not "nefarious Jewish cabal stranglehold on American Mideast policy"-just a close alliance of disparate groups distorts US interests?
It is best when you can choose your debating enemies - and the choice of Gary Bauer, Jerry Falwell, Ralph Reed and Pat Robertson, Dick Armey.Tom DeLay, John Bolton; Robert Bartley,William Bennett, Jeane Kirkpatrick, and even poor old George Will make for a nice cover if you want to make a "what is fair and achievable - as in Taba/Geneva" discussion into a religious right GOP versus stout hearted folks on the left debate.
http://www.tpmcafe.com/node/29575http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:LSnoULXeN9sJ:ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/Research/wpaper.nsf/rwp/RWP06-011/%24File/rwp_06_011_walt.pdf+Israel+Lobby+John+Mearsheimer&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=us&client=firefox-aTHE ISRAEL LOBBY AND U.S. FOREIGN POLICY (an early draft of London paper in HTML in GOOGLE Cache))
From the London Review:
The Israel lobby debate
In March the London Review of Books published John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt's essay 'The Israel Lobby'. The response to the article prompted the LRB to hold a debate under the heading 'The Israel lobby: does it have too much influence on American foreign policy?'. The debate took place in New York on 28 September in the Great Hall of the Cooper Union. The panelists were Shlomo Ben-Ami, Martin Indyk, Tony Judt, Rashid Khalidi, John Mearsheimer and Dennis Ross, and the moderator was Anne-Marie Slaughter.A video of the event, produced by ScribeMedia, is now available to view online. Click here to view the debate.
http://www.scribemedia.org/2006/10/11/israel-lobby/Entitled “The Israel Lobby: Does it Have too Much Influence on US Foreign Policy,”
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/mear01_.html it drew swift charges of anti-Semitism in the editorial pages of American newspapers.
At root are passages like the following:
…the thrust of US policy in the region derives almost entirely from domestic politics, and especially the activities of the ‘Israel Lobby’. Other special-interest groups have managed to skew foreign policy, but no lobby has managed to divert it as far from what the national interest would suggest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that US interests and those of the other country – in this case, Israel – are essentially identical.
Those attacking Mearsheimer and Walt suggest the duo outline a nefarious Jewish cabal with a stranglehold on American Mideast policy. Think smokey back rooms; think political and media domination; think subtle and sneaky manipulation of the unsuspecting, innocent gentile. Think historical stereotype.
Mearsheimer, Walt and their defenders counter that they neither suggest a cabal nor a monolithic Jewry driving the American body politic. Instead, a close alliance of disparate groups form a capital "L" Israeli Lobby that distorts US interests in the region. While this is lead by the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the Lobby includes Jews and Gentiles alike:
The Lobby also includes prominent Christian evangelicals like Gary Bauer, Jerry Falwell, Ralph Reed and Pat Robertson, as well as Dick Armey and Tom DeLay, former majority leaders in the House of Representatives, all of whom believe Israel’s rebirth is the fulfilment of biblical prophecy and support its expansionist agenda; to do otherwise, they believe, would be contrary to God’s will. Neo-conservative gentiles such as John Bolton; Robert Bartley, the former Wall Street Journal editor; William Bennett, the former secretary of education; Jeane Kirkpatrick, the former UN ambassador; and the influential columnist George Will are also steadfast supporters.
The above debate centers around these two perspectives as the panelists move among issues such as US-Israeli relations, the Middle East peace process, the origins of the Iraq War and Israeli settlement policy to name a few.