At the end of one of my first journeys to the
Israeli-occupied West Bank in 2004, I endured a shocking experience at
Ben-Gurion Airport. I never imagined that Israeli security forces would abuse a
79-year-old Holocaust survivor, but they held me for five hours, and
strip-searched and cavity-searched every part of my naked body. The only shame
these security officials expressed was to turn their badges around so that
their names were invisible.

The only conceivable purpose for this gross violation of my
bodily integrity was to humiliate and terrify me. But it had just the opposite
effect. It made me more determined to speak out against abuses by the Israeli
government and military.

Yet my own experience, unpleasant as it was, is nothing
compared to the indignities and abuses heaped on Palestinians year after year.
Israel’s occupation of the West Bank is based not on equal rights and fair
play, but on what Human Rights Watch has termed a “two-tier” legal
system — in other words, apartheid, with one set of laws for Jews and a harsh,
oppressive set of laws for Palestinians.

This, however, is the legal system and security state the
American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) will defend from May 22-24 at
its annual conference in Washington, D.C.   And, despite this grim reality, members of Congress
will converge to hail AIPAC and Israel . The Palestinians’ lack of freedom is
bound to be obscured at the AIPAC conference with its obsessive focus on
security and shunting aside of anything to do with upholding fundamental
Palestinian rights.

Several years ago near Der Beilut in the West Bank, I saw
the Israeli police turn a water cannon on our nonviolent protest. As it
happened, I recalled Birmingham, Alabama in 1963 and wondered why an ostensibly
democratic society responded to peaceable assembly by trying, literally, to
drown out the voice of our protest.

In Mas’ha, also in the occupied West Bank, I joined a
demonstration against the wall Israel has built, usually inside the West Bank
and occasionally towering to 25 feet in height. I saw a red sign warning
ominously of “mortal danger” to any who dared to cross in an area
where it ran as a fence. I saw Israeli soldiers aiming at unarmed Israelis,
Palestinians and international protesters. I also saw blood pouring out of Gil
Na’amati, a young Israeli whose first public act after completing his mandatory
military service was to protest against the wall. I saw shrapnel lodged in the
leg of Anne Farina, one of my traveling companions from St. Louis. And I
thought of Kent State and Jackson State, where National Guardsmen opened fire
in 1970 on protesters against the Vietnam War. 

So as AIPAC meets and members of Congress cheer, I hold
these images of Israel in my mind and fear AIPAC’s ability to move U.S. policy
in dangerous directions. AIPAC does a disservice to the Palestinians, the
Israelis and the American people. It helps to keep the Middle East in a
perpetual state of war and this year will be no different from last year as it
keeps up a steady drumbeat calling for war against Iran.

AIPAC pretends to speak for all Jews, but it certainly does
not speak for me or other members of the Jewish community in this country who
are committed to equal rights for all and are aware that American interventionism
is likely to bring further disaster and chaos to the Middle East . 

Israel, of course, would not be able to carry out its war
crimes against civilians in Lebanon and Gaza without the United States — and
our $3 billion in military aid — permitting it to do so. At 86 years old, I use
every ounce of my energy to educate the American public about the need to stop
supporting the abuses committed by the Israeli government and military against
the Palestinian people. Sometimes there are people who try to shout me down and
scream that I am a self-hating Jew, but most of the time the audience is
receptive to hear from someone who survived the Holocaust and now works to free
the Palestinians from Israeli oppression.

The vicious discrimination brought to bear against
Palestinians in the Occupied Territories deserves no applause this week from
members of Congress attending the AIPAC conference. Instead, they should raise
basic questions with Israeli officials about decades of inferior rights endured
by Palestinians both inside Israel and the Occupied Territories. 

Hedy Epstein is a Holocaust survivor, who writes and travels
extensively to speak about social justice causes and Middle Eastern affairs.
Take action by attending Move Over AIPAC, a gathering in Washington D.C. from
May 21-24, 2011, to expose AIPAC and build the vision for a new U.S. foreign
policy in the Middle East.