Two days before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) held their policy conference at Capitol Hill, an accordion player and a group of protestors put on a flash mob performance of a remixed version of the Hebrew wedding song “Hava Nagilis” inside Union Station. Protesters urged that “justice is dying, AIPAC is lying, lies we’re not buying” while dancing to original choreography. Although only a handful of bemused commuters saw the initial performance, a video of the protesters received over 10,000 before the conference began.

The force behind this performance was Move Over AIPAC, a collection of Palestinian and women peace and justice groups aiming to break AIPAC’s monopolizing influence of U.S-Middle East relations. During AIPAC’s forty-seventh annual conference in Washington, the lobbying group wrote and submitted a resolution that Congress passed. According to an article on Alternet, “the Senate unanimously approved a nonbinding resolution ‘condemning Hamas and Hezbollah and their state sponsors and supporting Israel's exercise of its right to self-defense.’ After House majority leader John Boehner removed language from the bill urging "all sides to protect innocent civilian life and infrastructure," the House version passed by a landslide, 410 to 8.”

In past years, protest groups have assembled outside of the conference center and protested to the deaf ears of politicians. This year, anti-AIPAC protest groups organized this performance to catch the eyes of the online community.

The viral sensation of flash mob was once a novelty thing to entertain idle YouTubers.  However, protest groups have caught wind of the online phenomena to communicate their opinions. “Just having a demonstration and shouting, ‘Boycott Israel’—we do that all the time! Do you ever see that online? I don’t,” Coalition of Woman for Peace's Dalit Baum said. “I don’t think people care.”

Groups, such as Boycott Diversity Sanctions (BDS), have harnessed this tool to effectively reach a larger audience and have seen the results.

The BDS has three goals: Ending Israeli colonization of all Occupied Palenstinian Territories, returning the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality and allowing Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.

To accomplish this goal, the group has made over 20 videos with dances and chants to the musical stylings of Lady Gaga’s “Telephone” and the Jackson 5’s “ABC.” In these performances, BDS protesters urge their audiences to boycott certain products to put economic pressure on Israel. Although none of the videos have reached over 100,000 views, the BDS seems to be a threat to the Israeli government.

Lady Gaga-Telephone

Jackson 5-ABC

In February, The Knesset banned support of this group in Israel.  Last November, the Jewish Federations of North America, the main voice of American Jewish discourse on Israel, launched a $6 million campaign against BDS, calling it “an existential danger” to the Jewish state.

Israeli fear of BDS comes with good reason: they are effective. Earlier this month, German railway company, Deutsche Bahn, pulled out of an Israeli project that cut through the Palestinian West Bank after pressure from activists and Berlin. An article on Israeli Occupation attributes this action to the BDS.

As the AIPAC conference came to a close yesterday, the video of Move Over AIPAC’s flash mob gained another 20,000 views on YouTube. Although the domineering power of the AIPAC does not appear to be affected, the discussions in the comments of performance signify that the issue is moving to the forefront of people’s minds.