Originally posted by: Craig234
JediYoda, the incivility of your post has cost you any direct reply. Don't consider another word a reply to you, and I'm not interested any further in any comments you have.
On the topic of the fear of most politicians in general, however, to criticize Israel, we can cite some excertps from the Wiki entry.
Of course, there aren't comments on Congressmemebres' blogs saying "let me share my fear of criticizing Israel" to cite.
But let's start with the media - it's interesting that in a 'news' story about the public figure's criticism of the excessive power of the Israel lobby to dominate the message, the story takes on a tone to discredit the public official. It implies he's some sort of nut - not in an editorial but in a news story, ironically providing evidence the public figure was correct.
American journalist Michael Massing argues that there is a lack of media coverage on the Israel lobby and posits this explanation: "Why the blackout? For one thing, reporting on these groups is not easy. AIPAC's power makes potential sources reluctant to discuss the organization on the record, and employees who leave it usually sign pledges of silence. AIPAC officials themselves rarely give interviews, and the organization even resists divulging its board of directors."[30] Massing writes that in addition to AIPAC's efforts to maintain a low profile, "journalists, meanwhile, are often loath to write about the influence of organized Jewry. [...] In the end, though, the main obstacle to covering these groups is fear."
But let's let the former AIPAC director say something on the matter:
According to Morris Amitay, former AIPAC director ?It?s almost politically suicidal?for a member of Congress who wants to seek reelection to take any stand that might be interpreted as anti-policy of the conservative Israeli government.?[41] Michael Massing reports that a staffer sympathetic to Israel told him ?We can count on well over half the House ? 250 to 300 members ? to do reflexively whatever AIPAC wants.?[42] AIPAC official Steven Rosen in an illustration of AIPAC?s power to journalist Jeffery Goldberg put a napkin in front of him and said, ?In twenty-four hours, we could have the signatures of seventy senators on this napkin.?
Now, having pretty clearly provided some statements supporting the claim - I'll moderate it.
The following is not an unreasonable summary::
Michael Lind produced a cover piece on the Israel lobby for the UK publication Prospect in 2002 which concluded "The truth about America?s Israel lobby is this: it is not all-powerful, but it is still far too powerful for the good of the U.S. and its alliances in the Middle East and elsewhere."
It may seem funny how these quotes so exactly match what I'd written, but I'd never seen them when I wrote my post.
Is Noam Chomsky a 'credible source' on the topic? Ah, too bad, since he's expressing a 'moderate' view.
Noam Chomsky, political activist and professor of linguistics at MIT, writes that "there are far more powerful interests that have a stake in what happens in the Persian Gulf region than does AIPAC [or the Lobby generally], such as the oil companies, the arms industry and other special interests whose lobbying influence and campaign contributions far surpass that of the much-vaunted Zionist lobby and its allied donors to congressional races."[50]
Eric Alterman writes in The Nation, that "while it's fair to call AIPAC obnoxious and even anti-democratic, the same can often be said about, say, the NRA, Big Pharma and other powerful lobbies."[51] Zbigniew Brzezinski agreed stating that "[t]he participation of ethnic or foreign supported lobbies in the American policy process is nothing new." Brzezinski ranks the three most effective ethnic lobbies in the United States as the Israeli American Lobby, the Cuban American lobby and the Armenian American lobby.[52]
The excellent Glenn Greenwald again adds a lot to the topic, with his post linking the issue with the problem of excessive anonymity for sources by journalists:
Glenn Greenwald
So, I think the quotes above provide a somewhat fair summary of the situation.