AIPAC-affiliated charity sponsors lavish trips to Israel for US lawmakers

LONDON: The American Israel Education Foundation has funded scores of extravagant trips for dozens of US Congress members since Oct. 7 2023 in a bid to build support for Israel in Washington, according to news reports.

The AIEF is a charitable affiliate of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which has lobbied several US administrations to support Israeli policies in the Middle East since 1954.

The charity has allowed AIPAC to avoid federal scrutiny of its sponsorship of overseas travel for US officials since its incorporation in 1988. In 2019, it sponsored 129 trips totaling $2.32 million for US lawmakers and their senior staff to Israel, funded by Jewish charities, The Intercept reported.

Since Israel launched its military campaign against Gaza in late 2023 the AIEF has sponsored a weeklong trip to Israel for at least 26 Democratic and 52 Republican members of Congress, who stayed at luxury hotels, dined at high-end restaurants and visited illegal settlements in the West Bank.

They also met senior government officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, military contractors and extremist figures who support the annexation of the occupied West Bank — a measure condemned by several European nations — and the displacement of Palestinians from Jerusalem.

“These trips have been a standard tool for building support for Israel on Capitol Hill,” Stephen Walt, a professor of international relations at Harvard’s Kennedy School, told The Guardian, which revealed the scale of the trips through records of congressional ethics filings and other public data.

The AIPAC provides infrastructure support to the AIEF, including office space, and has long lobbied for US policies favoring Israel on Capitol Hill.

Since October 2023, support among Americans for Israel has fallen sharply, with growing numbers of voters expressing negative views of Israel’s war in Gaza, which has killed more than 72,000 people and devastated the lives of 2 million others.

A recent poll showed that 80 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents viewed Israel unfavorably, along with 60 percent of Americans overall. That represents a notable shift in public opinion in a counry that has shown bipartisan support for Israel for decades.

Since late 2023, the AIEF has flown 78 US lawmakers and their staff to Israel in 15 delegations, spending more than $4.2 million, The Guardian report said.

Several Congress members, including Democrats Steny Hoyer, Greg Landsman and Brad Schneider, have taken multiple trips funded by AIEF, it said.

“Agreeing to go on one of these trips is also a litmus test for politicians who want to signal a pro-Israel position to AIPAC and to important donors,” said Walt, who co-wrote “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.”

The AIEF sponsored a trip for five Democratic staffers and seven Republicans to Israel in February, just days before the US and Israel launched airstrikes against Iran.

During a March 2024 trip, eight Democratic members of Congress and one staff member visited military sites on the Lebanese border and an Israeli cemetery.

The AIEF is one of a group of pro-Israel organizations that sponsor lawmakers’ trips to Israel. Others include J Street, the Jewish Institute for National Security of America and the Atlantic Council national security think tank.

But the AIEF stands out for its generosity and the frequency of its trips since 2023, The Guardian said.

Wesley Bell from Missouri and George Latimer from New York traveled to Israel between Aug. 6 and Aug. 14 last year. The two Democrats were elected with the support of millions of dollars from the AIPAC’s Super PAC, used to defeat incumbents Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman, the report said.

“I think these recent trips represent continuity more than change,” Walt said. “Winning people over is getting harder to do given the situation in Gaza and the West Bank and the rightward shift within Israeli politics itself.”

AIEF spokesperson Deryn Sousa told The Guardian that the group’s mission was “designed to educate participants about the US-Israel relationship, the security concerns confronting our closest ally in the Middle East and the geo-strategic challenges and opportunities in the region.”