Of course there is an Israeli lobby in America-its leading working group is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). It calls itself "America's Pro-Israel Lobby," and it attempts to influence U.S. legislation and policy.

Several national Jewish organizations lobby from time to time. Big deal-why is anyone pretending this non-news requires falling on the floor and howling? Because of this weird deformity of debate.

In the United States, we do not have full-throated, full-throttle debate about Israel. In Israel, they have it as a matter of course, but the truth is that the accusation of anti-Semitism is far too often raised in this country against anyone who criticizes the government of Israel.

Being pro-Israel is no defense, as I long ago learned to my cost. Now I've gotten used to it. Jews who criticize Israel are charmingly labeled "self-hating Jews." As I have often pointed out, that must mean there are a lot of self-hating Israelis, because those folks raise hell over their own government's policies all the time.

I don't know that I've ever felt intimidated by the knee-jerk "you're anti-Semitic" charge leveled at anyone who criticizes Israel, but I do know I have certainly heard it often enough to become tired of it.

And I wonder if that doesn't produce the same result: giving up on the discussion.

It's the sheer disproportion and the vehemence of the denunciations of those perceived as criticizing Israel that make the attacks so odious. Mearsheimer and Walt are both widely respected political scientists-comparing their writing to "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" is just silly.

Several critics have pointed out some flaws in the Mearsheimer-Walt paper, including a too-broad use of the term "Israel lobby"-those of us who are pro-Israel differ widely-and having perhaps overemphasized the clout of the Israel lobby by ignoring the energy lobby.

It seems to me the root of the difficulty has been Israel's inability first to admit the Palestinians have been treated unfairly and, second, to figure out what to do about it. Now here goes a big fat generalization, but I think many Jews are so accustomed (by reality) to thinking of themselves as victims, it is especially difficult for them to admit they have victimized others.

But the Mearsheimer-Walt paper is not about the basic conflict, but rather its effect on American foreign policy, and it appears to me the authors' arguments are unexceptional. Israel is the No. 1 recipient of American foreign aid, and it seems an easy case can be made that the United States has subjugated its own interests to those of Israel in the past.

Whether you agree or not, it is a discussion well worth having and one that should not be shut down before it can start by unfair accusations of "anti-Semitism." In a very equal sense, none of this is academic. The Israel lobby was overwhelmingly in favor of starting the war with Iraq and is now among the leading hawks on Iran.

To the extent that our interests do differ from those of Israel, the matter needs to be discussed calmly and fairly. This is not about conspiracies or plots or fantasies or anti-Semitism-it's about rational discussion of American interests. And, in my case, being pro-Israel. I'm looking forward to hearing from all you nutjobs again.

"He is simply appointing the best people for the job," said Nathan Diament, who heads the Washington office of the Orthodox Union. Another Jewish activist added that he "wouldn't read too much into it."

Bolten, who first served as head of the Office of Management and Budget, was the first Jewish member of Bush's cabinet. Ever since Bush took office, there has been a custom of opening cabinet meetings with a brief prayer and so, before his first cabinet meeting, Bolten's assistant contacted Diament and asked for help in finding a Jewish prayer for the security and well-being of the cabinet members. The Orthodox Union provided him with the text in English and in Hebrew and Bolten read it aloud at the next cabinet meeting.

Bolten and Kaplan will probably be the most prominent Jewish members of the Bush administration, but not the only ones. Apart from Bolten, there is another Jewish cabinet member, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, and there are other Jewish senior staff members, including Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams and White House staffer Jay Lefkowitz.

In the past year, several Jews who were holding senior posts in the administration have left, among them deputy secretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz, undersecretary of defense Doug Feith, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby and political adviser Ken Mehlman, who now heads the Republican National Committee.

Yet the policy of the administration has little to do with the religious beliefs of the staffers. "The president sets the policy goals and it is now the job of Josh [Bolten] and Joel [Kaplan] to help achieve these goals," said Noam Neusner, who served as the liaison to the Jewish community in Bush's White House from 2002-2005.

Other Jewish activists, both Republican and Democrat, agree that the nomination of Bolten and Kaplan have no affect on policy.

For Republicans, there is still a feeling that Bush does not receive the credit he deserves from the Jewish community. "We have Israel's best friend and it still hasn't changed the way the Jewish community sees him," said Fred Zeidman, a close friend of Bush and chairman of the National Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. "I keep hoping that one day our community will see the light and support President Bush."

Neusner recalled that in the Bush White House there was always great respect for religious practices of the staffers and predicted that this policy would remain now that Bolten is running its daily operations.

One tradition likely to go on is the reading of the Purim megilla led by Chabad Rabbi Levi Shemtov, which attracts many of the Jewish staffers.

The relatively small number of Jews in Bush's cabinet became an issue largely due to the comparison with his predecessor, Bill Clinton. The former administration had such Jewish cabinet members as Robert Reich, Robert Rubin, Sandy Berger, Lawrence Summers and Madeline Albright and State Department officials Dennis Ross, Martin Indyk and Aaron Miller.

"I don't support this idea of bean counting," said Jay Footlik, who was Clinton's liaison to the Jewish community. He sees the fact that the former administration had many Jewish members as significant to the policy the president had in regard to the Jewish community. According to him, the reason Jews were so visible in Clinton's administration was merely a result of the community being "drawn to public involvement and political activity."

Predictably, author and Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz, who is an unconditional supporter of Israeli policy, led the charge against Mearsheimer and Walt. Dershowitz compared them to conspiracy theorists and bigots and called on American Jews to demand they be treated equally with other Americans.

Earlier this semester, I wrote a column criticizing Israel's hard-line response to the newly-elected Hamas Palestinian government. The day it ran, someone asked me why I thought I was qualified to comment on that miserable and bloody conflict.

Any interest group that lobbies my government to the tune of nearly $3 billion per year is well within my range of criticism. And any government that engages in questionable foreign policy with my country's name attached to the sales receipt is well within the sphere of my written word.

Mearsheimer and Walt also forecasted that there would be a backlash to their thesis. In fact, it addressed the very question of why anyone who criticizes Israel is immediately labeled anti-Semitic.

An article by Michelle Goldberg on Salon.com highlighted the lashing Howard Dean got during his 2004 presidential campaign after he charged that the United States should take a more even-handed stance in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Sen. Joseph Lieberman said he was selling out Israel.

Likewise, Goldberg also pointed to the trail of criticism that followed Steven Spielberg's latest film "Munich," a critical cinematic account of Israel's response to the 1972 Palestinian massacre of Jewish Athletes that displeased many Jews and Israelis. Mearsheimer and Walt have simply analyzed one of the world's most powerful lobbies. They looked at AIPAC's media influence and strategy, its donor base, and its connections in Congress, among members and their staff. Admittedly, their findings are slightly monolithic and probably give the Israeli lobby more credit than it is due. Nevertheless, Dershowitz borders on hysteria in his rebuttal to their piece, even laying guilt on them for the fact that some neo-Nazis are using the report as ammo.

The truth is our support for Israel is damaging to U.S. foreign policy and it's also a substantial drain on American taxpayers. It damages our legitimacy abroad, because we slap Israel on the wrist for its heinous acts while we breathe fire down the backs of the Palestinians for their terrorism.

Richard Cohen, a Washington Post columnist, came up with this strange attempt at a reason:

"Israel's special place in U.S. foreign policy is deserved, in my view, and not entirely the product of lobbying. Israel has earned it, and isn't there something bracing about a special relationship that is not based on oil or markets or strategic location but on shared values."

We share values with Western Europe and steadily more of Eastern Europe. Should we turn on the cash tap for them? Or should we reassess our aid to an industrialized country, with a solid economy, prolific social institutions and a parliamentary democracy second to nearly none? Better yet, maybe we should dangle our aid in front of Israel like a carrot, the same we are doing to the Palestinians.

This would level the burden of reconciliation between the Palestinians and Israel. If the Bush administration hopes to force the Hamas government into decisions by turning off the financial tap, why doesn't it threaten to cut off the $3 billion in aid if Israel doesn't withdraw and dismantle all of its illegal settlements in the West Bank?

In the meantime, Dershowitz and others should stop being victims, because they aren't. The only victims I've heard of lately were lying dead in the streets of Tel Aviv and the Gaza Strip.

Theories abound. At the top of the list is America's quest for oil, a shrinking, non-renewable resource. But, in reality, the US gets very little of its oil from the Middle East and the Gulf. Most comes from South America and Africa.

Another theory revolves around the petrodollar monopoly, which both Iraq and Iran have sought to disband by trading their oil in Euros. There may be something in this one but it doesn't explain why Syria is in the firing line.

The US says it wishes to export 'democracy' to the region but its reaction towards the Shiite government in Iraq, led by the Dawa Pasrty that has close ties with Iran, and the way that the democratically-elected new Hamas-led Palestinian government has been isolated, hardly lends credence to this. Democracy will not bring US-friendly governments, which is what the Bush administration really seeks.

A premise, which many in the Arab world believe, should also be dissected. Is the US manipulating and remoulding the area so that Israel can remain the only regional superpower in perpetuity?

This is not as fanciful as one might imagine on first glance. Read the following strangely prophetic segment from an article published in 1982 by the World Zionist Organisation's publication Kivunim and penned by Oded Yinon, an Israeli journalist with links to the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

Yinon's strategy was based on this premise. In order to survive Israel must become an imperial regional power and must also ensure the break-up of all Arab countries so that the region may be carved up into small ineffectual states unequipped to stand up to Israeli military might. Here's what he had to say on Iraq:

"The dissolution of Syria and Iraq into ethnically or religiously unique areas such as in Lebanon is Israel's primary target on the Eastern frontIraq, rich in oil on the one hand and internally torn on the other is guaranteed as a candidate for Israel's targets. Its dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria. Iraq is stronger than Syria. In the short run, it is Iraqi power which constitutes the greatest threat to Israel.

"An Iraqi-Iranian war will tear Iraq apart and cause its downfall at home even before it is able to organize a struggle on a wide front against us. Every kind of inter-Arab confrontation will assist us in the short run and will shorten the way to the more important aim of breaking up Iraq into denominations as in Syria and Lebanon.

"In Iraq, a division into provinces along ethnic/religious lines as in Syria during Ottoman times is possible. So, three (or more) states will exist around the three major cities: Basra, Baghdad and Mosul and Shiite areas in the South will separate from the Sunni and Kurdish north."

Sound familiar?

Now let's focus on the reality, 24 years on.

The eight-year long Iran-Iraq War that ended in 1988 was responsible for over a million casualties but did not result in Yinon's desired break-up. Iraq still stood as a strong homogenous entity.

Iraq was, however, severely weakened in 1991 as a result of the Gulf War brought about by Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. Still, the country remained unified.

It took the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq and the subsequent occupation to destabilize Iraq and split the country on sectarian lines. Indeed, its new constitution is drawn around a loose federation with partial autonomy for the northern Kurds and the southern Shiites, and the country is now rife with sectarian, religious and ethnic strife. Some say "civil war".

Turning to Syria, until the March 2003 invasion of Iraq Syria under President Bashar Al-Assad enjoyed reasonably good relations with the West. We should also remember that Syria fought alongside the US-led allies during the Gulf War. Syria also voted, albeit reluctantly, for the UN resolution that oiled the invasion, and was a strong partner in the so-called 'War on Terror'.

Then, lo and behold, Syria could do no right. Suddenly, it was accused to all kinds of 'crimes' from hiding Iraq's mythical weapons of mass destruction, harbouring insurgents and terrorists, and allowing the free passage of fighters and arms into Iraq.

Heavy pressure was then put on to Damascus to end its de facto occupation of Lebanon following the assassination of the former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, and, now the Syrian government is being investigated by the UN, accused of involvement.

Today the US is actively engaged in weakening the Al-Assad government and is supporting opposition parties. If it is successful, experts predict that Syria, like Iraq, will fall victim to sectarianism and internecine conflict.

Lebanon, which had been recovering from a long civil war and an Israeli occupation, and was on the point of finding some semblance of unity, is also in danger of being destabilized with parties lining up into pro-Syrian and anti-Syrian confederations.

Yinon described the Arab-Muslim world as a temporary house of cards put together by foreigners and arbitrarily divided into states, all made up of combinations of minorities and ethnic groups which are hostile to one another.

He then goes on to bemoan Israel's relinquishment of the Sinai to Egypt under the Camp David Peace Treaty due to that area's reserves of oil, gas and other natural resources.

"Regaining the Sinai Peninsula is, therefore, a political priority, which is obstructed by Camp David" he writes. "And we will have to act in order to return the situation to the status quo which existed in Sinai prior to Sadat's visit and the mistaken peace agreement signed with him in March 1979."

Yinon then predicts that if Egypt is divided and torn apart, some other Arab countries will cease to exist in their present forms and a Christian Coptic state would be founded in Upper Egypt. Presently there are growing problems between Egypt's Muslims and Copts, perceived by some hard line Egyptian Muslims as being more loyal to the US than their own country. This has resulted in open clashes often with resultant deaths.

Apart from Muslim-Copt divisions, Yinon was wrong in his calculations concerning Egypt. He believed Cairo would break the peace treaty with Israel giving the Israelis the opportunity to drive their tanks straight back into the Sinai and other coveted areas. However, the Egyptian government under the ever pragmatic President Hosni Mubarak has stuck to the letter of the treaty and has become an important US ally over the years.

Yinon's solution to the ongoing Israel-Palestine problem was to herd the Palestinians across the Jordan River and label Jordan a Palestinian state.

He rejected the land for peace principle, saying, "It is not possible to go on living in this country in the present situation without separating the two nations, the Arabs to Jordan and the Jews to the areas west of the river.

Genuine co-existence and peace will reign over the land only when the Arabs understand that without Jewish rule between the Jordan and the sea they will have neither existence nor security - a nation of their own and security will be theirs only in Jordan."

Yinon, and others of like mind must once again be disappointed. Jordan gave up any thoughts of Pan-Arabism long before the demise of King Hussein and his son King Abdullah is now America's staunchest Arab ally in the region. With a two-thirds Palestinian majority in his country, Abdullah has chosen self-preservation by hanging on to US coattails.

The idea of packing 4.5 million Palestinians across the Jordan is no longer being openly touted, although this option was on the table in 2002 according to an article by Professor van Creveld in Britain's Daily Telegraph.

A then Gallup poll showed that 44 per cent of Jewish Israelis favoured the expulsion of Palestinians across the River Jordan.

Professor Creveld believed Ariel Sharon favoured this plan too. Sharon was quoted in his article as emphasizing Jordan's Palestinian majority and referring to it as the Palestinian state. "The inference that the Palestinians should go there is clear," wrote Creveld.

If you feel the idea that the US would put itself on the line for the sake of Israel is far-fetched, then it is worth remembering the words of the assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who claimed in his book that the Israeli government was, in fact, responsible for the design of American policy in the Middle East after the 1967 'Six Day War'.

Yinon's essay does not focus on Iran, but let's look at comparatively recent statements coming out of Israel on this subject.

During a visit to Washington in November 2003 two years before the US government turned its fire on Iran - the Israeli Minister of Defence Shaul Mofaz told US officials that "under no circumstances would Israel be able to abide by nuclear weapons in Iranian possession.

During the same month, Meir Dagan, Director of the Mossad, told a parliamentary committee that Iran posed an "existential threat" to Israel, assuring members that Israel could deal with this threat.

Last year, the rhetoric out of Israel was ratcheted up with the Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom telling the press that "the idea that this tyranny of Iran will hold a nuclear bomb is a nightmare, not only for us but also for the whole world."

Israel's Prime Minister designate Ehud Olmert is continuing the tradition of hyping the Iran threat, assisted, it must be said, by fiery rhetoric coming out of Tehran's reckless leader Mahmoud Ahmedinejad.

An article in the Daily Telegraph dated February 18 headed "America would back Israel attack on Iran" clearly indicates that it is Israel leading the charge against Iran.

The article quotes George W. Bush as saying,

"Clearly, if I was the leader of Israel and I'd listened to some of the statements by the Iranian ayatollahs that regarded the security of my country, I'd be concerned about Iran having a nuclear weapon as well. And in that Israel is our ally, and in that we've made a very strong commitment to support Israel, we will support Israel if her security is threatened."

A year later and the US government is no longer portraying Iran's purported nuclear ambitions as a threat to Israel, but a threat to the United States. In this way the case against Iran and the possible repercussions emanating from that, can be sold to the American people. Suddenly Israel's concerns have become theirs. Interestingly, more than 55 per cent of the US public say they would back strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities, according to a recent poll.

As the columnist Doug Ireland writes in his expose "The Real AIPAC Spy Ring Story It was all about Iran",

"Bush's slip-of-the-tongue that revealed his real intentions was front-page news in Le Monde and other European dailies but received little attention in the States-side major media."

Justin Raimondo wrote in September last year,

"This case has received relatively little publicity in relation to its importance. It isn't just the fact that, for the first time in recent memory, Israel's powerful lobby has been humbled. What is going on here is the exposure of Israel's underground army in the US covert legions of propagandists and outright spies, whose job it is to not only make the case for Israel but to bend American policy to suit Israel's needs) and in the process, penetrate closely-held US secrets."

Back to the question of whether the US is, indeed, waging wars on behalf of Israel. In short, we can't be certain and we may never know since the Bush White House has sealed its private tapes and papers for 100 years.

There is one thing that we do know. Oded Yinon's 1982 "Zionist Plan for the Middle East" is in large part taking shape. Is this pure coincidence? Was Yinon a gifted psychic? Perhaps! Alternatively, we in the West are victims of a long-held agenda not of our making and without doubt not in our interests.