Political Cartoons

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No way. Source please!

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beingjdc.livejournal.com

I imagine it refers to "The Israel Lobby" by John Mearsheimer & Stephen Walt...

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these are a bunch of articles from news.google.com
lots of articles (http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=&ie=UTF-8&q=harvard+aipac)

and wikipedia article which also has a link to the actual paper if you want to read it for yourself.
wiki article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Israel_Lobby_and_U.S._Foreign_Policy)

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Ohhh, that.

*reads wikipedia's summary of points*

heh.
He's right about some observations.
-quote-
"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...all of whom believe Israel's rebirth is the fufillment of bilbical prophecy and support its expansionist agenda; to do otherwise, they believe, would be contrary to God's will."

-end quote-

100% correct there. There is often a religious aspect to supporting Isreal.

"Backing Israel is not cheap, however, and it complicated America's relations with the Arab World."
Again, a valid point.

Looking past the paranoia, he makes a valid discussion point: should we support Isreal as unconditionally as we have?

(Although I categorically do not think they control the US congress as much as he seems to believe)

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I think the objection here is the use of the term "control." Obviously, they don't control it in the sense that the word may imply. There is certainly no real force preventing anything else from happening.

The point is that the Israel Lobby doesn't "control" but it has significant influence, and it may not control but certainly pressures politicians into acting a certain way. When Republican Paul Findley started questioning foreign policy in the Middle East with regards to Israel, AIPAC and its associates put tens of millions of dollars into campaigns to oust him--suddenly, after serving for 21 years.

The "Israel lobby" also does not refer to political organizations exclusively. It refers to the influence these groups also have on media coverage of events. There is nothing sinister about their suggestions, as some people have implied. The point is that media coverage in the US is very skewed no matter how you look at it, in favor of Israel and in favor of policies and organizations that support it.

I you look at this only with regards to Israel, you cut off an important aspect. Yes, it's true that Israel receives more financial and military aid than any other country from the US ($15 mil a day), but the lobby advocates for other issues regarding Israel's power as well. AIPAC lobbied in support of the Iraq war, for example, and it is now lobbying for some sort of confrontation regarding Iran.

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I don't study the intricate issues in regards to Isreal and its associated issues; I just note that while his conclusions and more extended points may be(and are) debated, he makes, at the least, valid initial points.

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With this I agree. The overwhelming majority of the response, though, has denied that there are even valid points to begin with by characterizing it as an anti-Semitic diatribe on the same level as the protocols of zion.

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It does seem that the overall response is irrationally tossing the paper out of the window.

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The point is that the Israel Lobby doesn't "control" but it has significant influence, and it may not control but certainly pressures politicians into acting a certain way. As do most lobbyist groups but the article goes a step further and claims they have more influence than any other lobbying group or foreign power. But they give almost no proof of that assertion.

The "Israel lobby" also does not refer to political organizations exclusively. It refers to the influence these groups also have on media coverage of events. There is nothing sinister about their suggestions, as some people have implied.
that is also such nonsense, coverage of israel in the US runs along the political skew of whatever paper/news network is reporting. The reporting is not uniform nor does it uniformly support israel.

AIPAC lobbied in support of the Iraq war, for example, and it is now lobbying for some sort of confrontation regarding Iran.

can anyone prove any of that? the article couldn't.

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You can check out http://www.ifamericansknew.org/ for statistics about reporting, in general, in the US. Again, I didn't say there was an apparatus in place "controlling" everything--I'm just talking about the fact that the bias is there.

And you've got to be kidding me about the Iraq and Iran war lobbying right? They just hosted a huge conference about this. It's not a secret. It's on their public website.

http://www.aipac.org/iran/

A statement on their website says: "For more than a decade, AIPAC has played a leading role in putting Iran's nuclear program at the top of the international agenda. AIPAC has worked closely with Congress and the administration to develop legislative initiatives aimed at slowing Iran’s nuclear pursuit by choking off the flow of money and technologies that Iran needs to go nuclear."

Here is a list of legislation that they even admit to lobbying in support of: http://www.aipac.org/iran/legislative_timeline.html

I don't understand why you take it so offensively.

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And you've got to be kidding me about the Iraq and Iran war lobbying right? They just hosted a huge conference about this. It's not a secret. It's on their public website.

oops i was kind of in a rush when i posted that. what i meant to ask was what proof was there that the lobby was the sole reason for the war in Iraq or current attitude to Iran. I read that report and they basically claim its the ONLY reason why the US has this stand. Its ridiculous to make that claim. Plus this report seems to ignore any mention of oil or oil interests affects on middle eastern policies.

I don't understand why you take it so offensively.
why do i take what so offensively?

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I never said that the lobby was the sole reason (in fact, I stated the opposite), and neither does the report. There is no way to "prove" how much influence they have--influence cannot be quantified.

And, actually, the report does consider oil interests. Read the link to the letter that I posted in another comment. Their position is basically that they don't completely buy that oil is the only reason. Directly from their essay in the London Review of Books:

Pressure from Israel and the Lobby was not the only factor behind the decision to attack Iraq in March 2003, but it was critical. Some Americans believe that this was a war for oil, but there is hardly any direct evidence to support this claim. Instead, the war was motivated in good part by a desire to make Israel more secure. According to Philip Zelikow, a former member of the president’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, the executive director of the 9/11 Commission, and now a counsellor to Condoleezza Rice, the ‘real threat’ from Iraq was not a threat to the United States. The ‘unstated threat’ was the ‘threat against Israel’, Zelikow told an audience at the University of Virginia in September 2002. ‘The American government,’ he added, ‘doesn’t want to lean too hard on it rhetorically, because it is not a popular sell.’</blockquote.

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claiming that the sole reason the US went to war with iraq b/c of an 'influential' israeli lobby is just as ridiculous as other people's claim that the saudi government controls the executive branch of our government (and i have read articles/books which have more evidence of that than this report had). The US government works to serve its own end. Its has a lot of influences but ultimately anyone that think that the US mid-east policy is being orchestrated by some other group is just a conspiracy theorist.

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You've missed the point of the paper. It doesn't say that US policy is being "orchestrated." It's claims are basically that there is very little free debate regarding mid-east policy, especially regarding Israel, and BECAUSE of this fact, the policy that is in place is not necessarily in the US government's interest.

That's the point. It should be acting in its best interest, but it's not. That's their thesis.

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oh i agree with you but they are way too out there to support any rational discussion on the subject.

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I don't think he made such a comment. In this same thread he wrote that the RESPONSE to the paper has been mostly irrational. It seems to me like he's given legitimacy to the points raised in the paper.

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And that is the 3rd person "he," could be "she."

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zombiesmustdie.livejournal.com

am i crazy or does the mustache from the guy on the left + everything else from the guy on the right = hitler?

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Actually, the report doesn't claim there is a "secret cabal" at all. It explicitly denies that claim. For people who care about the truth, coverage of the mearsheimer/walt paper:

Abridged version of the actual report: The Israel Lobby (http://lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/mear01_.html)

Unedited version: The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy (http://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/Research/wpaper.nsf/rwp/RWP06-011)

Mearsheimer and Walt's response to the various criticisms: In the Letters section of LRB (http://lrb.co.uk/letters.php)

About the response to the paper: "The Race Card--An Immoral Trump Card" (http://caldivest.blogspot.com/2006/04/playing-race-card-immoral-trump-card.html)

A follow-up to the response: No, It's not anti-Semitic to Criticize Israel (http://caldivest.blogspot.com/2006/04/no-its-not-anti-semitic-to-criticize.html)

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