Trump/AIPAC Conference Could Embroil Israel and Inflame American Jews
Source: haaretz.com
Speech by controversial GOP candidate could give him legitimacy he lacks, which is precisely what enrages his opponents. 
Donald Trump is an international brand. He makes more money from licensing the use of his trademark name than he does from the real estate, golf courses and other properties that he owns. He has made hundreds of millions of dollars by allowing his name to be used on a wide range of products, from residential towers and exotic resorts to home furniture, men’s clothing and energy drinks. Next week’s annual AIPAC Conference is also likely to be remembered as the Trump Conference, or perhaps the Trump/AIPAC Conference, though this certainly isn’t what its organizers had in mind.
The focus on Trump at AIPAC, which is already stirring debate inside the Jewish community, is sure to intensify once the dust settles on Tuesday’s crucial primaries. All the elements of a blockbuster television spectacle are already in place: the appearance of one of the most divisive presidential candidates in modern American history, before the annual convention of one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington, on a topic with both internal and external ramifications, Israel and the Jews, which sparks substantial media interest even when times are normal.
Vice President Joe Biden and Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton have already accepted AIPAC’s invitation to address the conference, and other candidates might join them. The question of Bernie Sanders’ appearance is also sparking considerable debate among his supporters, between those who are urging him to speak his stark, even-handed truth to the powerful lobby and those who claim he shouldn’t legitimize a group that the radical left views as reactionary war mongers. But this mini-brouhaha doesn’t come close to the potential earthquake-level reverberations of the much-anticipated Trump speech: perhaps AIPAC will try to avoid the controversy by making it hard to fit the speech in Trump’s campaign schedule.
In the meantime, his very invitation is being challenged. Rob Eshman, editor of the Los Angeles based Jewish Journal wrote this week that Trump should never have been invited, but once he was, AIPAC is duty bound to condemn his racism and bigotry, otherwise it would “allow his stain to spread over AIPAC’s good name.” An AIPAC official said in response that it is long-standing policy to invite all the “active Democratic and Republican presidential candidates." The event “provides our community with an extraordinary opportunity to hear, directly and on-the-record, the positions of the presidential candidates on the U.S.-Israel relationship.” But Jewish figures close to AIPAC concede that it is caught between a rock and a hard place: it could not avoid inviting Trump, but is well aware of the potential damage involved.
Trump won’t be making money from this appearance, but he could nonetheless emerge with a handsome profit. The sharp-tongued, shoot-from-the-hip billionaire certainly isn’t lacking for publicity, but at AIPAC he could deviate from his image as a divisive brawler and gain a measure of the respectability that he sorely needs. Since the start of his astonishing campaign, Trump hasn’t appeared before a bipartisan forum that enjoys such prestige in Washington's corridors of power. AIPAC could very well fortify the presidential image that Trump would need in order to win the general elections: this, of course, is exactly what infuriates his critics.
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Read the rest: haaretz.com
