible anywhere else in the Middle East or North Africa. None of the 22 states in the Arab League operate on the basis of free and open elections, and respect for civil liberties and fundamental political freedoms.

Indeed, several of these countries (Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, and Libya) fit the category of “failed states” — unable to carry out fundamental functions, such as controlling borders.

Since 2006, the influential British news and business magazine, The Economist, has published a comprehensive annual Democracy Index, which analyzes in detail the democratic processes in 167 countries around the world. Based on 60 numeric scores, the rankings include five categories: electoral process and pluralism, functioning of government, political participation, political culture, and civil liberties.

Countries are divided into one of four regime types: full democracies, flawed democracies, hybrid (partially democratic) regimes, and authoritarian regimes.

The Democracy Index for 2024 lists 25 full democracies, 46 flawed democracies (including countries such as Israel, the US, France, and Italy), and 96 hybrid or authoritarian regimes. The Index gives an authoritarian score for Palestine.

A color-coded map of the world accompanies the Index report. Full and flawed democracies are dark blue and pale blue, respectively, while hybrid governments are yellow. Authoritarian countries appear light to dark brown.

Israel is not even visible from a quick glance at the map. To see Israel, one must either adjust the magnification of the computer image or use the “pinch to zoom” feature available with many devices. Only then does a little island of blue become visible amid a vast sea of brown.

In fact, the only Arab people in the Middle East or North Africa who have experienced what it is like to live in a democracy are the more than two million Arab citizens of Israel.

In a blog he wrote in The Times of Israel, Bassem Eid, a Palestinian activist and writer who monitors human rights abuses by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, writes that, as in other western democracies, Israeli Arabs “can vote in elections, own businesses, work, speak, and worship freely, wherever in Israel they call home.” To Eid, Israel is the best place to be an Arab.

Meanwhile, Ayman Odeh, leader of the Hadash party (yes, one of the Knesset members ejected during the Trump visit) has been working to establish a unified slate of Arab parties (a Joint List) in preparation for the next Israeli election. A unified party would energize Arab voters, increase the community’s political influence, and possibly lead to Arab participation in the government, as was the case during the short-lived Bennett-Lapid coalition that preceded the current Israeli government.

The Arab people of Israel know that Israel is a thriving, diverse, and democratic country, and that it includes a thriving Arab population. Or, as Bassem Eid puts it, Arabs have been fortunate to call Israel home.

Jacob Sivak, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, is a retired professor, University of Waterloo.

(JTA) — Five local rabbis are among the more than 400 New Yorkers tapped for New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s transition committees, the teams tasked with preparing his administration ahead of his Jan. 1 swearing-in.

They include Abby Stein, who appeared in “Jews for Zohran” campaigns and shares the mayor-elect’s anti-Zionist outlook, on the health committee; Ellen Lippman, who recently retired from Kolot Chayeinu, the Brooklyn congregation where Mamdani attended Rosh Hashanah services, on the social services committee; and Rachel Timoner, whose Park Slope synagogue Congregation Beth Elohim hosted Mamdani for a meeting with congregants, and Jason Klein, who helms the LGBTQ synagogue Congregation Beth Simchat Torah, on the immigrant justice committee.

Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, executive vice president of the New York Board of Rabbis, sits on the emergency response transition committee. He is the only Jewish clergy member to join the transition committees of both Mamdani and Mayor Eric Adams, whom Mamdani unseated.

Adams’ 700-member transition team had a clergy committee with 16 rabbis from across denominations, including several from the city’s Modern and haredi Orthodox communities. Mamdani does not have a clergy committee and there are no Orthodox rabbis on any of his committees; during the campaign, he drew criticism from a wide array of rabbis over his stances on Israel, and received little support from Orthodox voters.

The transition committees advise on policies, vet personnel and broker relationships between the incoming administration and New Yorkers. Mamdani’s appointees range from traditional leaders, such as Kathryn Wylde, the longtime head of the city’s fundraising nonprofit, to those who traditionally have lacked power in the city — including representatives of the Democratic Socialists of America, the left-wing movement where Mamdani cut his teeth and which is vying to sustain influence as he assumes the mayorship. Mamdani has two committees, on worker justice and community organizing, that have not before been part of a mayoral transition.

Other notable Jews on the transition committees include Jonah Boyarin, a member of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice who helped craft city antisemitism trainings, on the community safety committee; Ruth Messinger, the former leader of American Jewish World Service, on the immigrant justice committee; Masha Pearl of the Blue Card, which supports needy Holocaust survivors, on the social services committee; and Mamdani’s high school teacher Marc Kagan on the transportation committee.

Also on the committees are a number of prominent New Yorkers who are Jewish but who have not made their Jewish identity a primary feature of their public personas.

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