Follow-up

As a follow up to this, you might want to read this article by Edward Peck, former deputy director of the Cabinet Task Force on Terrorism in the Reagan White House and former chief of mission in Iraq. It was published by the Independent Institute. A sample:

All democracies have lobbies. Shrill insistence that no groups promote Israel is ludicrous. Opinions differ on the long-term costs and benefits for both nations, but the lobby's views of Israel's interests have become the basis of U.S. Middle East policies. That this influence largely results from the efforts of people determined to exercise their democratic prerogatives is not open to question—or to challenge.

The dangerous, unacceptable result of that lobbying, however, is the stifling of public debate.