AIPAC founder Isaiah Kenen had the following to say about political platforms in the July 15, 1960 Near East Report: �The importance of Platforms. Many people are skeptical about political platforms. But skepticism is unjustified. Platform declarations have a positive value in the clarification and implementation of our national policies. They help to mold public opinion at home because they inform and guide candidates, who stand for election on their party’s program. They have importance abroad because they transmit to other governments the views of the American people. Sometimes our foreign policy is expressed more forcibly and plainly in a platform than when masked in the language of diplomacy. �
Kenen (ten years before an employee of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs) was being paid by the Jewish Agency (a quasi governmental Israeli organization with access to tax revenue and review powers over Knesset legislation) to publish the Near East Report. He directly participated in Democratic Party platform negotiations. This was a couple of years before Walter Pincus noted (as a Senate investigator of foreign agents) that the Jewish Agency/Israeli government were essentially writing some US legislation. In this case, the Jewish Agency was �expressing the views� of the �American People� through a party plank few would ever know about. An Israel lobby platform plank to predetermine the status of the contested city of Jerusalem was not approved for inclusion as a Democratic platform plank on September 5, 2012. But the Democratic Committee chair pretended it passed as delegates booed.