If political birds of a feather do flock together, look for the District of Columbia police force to clean up some nasty stains after May 25.

That day ends the inaugural “Move Over AIPAC” conference in the nation’s capitol, which seeks to counter the concurrent AIPAC policy meet, always a major pro-Israel political and media event.

The Move Over goal: “to learn about the extraordinary influence AIPAC has on U.S. policy and how to strengthen an alternative that respects the rights of all people in the region,” according to its statement.

Now criticism of Israel can be both valid and helpful. But it only works when done by people who care for the Jewish state AND recognize the real suffering of Palestinian people, something not entirely due to those evil Israelis. (As any perusal of any Israeli or American newspaper/website reveals, Jews happily criticize Jerusalem’s bosses every day on everything.)

Now many heading to Move Over – but not all – would gleefully watch Israel disappear. For them, this complex ideological, historical, religious, psychological and political-laden conflict is simple: If there must be a Jewish state, at least cripple it.

That’s what multiple generations of hate, not to mention blissful ignorance, can bring.

Indeed, among the 50 plus co-sponsoring groups are Artists Against Apartheid, Jews Say No, Coalition to Stop $30 Billion to Israel and US Boat To Gaza. (The website http://www.moveoveraipac.org/ notes that Dr. Patch Adams – yeah, that one –has endorsed the event. A clown’s endorsement. Hmm.)

As the anti-Israel activists gather, their hit parade of hate will include the tunes of disgraced journalist Helen Thomas, until recently of White House press corps fame. But last summer a Jewish reporter – at an American Jewish heritage event no less – was interviewing her when she said Israeli Jews should “go home” from Palestine to Poland, Germany and the United States.

OK, she knows not of American Jews’ historical apathy about moving to Israel. Still, trotting out a mentally slipping nonagenarian –she was once more discriminate in uttering such long-held beliefs – is pathetic.

Keynote speakers Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, however, are much more persuasive. In 2006, they penned the half-truth laden book “The Israel Lobby,” one that I have read and is fascinating, but which can easily be picked apart for its poor context and attempts at intellectual ambush.

That the gathering will occur is not news. D.C. hosts all sorts of odd meets. That it is parallel to AIPAC’s big one – which convenes about 5,000 of the faithful, including gobs of enthusiastic college students and a “must show” banquet for all but politicians on the radical left and isolationist right – shows true media savvy.

It presents a wonderful opportunity for national and international media to run across town to provide “balanced coverage” of Americans’ conversation about its ties with the top U.S. ally and subsequently largest recipient of U.S. military aid.

But in truth, Americans favor tilting toward Israel with great consistency. For the past few years, in fact, reputable polls have shown more than 60 percent for Israel over a Palestinian ranking in the teens.

Friends, that is not just a matter of public relations.

In fact, the pro-Israel community here is actually growing in numbers and diversity. This is in part due to AIPAC’s incredible organizational strength, but also the growth of two groups whose members are political polar opposites –Christians United For Israel (CUFI) and J Street.

Both groups – and I have attended the national conventions of each in the past year—have struggled to stay in generally centrist territory. CUFI, founded in 2006, deals with Jewish concerns of a hidden Evangelical agenda to proselytize Jews and of standing against land-for-peace positions, the latter which would help bring Armageddon (which, darling, is not “good for the Jews”).

The much smaller and nimbler J Street, founded three years ago, remains in formation. It is quietly opposed by AIPAC, which, as a huge lobby, takes a generally and understandably conservative line. Likewise, the Israeli embassy keeps its distance. Ironically, J Street’s “pro-peace, pro-Israel” agenda is aligned with much of Israel’s mainstream Kadima and Labor parties.

Nonetheless, Israel’s enemies, and by extension often those of the Jewish people, are neither kind nor caring. But they sure are getting smarter.

This column is another example of how the Jewish establishment marginalizes Jews who oppose the State of Israel and Zionism in general. The basic MO is the say that, yes, it’s OK to criticize Israeli policies as long as you don’t criticize the concept of Israel.  This is nonsense. The current State of Israel has evolved, or should we say metastasized, from the vision of its founders, who were, after all, Diaspora Jews. Free Jews living in their homeland have turned their country into what is rapidly becoming an Orthodox ghetto state with a distinct veneer of fascism.  I’m thinking of what I’ve read about Franco’s Spain.  Israel might not be there yet, but I think it’s well on it’s way.  The kind of Jewish identity they foster seems to me to be the opposite of the kind of Jewish identity I grew up with and I suspect it’s not the kind of Jewish identity you like either.

I’ve written more about the basic contradictions of Zionism here:

http://cj-heretic.blogspot.com/2008/05/zionism-rip-yom-hazikaron.html

I see no hope that the forces in Israel that support my kind of Jewish identity will prevail.  I have some experience with Israel, I spent a year there, I considered making aliyah. I read the Israeli media that I find of the wen, and I know what both the right-wingers and left-wingers are saying.  I also know that the Israeli left has a snowball’s chance in hell of ever winning any elections.  If I were an Israeli, I would have voted for Labor 20 years ago, for Meretz 10 years ago, but now I think I’d vote for Hadash and work to give the Zionist idea a dignified burial and work on a way that the Jews of the Land of Israel can live in security and dignity, in peace with their neighbors.

I am fully affiliated in the Jewish community, and keep a kosher kitchen and observe Shabbat.  But as far as I am concerned, I am becoming more and more alienated from the community because of the need to support whatever it is that the fools in Jerusalem decide to do.  I certainly don’t feel I can express these views in the community, that’s why I’m writing using an pseudonym.  I really feel that if people in the community knew my views, I would be shunned, my family shunned, and perhaps even be made to pay a material price for not conforming with the conventional wisdom.  Part of the evidence for this is your column, which equates anti-Zionist Jews with people who want to commit violence on Israeli Jews.  Based on this column, I certainly can’t imagine that your paper would run an op-ed with the views that I’ve expressed.  In fact, I’m not exactly how a Jew is allowed to opposed Israel and remain in good graces with the Jewish community.