Who (REALLY) Controls US Foreign Policy?

There are very few lobbies working the corners of Capitol Hill with as much
clout as AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. They're the
people who tell Congress which legislation affecting Israel they like and
which they don't. Inside this building are the headquarters of AIPAC, the
American Israel Public Affairs Committee. They would not let us photograph
inside their headquarters. AIPAC says it is the spearhead for support for
Israel here in Washington. It is not a political action committee. It does not
make campaign contributions, but the clout of AIPAC here on Capitol Hill is
legendary.

Hey everyone, I am woefully overdue for this video. It's the Israel Lobby
video. In as little time as I can manage, I'm going to explain what is
essentially the thesis of one of the most important books on Israel: *The
Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy* by John Mearsheimer and Stephen
Walt. Again, this is long overdue, but I'm going to do right by you all and try
to explain everything succinctly.

Israel can do whatever it wants. We know this. We all know it. They can
deliberately induce a famine and saturate Gaza with so many bombs. It is
one of the most bombed areas in the history of the world. Clearly, there's
nothing they can't get away with. Of course, Israel enjoys a steady stream of
military aid to the tune of some $4 billion a year, though it's more than that
ultimately in a number of ways. But perhaps more important than this
military aid is their diplomatic support from the United States. They can
always rely on it without exception. When the Security Council votes to
condemn or call for a ceasefire or vote to grant the Palestinians a state,
every single time the United States votes in Israel's favor or vetoes in
Israel's favor.

It is for this reason that Israel enjoys complete and total immunity from
consequence for its many grave crimes against humanity. And now the same
is true even as Israel is committing a genocide, something easily provable
pursuant to international humanitarian law.

I've made several videos on the topic, but today I'd like to explain why the
U.S. does this. It's almost completely alone in the world in this regard.
There are four important myths which Israel's supporters will give to justify
this extraordinary aid and diplomatic cover. Let's start with the first one.

Myth number one: Israel is a strategic asset. The Cold War-era argument
goes that Israel was an asset to check Soviet power in the Middle East.
That's not what former National Security Adviser and Secretary of State
Henry Kissinger believed.
"Our impression is that Israel must be strong, but Israeli strength does not
prevent the spread of Communism in the Arab world. Israeli strength
provides for Israeli security. The best defense against the spread of
Communism in the Arab world is to strengthen the moderate Arab
governments.

So, it is difficult to claim that a strong Israel serves American interests

because it prevents the spread of Communism in the Arab world. It does
not. It provides for the survival of Israel.”
In 1982, still well before the Soviet Union's demise, Israel's invasion of
Lebanon created Hezbollah, who killed hundreds of U.S. Marines in a
suicide bombing at the barracks of the First Battalion 8 Marines. Another
bombing of the U.S. Embassy there was the single deadliest day in the CIA's
history. The occupation of the Palestinian territories has further resulted in
two uprisings (First and Second Intifada – 1987 and 2000) that have killed
thousands of people.

The occupation itself is especially troubling considering the territories were

first acquired through a preemptive attack (1967) by Israel against Egypt,
which brought Jordan and Syria to war, leading to another war (1973) over
the captured territories, which almost led to nuclear war - hardly a
stabilizing force in the region. As Mearsheimer and Walt put it, even if
Israel was a valuable ally during the Cold War, that justification ended when
the Soviet Union collapsed.

Myth number two: We need Israel to fight terrorism. It shouldn't come as a

big surprise that groups like Al-Qaeda attacked the United States largely
because of their support for Israel. Years before 9/11, when a bomb-laden
van exploded under the North Tower of the World Trade Center in 1993, a
young Ramzi Yousef sent letters to New York newspapers claiming
responsibility. As told by Steven Coll, author of Ghost Wars: The Secret
History of the CIA*, Yousef issued three political demands: an end to all
U.S. aid to Israel, an end to diplomatic relations with Israel, and a pledge to
end interference with any of the Middle Eastern countries' interior affairs.

The terrorism that Israel practices, which is supported by America, must be

faced with a similar one. The author notes that it made no references to
Islam at all. Indeed, Yousef defined America as an enemy solely because of
its support for Israel. Or take Abdul Rahman Yasin, one of Yousef's co-
conspirators, who said in an interview with Leslie Stahl, "We have to send a
message that this is not right. This is to revenge for my Palestinian brothers
and my brothers in Saudi Arabia."

The architect of the later 9/11 attacks, none other than Khalid Sheikh
Muhammad, was also motivated by U.S. support for Israel. According to the
official 9/11 Commission Report, by his own account, KSM's animus toward
the United States stemmed not from his experiences there as a student but
rather from his violent disagreement with U.S. foreign policy favoring
Israel.

There's also the man himself, Osama Bin Laden. In *The Looming Tower*,
the author describes a 14-year-old Osama: sometimes he would sit in front
of the television and weep over the news from Palestine. In his teenage
years, he was the same nice kid, his mother later related, but he was more
concerned, sad, and frustrated about the situation in Palestine in particular
and the Arab and Muslim world in general. He was vocal about it in the
years prior to 9/11, declaring in his 1996 fatwa, "It is no secret to you, my
brothers, that the people of Islam have been afflicted with oppression,
hostility, and injustice by the Judeo-Christian alliance. Your blood has been
spilt in Palestine and Iraq."

Mr. Bin Laden (1997), you have declared a jihad against the United States.
Can you tell us why?

"The U.S. government has committed acts that are extremely unjust,
hideous, and criminal through its support of the Israeli occupation of
Palestine, and we believe the U.S. is directly responsible for those killed in
Palestine, Lebanon, and Iraq."

“Americans are asking, why do they hate us? They hate what they see right
here in this chamber: a democratically elected government. Their leaders
are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms.” - Bush

Myth number three: Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East.
“Israel is the only place where all three monotheistic religions are allowed
to peacefully practice. I believe that America has a moral obligation to
continue to support Israel.” – Ben Shapeiro

Israel is neither a democracy nor is it especially moral compared to other

states—that’s putting it lightly, but bear with me. First of all, in February of
2023, the civilian authority, or the body that governs the West Bank, was
transferred to Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich. In other words, the
West Bank was effectively annexed in 2023. What had been ruled by a
military commander for more than half a century was transferred over to
civilian control, being administered by the federal government of Israel.
Smotrich was given expansive powers over land surveying, registration,
settlement construction, outpost demolition, infrastructure projects,
including water, electricity, transportation, and other matters. Despite this
extraordinary power over the lives of some 3 million Palestinians, not a
single one of them is able to vote in Israeli elections despite being at the
mercy of its whims. This is not a democracy.
Simply put, the perilous situation in Gaza is anything but the manifestation
of a morally righteous democratic country either. I've also covered the topic
of Israeli apartheid in the occupied territories and Israel proper as well in
this video here. Besides, as Mearsheimer and Walt observe, “Whether a
country is democratic is not a reliable indicator of how Washington will
relate to it. The United States has overthrown a few democratic
governments in the past and has supported numerous dictators when doing
so was thought to advance U.S. interests. The Eisenhower Administration
overthrew a democratically elected government in Iran in 1953, while the
Reagan Administration supported Saddam Hussein in the 1980s.”

The fact that bills and political parties in Israel are disqualified if they
negate the existence of the state of Israel as the state of the Jewish people
or the democratic character of the state is also cause for some alarm and
contrary to basic democratic principles. In October of 2000, after Israeli
police opened fire on Israeli Arab protesters, killing 13, the Israeli
government set up the Orr Commission to investigate what had happened.
The commission concluded, which caused controversy in Israel, that
government handling of the Arab sector has been primarily neglectful and
discriminatory. Indeed, it’s been officially observed by the Israeli
government that Palestinian citizens of Israel, who are considered to be an
example of why Israel doesn’t practice apartheid, are far from equal to their
Israeli counterparts. Indeed, this is observed by the majority of the Israeli
population.

What’s worse, not only do they see it, most Israeli Jews support it. A 2016
Pew survey of Israeli Jews found that 79% believe they deserve preferential
treatment. In the very same survey, 48% of Jewish Israelis agreed with the
statement, "Arabs should be expelled or transferred from Israel."

There's also the strive for a Jewish demographic majority, to which Israeli
officials have employed language that is little different from words uttered
by white nationalists in the United States. In a 2003 speech, then Finance
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the Herzliya Conference, "If there is a
demographic problem, and there is, it is with the Israeli Arabs who will
remain Israeli citizens." In 2007, Bibi apologized to the Haredi community
for child welfare cuts as Finance Minister, though he sought to put a
positive spin on them as well. The unexpected result was the demographic
effect on the non-Jewish public, where there was a dramatic drop in the
birth rate.

Mearsheimer and Walt point out, imagine the outcry that would arise here if
a U.S. cabinet official spoke of the benefits of a policy that had reduced the
birth rates of African Americans and Hispanics, thereby preserving a white
majority. But such statements are not unusual in Israel.
Myth number four: Israel is surrounded by countries that want to destroy
it.

If I may, a caveat. In a 2004 interview with Haaretz, Israeli historian Benny

Morris was asked if he identified with David Ben-Gurion after having
researched him for several years up to that point. "I do not identify with
Ben-Gurion. I think he made a serious historical mistake in 1948, even
though he understood the demographic issue and the need to establish a
Jewish state without a large Arab minority. He got cold feet during the war.
In the end, he faltered."

The interviewer responds, "I'm not sure I understand. Are you saying that
Ben-Gurion erred in expelling too few Arabs?"

Benny Morris: "If he was already engaged in expulsion, maybe he should

have done a complete job. I know that this stuns the Arabs and the liberals
and the politically correct types, but my feeling is that this place would be
quieter and no less suffering if the matter had been resolved once and for
all. If Ben-Gurion had carried out a large expulsion and cleansed the whole
country, the whole land of Israel as far as the Jordan River, it may yet turn
out that this was his fatal mistake. If he had carried out a full expulsion
rather than a partial one, he would have stabilized the state of Israel for
generations."

The interviewer: "The term 'to cleanse' is terrible."

Benny Morris: "I know it doesn't sound nice, but that's the term that they
used at the time. I adopted it from all the 1948 documents in which I am
immersed."

On the Palestinians, Morris opined, "It is a very sick society. It should be

treated the way we treat individuals who are serial killers. There is a wild
animal there that has to be locked up in one way or another."

Alright, so just so we're not confused, Benny Morris is no Palestinian

sympathizer. Morris, one of the Israeli new historians and author of "The
Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem," is well known for debunking the
conventional myths of Zionist history. One of the most tenacious myths
relating to 1948 is that of David and Goliath—that the Arabs were
overwhelmingly stronger militarily than the Yishuv. The simple truth is that
the stronger side won (Making Israel – Edited by Benny Morris).

Rashid Khalidi (The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine) has gone into detail
on this himself. Israel, in fact, outnumbered and outgunned its opponents.
There were only five regular Arab military forces in the field in 1948, as
Saudi Arabia and Yemen did not have modern armies to speak of. Just four
of these armies entered the territory of Mandatory Palestine. The minuscule
Lebanese army never crossed the frontier, and two of these—Jordan's Arab
Legion and Iraq's forces—were forbidden by their British allies from
breaching the borders of the areas allocated to the Jewish state by partition
and thus carried out no invasion of Israel. So much of the Arab coalition
wouldn’t even invade Israel proper, much less seek its destruction.

Indeed, as Benny Morris wrote in his "1948 and After," none of the Arab
states, save Transjordan, committed the full weight of their military power
to the enterprise, indicating either inefficiency or perhaps a less-than-
wholehearted seriousness about the declared aim of driving the Jews into
the sea. But even Transjordan, Morris writes, neither expected nor planned
for Israel's demise, nor were the Arab Legion operations from May onwards
designed to bring this about.

As previously noted, the 1967 war was sparked not by Arab states seeking
to destroy Israel but by an Israeli attack on Egypt. In the later 1973 war
("Righteous War," says Morris), Presidents Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Hafez
Assad of Syria sought to regain the territories lost in 1967. Neither aimed to
destroy Israel, despite a still widely held belief, apparently since Helen
Mirren starred in a movie which declares the opposite: "If the Arabs reach
Tel Aviv, Israel will be wiped off the map."

Of course, today Israel has one of the most powerful militaries anywhere in
the entire world, the fourth most powerful military after the US, Russia, and
China, according to US News and World Report. It is also the only country
in the Middle East, and in fact one of the very few anywhere, with nuclear
weapons. Military prowess is aided by the extraordinary aid received by the
United States every year, though the US and Israel didn't always have this
special relationship.

Harry Truman supported the US partition plan (1948) and recognized

Israel, but American policymakers didn't want to put their full weight
behind the new Jewish state for fear of alienating Arab states. It wasn't until
John F. Kennedy's presidency, when he authorized the first major arms
shipment to Israel in 1963, that the floodgates opened. Anti-aircraft missiles
and tanks were among the first arms.

Why? JJ Goldberg, editor of the Jewish Forward newspaper, explained in his

work *Jewish Power*. Zionist influence increased exponentially during the
Kennedy and Johnson administrations because the affluence and influence
of Jews in American society had increased. Jews had become vital donors to
the Democratic Party. They were key figures in the organized labor
movement, which was essential to the Democratic Party. They were major
figures in liberal intellectual, cultural, and academic circles. More than any
of their predecessors in the Oval Office, John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson
counted numerous Jews among their close advisers, donors, and personal
friends.

The Israeli victory from the Six-Day War (1967) saw shipments of military
aid soar to new heights. In the early days of the state of Israel, US officials
believed it too weak to act as a counterweight to Soviet influence. Simply
put, Israel's military victories proved otherwise. From 1949 to 1965, US aid
averaged $63 million a year. By 1970, it was $102 million, and in 1971, US
aid reached a staggering $634 million—85% of that pure military aid. This
amount quadrupled after the Yom Kippur War in 1973. By 1976, Israel was
the largest recipient of US foreign aid, a status it has held ever since.

Over the years, Congress has granted Israel myriad special privileges in
order to receive more aid and quicker. Mearsheimer and Walt explained
that most recipients of American foreign aid get their money in quarterly
installments, but since 1982, the annual foreign aid bill has included a
special clause specifying that Israel is to receive its entire annual
appropriation in the first 30 days of the fiscal year.

It’s required that they have to buy American weaponry. The foreign military
financing program normally requires recipients of US military assistance to
spend all of the money here in the United States to help keep American
defense workers employed. Congress grants Israel a special exemption in
the annual appropriations bill, however, authorizing it to use about one out
of every four US military aid dollars to subsidize its own defense industry.

Jeremy M. Sharp noted in a 2006 report for the Congressional Research

Service that no other recipient of US military assistance has been granted
this benefit. Another CRS report from 2005 reveals, amazingly, that because
US economic aid is given to Israel as direct government-to-government
budgetary support without any specific project accounting, and money is
fungible, there is no way to tell how Israel uses US aid—again, a privilege
not granted to any other recipient of US aid anywhere in the world.

Why does Israel get all these special privileges if not for being an asset, but
rather a liability? If not for being a democracy, a war on terror partner, or
surrounded by states wanting to destroy it, why does Israel get all this aid?
As Mearsheimer and Walt would put it simply, it's because of the lobby. But
they maintain that the lobby isn't all that different from other lobbies. There
are various ethnic lobbies that fight for their respective interests: there's a
Mexican lobby, an Indian lobby, a Turkish lobby, a Cuban lobby.

Mearsheimer and Walt provide extensive literature on ethnic lobbies. Cuban

Americans have lobbied to maintain the embargo on Castro's regime.
Armenian Americans have pushed Washington to acknowledge the 1915
genocide, and more recently to limit U.S. relations with Azerbaijan, among
other examples.

There's one important difference with the Israel lobby, though—it's

extremely powerful. "We use Israel lobby as a convenient shorthand term
for the loose coalition of individuals and organizations that actively work to
shape U.S. foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction." A loose coalition indeed,
though the Israel lobby is quite easy to identify. The 50 largest groups all
belong to a Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish
Organizations. Here are all its members. But the American Israel Public
Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is the most important group.

Back in 1997, *Fortune* magazine asked nearly 2,200 insiders, including

members of Congress, their staffs, and senior White House officials, to rank
the mightiest lobbying groups. AIPAC placed second, behind the 33-million-
member AARP.

A key pillar of the lobby's effectiveness is its influence in the U.S. Congress.
Whether the issue was abortion, arms control, affirmative action, gay rights,
the environment, trade policy, healthcare, immigration, or welfare, there is
almost always a lively debate on Capitol Hill. But where Israel is concerned,
potential critics fall silent, and there is hardly any debate at all.

To understand why that is, we must examine AIPAC's grooming of

congressional candidates. As former AIPAC president Howard Fredman
explained in August 2006, AIPAC meets with every candidate running for
Congress. These candidates receive in-depth briefings to help them
completely understand the complexities of Israel's predicament and of the
Middle East as a whole. We even ask each candidate to author a position
paper on their views of the U.S.-Israel relationship so it's clear where they
stand on the subject.

In 1990, Democrat Harry Lonsdale challenged the Republican senator from

Oregon, Mark Hatfield. The word that I was pro-Israel got around. He said
Lonsdale described a visit to AIPAC headquarters during his campaign as
"an experience I will never forget." It wasn't enough that I was pro-Israel; I
was given a list of vital topics and quizzed, read grilled, for my specific
opinion on each. Actually, I was told what my opinion must be and exactly
what words I was to use to express those opinions in public. Shortly after
the encounter at AIPAC, I was sent a list of American supporters of Israel
that I was free to call for campaign contributions. I called, and they gave
from Florida to Alaska. There's a reason Bill Clinton referred to AIPAC as
"better than anyone else lobbying in this town." Life is good on AIPAC's
good side.
But another reason why APAC is so effective is its ability to punish those
who incur its wrath. In one stark example, Americans will remember what
happened in February of 2019 when journalist Glenn Greenwald reported
on Twitter that Kevin McCarthy was seeking to reprimand Representatives
Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib over their criticisms of Israel. Ilhan Omar, the
newly elected Somali American representative from Minnesota's fifth
congressional district, responded with six words: "It's all about the
Benjamins, baby." But Omar was far from finished. When asked, "Would
love to know who Ilhan Omar thinks is paying American politicians to be
pro-Israel," Omar replied with one word: "APAC."

Trump called on her to resign, and I think she should resign from Congress,
frankly. Democrat Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, House Majority Whip Jim
Clyburn, and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi published a statement
which read: "Anti-Semitism must be called out, confronted, and condemned
whenever it is encountered, without exception. We are and will always be
strong supporters of Israel in Congress because we understand that our
support is based on shared values and strategic interests. Congresswoman
Omar's use of anti-Semitic tropes and prejudicial accusations about Israel
supporters is deeply offensive. We condemn these remarks and we call upon
Congressman Omar to immediately apologize for these hurtful comments."
A statement that could very well have been written by APAC. For letter
writing is their specialty, as we'll see later. APAC's political operation is
used precisely as Representative Omar suggested, says former APAC
employee MJ Rosenberg. I know this because I witnessed it over and over
again. I sat in APAC staff meetings at which the political director discussed
whom we would be supporting in this campaign and whom we were going to
destroy in that one.

Here's the thing: APAC is not synonymous with Jews. APAC has many
weapons at its disposal in its arsenal. It's remarkable the power of a letter-
writing campaign, let alone editorials and publishing op-eds by think tank
pundits. When Gerald Ford, through his Chief Diplomat Henry Kissinger,
was trying to secure peace between Israel and Egypt, they lost their
patience. "You don't understand, I'm trying to save you," Kissinger
reportedly told Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Ford even sent Rabin a
letter which read, "I have directed an immediate reassessment of US policy
in the area, including our relations with Israel." No less than 76 Senators
signed a letter opposing the administration. As then-Senator from Maryland
Charles Mathews wrote for Foreign Affairs, "76 of us promptly affixed our
signatures, although no hearings had been held, no debate conducted, nor
had the administration been invited to present its views." One Senator was
reported to have candidly expressed a feeling that, in fact, was widespread:
"the pressure was just too great; I caved." That Senator was, in fact, Iowa's
John Culver.
Jumping ahead to 2002, 52 Senators signed a letter urging Vice President
Dick Cheney not to meet with Yasser Arafat of the PLO. In one ambitious
example, APAC mobilized thousands of pro-Israel activists to urge
lawmakers to sign a letter to the Bush Administration calling for an end to
all American contacts with members of the Palestinian Authority. Some six
thousand APAC members took part, meeting with hundreds of lawmakers,
pushing pieces of legislation mandating tougher sanctions against Iran and
ensuring financial aid to Israel. No wonder former Secretary of State
Lawrence Eagleburger once told APAC's Tom Dine, "I deal with you because
you could hurt me." Democratic Senator from South Carolina Ernest
Hollings, as he left office in 2004, said, "You can't have an Israeli policy
other than what APAC gives you around here." For not towing the line,
presidential hopeful Howard Dean failed to do so by suggesting the US take
an "evenhanded" role in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Nancy Pelosi of California
signed a letter with 33 Congressional Democrats that said it is unacceptable
for the US to be evenhanded on these fundamental issues. So control of one
of the three branches of government is totally in the hands of the Israel
lobby.

But it doesn't end there; there's also the executive branch. Again, this has
been the case for decades. For example, APAC suffered a scandal in 1992
when Heim Katz, a prospective donor, called APAC's then-president David
Steiner. But unbeknownst to Steiner, the conversation was being taped. The
transcript is revealing: Steiner said, "I have friends on the Clinton
campaign. Close associates, Gore is very committed to us. I've known Bill
for seven, eight years. I know him on a personal basis. I have friends—one
of my friends is Hillary Clinton's scheduler. One of my officer's daughters
works there. We gave two employees from APAC leave of absences to work
on the campaign. I mean, we have a dozen people in that campaign in the
headquarters." He also bragged about lavish military aid, saying, "I met
with US Secretary of State Jim Baker, and I cut a deal with him. Besides the
10 billion due in loan guarantees, which was a fabulous thing—$3 billion in
foreign military aid—and I got almost a billion dollars in other goodies that
people don't even know about." Steiner was right. Martin Indyk, co-founder
of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and former deputy director
of research at APAC, earned a seat at Clinton's National Security Council
and went on to become the US Ambassador to Israel and Assistant
Secretary of State. WINEP's other co-founder, Dennis Ross, also served
prominently as Clinton's special envoy to the Middle East. These were
Clinton's advisers for the 2000 Camp David Summit.

In the Bush Administration, that's for another video, but this trend goes
back years. Take a look at this 1987 New York Times article speaking of
APAC: "So impressive is its political mystique that now, 16 months before
the 1988 elections, nearly all the presidential candidates have already met
with APAC officials to be interviewed about their positions on the Middle
East." This is an actual example. Mr. Tom Dine said, "I won't give you the
name; one of the presidential candidates called us and said, 'I will be
publicly declaring soon, and I am interested in hiring so-and-so for a top
campaign position. Tell me what you think of them; was it thumbs up or
thumbs down?" Mr. Dine was asked, "Thumbs up?" The Israelis are more
than aware of the importance of APAC, with former Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon telling an audience, "When people ask how they can help Israel, I
tell them help APAC." Shon successor Ahud agreed, "Thank God we have
APAC, the greatest supporter and friend we have in the whole world."

So, APAC appears to have the executive branch as well, but aside from pure
government influence, what shapes narratives in the media also influences
not only policy but also everyday conversation. Much of the time, editorial
boards, executives, and CEOs are staunchly pro-Israel. The longtime editor
of the Wall Street Journal, Robert Bartley, once said, "Shamir, Chiron, BB,
whatever those guys want is pretty much fine by me," a trend that appears
to have continued after his death. Though the political affiliations of editors
and CEOs is critical in understanding coverage, a topic I explore in this
video about CNN's recent pro-Israel bias, the backlash from the lobby is
itself a potent force. After Israel invaded Al-Aqsa, Bethlehem, and most
notably Jenin in the West Bank during the second Intifada, intense public
reaction to coverage of the violence of the Middle East conflict has
prompted unusually harsh attacks on several news media outlets and has
led to boycotts of the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and The
Washington Post. WB FM in Boston said it has lost more than 1 million
dollars in underwritings and pledges this year, nearly 4% of its annual
budget. Then CNN Chief News Executive Ean Jordan said he could find up
to 6,000 email messages protesting coverage in his inbox in a single day.

In a callback to the experts' filter, as in the five filters of the mass media
laid out in the foundational media criticism text *Manufacturing Consent*,
Mimer Walt explained that instead of relying on government officials or
academics to provide analysis and commentary, news media increasingly
depend on experts from Washington-based think tanks. Many think tanks
also distribute brief and easily digested policy memorandums to legislators
and other government officials. They organize seminars, working
breakfasts, and briefings for officials and their staffs, and encourage their
own analysts to publish op-eds and other visible forms of commentary, all
with the goal of shaping the prevailing climate of ideas.

So, rather than Israel's democratic values or superior morality or their

being a David among an Arab Goliath, the real reason for the absolute and
total lack of accountability for Israel is the fact that Israel, through its
powerful lobby in the United States, has effectively wrested control of our
most important political institutions from the hands of the broader public to
a small group of right-wing ideologues whose concern is territorial
expansion and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians and hawkish policy
toward Iran, with the ambition of one day bombing it, all at the expense of
the Palestinians, the Arab world, the Muslim world, and Israel in the United
States themselves.

Indeed, Israel's hand in the invasion of Iraq hurt most of all millions of
Iraqis, but also Israel and the United States, and by alienating Arab leaders
and ultimately strengthening Iran and providing it numerous safe havens in
the Middle East. That process will be the topic of my next video. Indeed, the
Israel Lobby video is a series. Instance this year, many pro-Israel PACs are
trying to defeat incumbent Senator Chick HEC of Nevada, even though he is
Jewish, because he too did not follow the APAC line on weapon sales to the
Arabs. In recent years, APAC and the pro-Israel PACs have helped defeat,
among others, Congressman Paul Findley and Pete McCloskey, Senators
Harrison Schmidt of New Mexico, Walter Huddleston of Kentucky, and
Chuck Percy of Illinois.

I finally reached the stage where, as chairman of the Foreign Relations

Committee, I saw our foreign policy totally turned around, with a Muslim
world of 800 million people looking askance at the United States of
America. What is happening? Who is running the foreign policy? Can Israel
and the Prime Minister have more power than the entire Senate of the
United States or the president of the United States? To me, I simply said,
"Enough is enough." All together, Israel gets more than $3 billion a year in
assistance from the United States. Sometimes the votes go through without
a single debate involving billions of dollars. You couldn't spend that kind of
money in this country without a huge debate going on, but a foreign
government gets this money without debate because simply, it's just
organized to get it.