A Jewish Lobby?

Today I was driving home in my car and a guest speaker on NPR made reference to the "Jewish Lobby"as the reason for the US long-standing support of Israel. The "Jewish Lobby"?

What's this I thought? Are we going back to the days when people believed Jews ran Hollywood, owned all the banks and newspapers? I hadn't heard the phrase in all my life. I jumped on the Net when I got home, googled "Jewish lobby" and there they were - all 7,080,000 hits for the term.

So what was there? Well the term "Jewish lobby" was often paired with "powerful." Well what would you expect? People who think there's a "Jewish lobby" wouldn't think it's a weak lobby, would they?

Also I found Mark Weber's name assigned to a number of articles. Here's a brief quote from one of them:

For decades Israel has violated well established precepts of
international law and defied numerous United Nations resolutions in its occupation of conquered lands, in extra-judicial killings, and in its repeated acts of military aggression.

Let me quote from David Aaronovitch, columnist for the Guardian Unlimited UK:

There is no all-powerful Jewish lobby. There is no secret convocation. Most journalists with Jewish names do not write the things they do because of loyalty to their race or religion. Nor can you simply change the word "Jewish" to "Zionist" and somehow be exempt from the charge of low-level racism. And it's no good wiffling on about your Jewish friends or trying to slip your prejudices past the guards by boldly proclaiming your refusal to be intimidated. There are no Elders and there are no Protocols.

MORE TO COME: “The Israel Lobby,” the paper authored by professors Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer of Harvard University.