because it owns both political parties.

AIPAC does own both political parties. It's nice that this may be about to change. While the chaos and bloodshed may be to the advantage of the ruling oligarchy (the military/industrail/oil complex), AIPAC is not helpful to the security of of the Mideast. Moderate Israelis and Arabs don't seem to have a voice any more. And if any of the problems in that area of the world (and the world) are ever to be solved, it will require the voice of the moderates. Let us hope that this courageous band of sensible people will prevail and that both our political parties stop doing the bidding of AIPAC.

Truly, I don't understand what is wrong

with AIPAC? The paper referred to in

the article was decimated by Alan Dershowitz, among others, not only because it was filled with lousy scholarship but because it was brazenly inaccurate and riddled with biased rubbish no peer reviewed academic should be allowed to publish. In that vein, I don't believe anything in the paper can be regarded as truth or even anything approaching the truth.

AIPAC is not a knee-jerk, right-wing group. It is a conservative policy-making group with many, many brilliant and dedicated supporters of Israel in its ranks. Their position papers are well-written, well-crafted, and brilliantly researched. What's wrong with that? Just because you don't agree with them, it doesn't make them evil or belligerent.

The bigger question that nobody seems to be asking is, Why isn't there a Muslim or Arab PAC out there that is calling for peace? There are NO peace movements in the Palestinian territories. There are no peace movements in Europe or the US with Muslim or Arab ties. There are no financiers with billions funding Palestinian peace initiatives. It's always the Jews that either turn on each other or constitute the bulk of these self-contradictory and idealistic peace movements.

There will be no peace in the Middle East until the Palestinians and their allies suffer a 180 degree change in attitude towards the destruction and killing of Jews. Until that time, I don't see any reason why AIPAC shouldn't be hard as nails when directing US policy.

Contrary to all the conspiracy theorists, the very diverse "pro-Israel Lobby" is effective because its positions rest on objective realities and facts, not wishful thinking about Israel and America's enemies. All the money that George Soros throws at lobbying will not change the facts on the ground. Sadly, the Islamofascists have condemned the Palestinian population to lives of poverty and despair, and all the Israel-bashing in the world will not change that.

I got a mailing today. Against a red background two black and white photgraphs, one shows a desperate African carrying a wounded child, the other shows a desperate Palestinian carrying a wounded child. The caption below the two photos reads:

"APARTHEID: Wrong for South Africans, Wrong for Palestinians, End Israeli Apartheid!"

The memory of South Africa is very fresh. Americans have eyes, and they can judge for themselves. When an indigenous people is forced behind a wall and told that they will have to travel miles and pass beyond check points to get to their fields to work and that some of their lands will be co-opted by other citizens who have a better claim to it (in this case because of their religion) we grimace at the memory of what we did to our own indigenous people, and we recall the changes we effected in South Africa through political pressure.

Political pressure works best when applied where the power exists. Right now the Palestinians have no power. They live behind a wall and walk miles and pass through a check point to get to the fields where they eek out a living. Pressuring the Palestinians to celebrate their lot in life and then slapping their hands when they do not say "Thank you!" is probably not going to get very far.

It is time to try to affect some real change in the Middle East. I salute those who are trying a new approach. Maybe if we start now, the Jewish Palestinians and the Muslim Palestinians will end up working out their differences better than the white and black South Africans.

Excellent, I'm glad to see some responsible adults are still roaming the capitol. This is a security issue- plain and simple. Our Israeli policy has been a liability almost from the start, and 'what is wrong with AIPAC?' is that they used their unlimited supply of funding to exploit Western sympathy following the Holocaust. That's right, I said it. They exploited the politically-correct aversion to saying anything negative in reference to Israel- the same 'Israel Bashing' of which I am certain to accused of- to frontload American contemporary/historical perspectives on the conflict in favor of Israel. We were founded as a free nation by Christian men. No matter what your interpretation of the Constitutional relationships between church and state, this has always been a Christian nation. As such there is a natural tendency for us to support the Jewish people- after all they are God's 'Chosen People', they are the ones from the Old Testament, right?

There is only one foreign nation that can claim as much influence on US policy as Israel, and that is Saudi Arabia. It is a sad irony that the gasoline-fueled war that exploded demand for the rich oil underneath the feet of Israel's age-old enemies, also made possible the re-establishment of the Israeli state. Our close interests in the region have become chaotically and dangerously entangled over the last 50 years. The sympathy felt for the Jewish people following the Second World War, along with a blurry antagonism towards Arabs and a political atmosphere where it was suicide to disparriage the worlds greatest victims, opened a one-sided push in support of Israel that has lasted 60 odd years- under the umbrella of AIPAC.

The 'fact' is, Israel would never have come to be without European intervention following the fall of the Ottoman Empire, and would probably not have survived without American intervention and support following WWII and the Holocaust. Those German, French, and Polish Jews were perhaps the greatest martyrs in modern history. Their brutal suffering and extermination drew American attention to the plight of the Jews and the biblical struggle of the new state of Israel, and AIPAC was formed to ensure that it remained there. This has caused untold grief for Israeli's, Arab's, and American's. Our soldiers are dying daily in a war fought to topple a vicious tribal Strongman who was once supported by the US in his war with Iran, out of the fear that the Islamic Revolution- which had overthrown another US appointed autocrat- would spread accross the region and threaten our newfound dependence on oil. And so it goes, our two conflicting loyalties in the middle-east have brought us to the point we are at today- war and sectarian violence on an unprecedented level and which threaten once again to spread accross the region. This war will makes its mark too- most notably in the promotion of energy independence and renewable resources- a mark which will eventually sever the ties which bind us to the region. And once our attention is no longer held by the plight of a helpless people, but instead is replaced with a cold, hard view of a society which values land and security where it once valued peace and happiness. And once our attention is no longer held, and we are no longer compelled to keep military bases in the region to protect the oil- Israel will be alone.

It is good then that these men have stepped up and recognized that American influence in the region is waning, and that it is in everyone's best interests to resolve the conflict sooner rather than later. The fact is that modern Israel was stolen from the Palestinian people 100 years ago, no matter who owned it 2000 years ago. There is significant support for a Palestinian state and the surrender of recently appropriated Palestinian lands by Jewish settlers, so if anyone needs to adjust their attitude it is ignorant Americans who support Israel irregardless of the facts on the ground- and they can take their cues from the people living there. Of course, it might already be too late for the region- but there's always hope.