There would be far greater Jewish opposition to the subjugation of the Palestinians if we didn't have these groups calling for our death.

There's a chicken-and-egg thing going on here. Palestinians regard Israel as their mortal enemy because of 50 years of subjugation. Israelis say they'll stop subjugating the Palestinians once they stop acting like their mortal enemies.

As I see it, it's Israel's job to make the first steps here. (Yes, I know, they have made some first steps. They need to make more.) Why should Israel make the first steps, and not the Palestinians? Because the Israelis have the luxury of a US funded military to protect them. Plus, they were handed a country to call their own, despite the fact that there were people already living there. Those two things give Israel the burden to go the extra hundred miles to make a peaceful solution.

It is not clear to mw why it is supposed to be up to Jews to terminate the disastrous influence of AIPAC, the American Jewish Committee, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the other components of the Israel lobby.

Here's why: Any non-Jew who criticizes AIPAC or any of these other institutions will be immediately smeared as an anti-semite, and his/her comments will be written off completely. If this person is a politician in the Dem or the GOP, his career will be over. Only Jews can escape this absurd tactic by objecting loudly to this organization whose stated reason for being is to represent American Jews. Granted, there's a term for those that do -- "self-hating Jews" -- yet their opinion is not quite so easily written off.

This is similar to the calls many have made that the moderate Muslim population should loudly reject the tactics of Al Qaeda.

Where are the articles decrying the influence of, say, the Cuban-American lobby, which has supported the punishment of that island for fifty years now? Where are the secular humanists calling for the withdrawal of America's foreign aid to Egypt?

Cosmo, when the Cuban-American lobby, or the aid to Egypt, collect as much destructive baggage as our current relationship with Israel does, then those will become primary focus. Until we're waging wars and throwing a whole region into chaos to benefit the Cuban Americans, I won't regard their lobbying group as quite as much of a threat as AIPAC.

Leftists ignore or explain away the countless illiberal, anti-Enlightenment, anti-feminist aspects of Islam and just see a potent, sizable force opposing the Bush administration. Traditional liberals like me who criticize Islam are met with labels like "Islamophobe" to silence us.

First, Victoria, nice try at pretending to be a liberal of any sort. However, if you were, you would know that long before you ever knew about the Taliban, liberal organizations were signing petitions and writing our congressmen to bring light to the plight of the women in Afghanistan.

That's just one example. The fact is, no liberals en masse appreciate the intolerant aspects of Islam, or any other intolerance. You can point to no examples to back up your point. Our condemntation of Bush does not equal championing terrorism or brutal regimes or ideologies. Only an imbecile could come to that conclusion.

In other words, your whole argument is a strawman. And you sounded so pleased with yourself and your elitist "I've studied the liberals, and here are my findings" tripe, which would put most latte liberals to shame.

The fact is, liberals find injustice offensive. And many, many of us have looked at the Israeli/Palestinian story, and all the little avenues including this AIPAC one, and have reviled the injustice.

First you need to understand the liberal point of view before you can attempt to dismantle it.