Talk:American Israel Public Affairs Committee

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• "...better than anybody else lobbying in this town ... You have been stunningly effective."
  • Former US President Bill Clinton

• "AIPAC's Israel lobby has the power to pump up to a million dollars into the campaign coffers of any friendly member of Congress, or into the campaign of the opponents of an unfriendly member."
  • Richard Curtiss, executive editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.

• "AIPAC has a job to do. We need you to keep up the advocacy that is keeping Israel strong -- and America safe. Keep speaking... educating... lobbying... and organizing. We need the clarity of your voices in these difficult times, and in the difficult debates we will face in the future."
  • Senator Tom Daschle.

• "You are the most effective general interest group…across the entire planet."
  • Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich

• "Fully three-fourths of America's foreign aid budget is devoted to Israeli security interests is a tribute in considerable measure to the lobbying prowess of AIPAC and the importance of the Jewish community in American politics."
  • Benjamin Ginsberg, prominent conservative lawyer and political commentator

• "I asked Rosen if aipac suffered a loss of influence after the Steiner affair. A half smile appeared on his face, and he pushed a napkin across the table. “You see this napkin?” he said. “In twenty-four hours, we could have the signatures of seventy senators on this napkin.”
  • Jeffrey Goldberg (The New Yorker).

• "Aipac has a lot of influence on foreign policy, they work hard to ensure that America endorses pretty much Israel's view of the world and the Middle East."
  • JJ Goldberg, editor of the Jewish newspaper The Forward

• "I think Israel is especially lucky that AIPAC exists in this country to present Israel's case."
  • Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

• "A great asset to our country".
  • Condoleezza Rice describing AIPAC in March, 2003.

• "A lobby is a night flower, it thrives in the dark and dies in the sun."
  • AIPAC research director Steve Rosen, 2001.

• "So great is the perceived power of AIPAC to mobilize financial support for pro-Israel candidates or to challenge those perceived as hostile, that this year [1999], as is usually the case, around half the members of the Senate and one-third of the House of Representatives were expected to attend the policy banquet at [AIPAC's annual] conference."
  • Martin Sieff, Managing Editor of International Affairs, United Press International, 1999.