Israel's influence in the US

A must read this morning is Juan Cole's post on the influence of Israel through American Israel Political Action Committee(AIPAC).

The American Israel Political Action Committee is a lobbying group that used to support whatever government was in power in Israel, and used to give money even-handedly inside the US. My perception is that during the past decade AIPAC has increasingly tilted to the Likud in Israel, and to the political Right in the United States. In the 1980s, AIPAC set up the Washington Institute for Near East Policy as a pro-Israeli alternative to the Brookings Institution, which it perceived to be insufficiently supportive of Israel. WINEP has largely followed AIPAC into pro-Likud positions, even though its director, Dennis Ross, is more moderate. He is a figurehead, however, serving to disguise the far right character of most of the position papers produced by long-term WINEP staff and by extremist visitors and "associates" (Daniel Pipes and Martin Kramer are among the latter).

Just the sort of thing the founding fathers worried about.

The Founding Fathers of the United States deeply feared that a foreign government might gain this level of control over a branch United States government, and their fears have been vindicated.

These are the people who encourage our outrageous one sided support of Israel and pushed the war on Iraq which was bad for the US but good for Israel.
Make no mistake, they are powerful.

On the rare occasion when a brave member of congress dares stand up to this unrelenting AIPAC tyranny, that person is targeted for unelection in the next congressional campaign, with big money directed by AIPAC and/or its analogues into the coffers of the senator or congressman's opponent. Over and over again, AIPAC has shaped the US congress in this way, so successfully that no one even dares speak out any more.

With the current administration AIPAC has unlimited power. We know the neo-con vision is more about Israel than it is about the US. The fact that a majority of the Jews in the US still support the Democrats indicates this group does not represent the Jewish people. Just another reason to defeat Bush in November.