Supporters
- AIPAC has a wide base of supporters both in and outside of Congress. Support among congressional members includes a majority of members of both the Democratic and Republican Parties. AIPAC's 2011 Policy Conference included the attendance of approximately 2/3 of the US Senate and House of Representatives, including President Barack Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and Speaker of the House John Boehner. The annual Policy Conference is second only to the State of the Union address for the number of federal officials in attendance at an organized event.
- Many political leaders have addressed AIPAC conferences, including past Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, Vice Presidents Dick Cheney and Joe Biden, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Other speakers have included prominent Senators such as John Kerry, Joe Lieberman, John McCain, as well as and current and former members of the leadership of both parties in Congress, and current and former Prime Ministers of Israel.
- Historian and current Israeli ambassador to America, Michael Oren argued in his 2007 bestseller, "Power, Faith, and Fantasy", that strong American support for Israel derives from Puritan-Republican roots of the United States itself.
- Sen. John McCain said in his speech to the 2008 AIPAC Policy Conference "here are ties between America and Israel that critics of our alliance have never understood, /../ that's because they do not fully understand the love of liberty and the pursuit of justice."
- Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL) has argued that America supports Israel because they share fundamental values as "freedom-loving people" who "deserve to have a free and secure state.'" Nancy Pelosi similarly stated that "America and Israel share an unbreakable bond: in peace and war; and in prosperity and in hardship."
- Rabbi Steven Weil, Executive Vice President of the Orthodox Union acts as Scholar-In-Residence for 2010 National Summit in South Florida
Read more about this topic: American Israel Public Affairs Committee
Famous quotes containing the word supporters:
“The opposition is indispensable. A good statesman, like any other sensible human being, always learns more from his opponents than from his fervent supporters. For his supporters will push him to disaster unless his opponents show him where the dangers are. So if he is wise he will often pray to be delivered from his friends, because they will ruin him. But though it hurts, he ought also to pray never to be left without opponents; for they keep him on the path of reason and good sense.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“No Government can be long secure without a formidable Opposition. It reduces their supporters to that tractable number which can be managed by the joint influences of fruition and hope. It offers vengeance to the discontented, and distinction to the ambitious; and employs the energies of aspiring spirits, who otherwise may prove traitors in a division or assassins in a debate.”
—Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881)
“No Government can be long secure without a formidable Opposition. It reduces their supporters to that tractable number which can be managed by the joint influences of fruition and hope. It offers vengeance to the discontented, and distinction to the ambitious; and employs the energies of aspiring spirits, who otherwise may prove traitors in a division or assassins in a debate.”
—Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881)