Israel Shamir's insightful analysis of the power of Jewish Lobby in the United States seems to be hitting a real nerve with the Jewish community. The response to his most recent article, 'The Fiesta of St Fermin', is astounding and very thought provoking. There still appears to be a great reluctance among individual American Jews of the liberal and leftist persuasion to recognize that their community does more than just wield influence in the United States. The largest contributors to both the Democratic and Republican party are American Jews. It takes very thick blinders to fail to understand that the Jewish Lobby, acting in the interests of a foreign fascist state, has seen fit to participate fully in the corrupting of America's elected officials.

The Israeli Lobby is be no means the only culprit in the buying and selling of America's governors. But they are the most powerful single force in this process. Indeed it makes absolute sense to leverage Jewish contributions by buying Congressmen and Senators. A dime of political contributions ends up being a dollar in the pocket of the IDF and the settler movement. The question is whether the lobby corrupts Congress or a corrupt Congress bows to any powerful lobby that shows them the money. Given the way that America finances its political campaigns, it is probably a little bit of this and a little bit of that. But they don't call Israel's partisans 'The Lobby' without good reason. Add to their enormous financial contributions the fact that the media industry is a virtual monopoly of powerful American Jewish families and there is no mystery as to why America allows Israel to get away with murder.

Where exactly do politicians spend their campaign money? The media barons laugh all the way to the bank every presidential campaign season. So 'The Lobby' gives a little money to our politicians and turns around and takes it all back in advertising revenue. Pity the politician who stands up to their coersion techniques. They not only choke his campaign lifeline, but also can trounce his ads with 'free' articles by pro-Israeli pundits who will denigrate any American who stands up to their dogma of Jewish exceptionalism. The case of George Bush the elder is instructive. He came out of the Gulf war with a 90% positive approval rating and was then demolished by the media barons and other activists in the Jewish lobby. There was a point where he was considered invincible, until he challenged the vicious war criminal assassin Itzhak Shamir on illegal Jewish settlements. Now, that is a chapter of modern American history that was written by Sulzberger of the New York Times and the men who financed Bill Clinton's campaign.

Ethnic politics are part of the game in America. But their are few American ethnic constituencies that rally around foreign despots and war criminals. Filipino Americans did not support the Marcos dictatorship. The Haitian American community did not lobby Congress to support either Papa Doc or Baby Doc. Arab-Americans never applauded or acted as apologists for military dictators like Sadam. Dutch Americans did not conspire with the Boers of South Africa. German-Americans and Italian-Americans, among our largest ethnic minorities, valiantly fought in two World Wars against their kinsmen. Without their heroic sacrifices, Europe might still be under Nazi rule. Many Japanese-Americans died defending the United States against the Axis powers. The Jewish Lobby, on the other hand, serves Israel's interests, even to the point of maligning their fellow Americans of Arab heritage.

Rail against capitalism and globalism all you want. Most Americans accept it as a fact of life. This is not just economics; but a fiercely competitive national character that champions individualism. Yet, the average American also loves freedom, his freedom and the freedom of others. It is not that they are oblivious to Israeli aggression, or for that matter American aggression, but rather that the action in Washington is not a part of the fabric of our daily lives. We let these politicians pick our pockets and make our wars because they never seem to improve with the passage of time. American politicians are considered the lowest form of American life. Being in the political world is just not considered an honest profession, not among decent folk. The corridors of power in Washington attracts men, who with a sex change, would surly ply their trade in the oldest profession in the world. So, we stay away from the polls on voting day in the same way we avoid the bad side of town.

Most Americans are also fully aware that American Jews are big time on the political scene and that they dictate every detail of America's foreign policy in the Middle East. There are rational reasons why we have eleven Jewish Senators and no African-American Senators. It is not because American Jews make better senators than African-Americans, but because Jews can afford a Senate campaign. And, yes, it does help that they are of European descent. There are also rational reasons why Arab-Americans have been politically quarantined. Ask Hillary Clinton, our first bigot, why it so valuable for politicians to align themselves with the 'Yiddish Power' crowd. Watch these American-Jewish pundits, on the left and on the right, market one of the most extremely repressive governments in the world. And they do it all with such an easy smile and without a hint of any embarrassment. That takes raw 'KKK' bone-deep bigotry.

America supports Israel because American Jews are a fabulously rich, powerful and arrogant ethnic group that has come to accept Zionist racism as part of the core of its value system. Repressing Palestinians, killing their kids and stealing their lands is something most American Jews are not only content to keep silent about, but will vocally support. That is fact. There is no doubt that there is a healthy minority in this community that feels a little discomfort about being so closely affiliated with a country that has a penchant for electing notorious war criminals to the highest office in the land. But this group of American-Jewish dissidents is virtually invisible. Indeed, there is more vocal and visible dissent among Israeli Jewish intellectuals.

I will leave it to American Jews to figure out why their community so easily follows a leadership whose ranks swell with shallow and wicked bigots. That is their problem. Our problem is how to confront them. To expect the Palestinians to have to wait for American Jews to redefine their core values is to ask them to abandon hope. The history books are clear on this count. American Jewish leaders, including intellectuals, follow the script written in Tel Aviv. And their community willingly goes along. They are every bit as chauvinist as Israelis, maybe more so, because they tend to be more ignorant of the facts on the ground. I always advise the rare American Jew who wants to bring a little justice into the lives of the Palestinians to publicly denounce folks like 'Punch' Sulzberger (NYT), Foxman (ADL), William Safire, Dennis Ross, Martin Indyk and Thomas Friedman. These men are the muscle that allows this racist Lobby to push its weight around. But the most important thing is to address the arrogant and callous misuse of Jewish power in America. We certainly don't need to waste any more time discussing whether the 'Jewish Lobby' is fact or fiction. What the Palestinians need are Americans who will help them neutralize the belligerence of the 'Jewish Lobby'. Let us start by being intellectually honest about how the Israel Firsters are fully complicit in the corruption of elected American public servants.

As to those who want to buy into the 'American Imperialism' school of thought. As Israel Shamir points out, Turkey and Egypt are more logical candidates for the job of strategic partner in gouging out Arab eyes for cheap oil. Besides, half the Arab Middle East is already one large contiguous American military base. There is a big difference between the American Imperial project to assure access to natural resources and Israel's racist colonial enterprise to eradicate the native population of the land. The average Saudi hardly feels the presence of the American military. But the Israeli military boot is daily mixed into the recipe of repression that confronts Palestinians when they stick their heads out of their front door. No American settlers are heading for the suburbs of Baghdad. True enough, the American government has no problem wasting Arab lives. But, that too, is often in service to the Lobby, which spares no effort to create a permanent enmity between Arabs and Americans. One only need scan the diaries of former presidents, to realize that they support racist Israeli policies reluctantly, not out of conviction, not because it is in the national interest, but because it helps finance campaigns. The path to political power in America is too often through the doors of the Israeli Lobby. American presidents think nothing of playing the role of door mats for Israeli war criminals, like Sharon. In Washington, it has become an rite of passage into the corridors of power to turn on as many green lights as Israel needs to torment the Palestinians.