Imagine the horror of watching someone drowning before your eyes.   Now imagine watching it in slow motion.   Repeatedly.   For years I have been watching Israel's suicidal spiral with that kind of despair.

I used to explain Israel's current situation by comparing the occupation of the West Bank to the period in American history when Andrew Jackson was president.   He was willing to violate the law of the land and there was no political will to stop him.   His famous contempt for "John  Marshall's decision" paved the way for the Trail of Tears and all the genocide that followed.  Now we learn even this fig leaf of judicial restraint is gone.   In a strange, sad Hanukkah gift to itself, the Israeli Supreme Court delivered a unanimous decision declaring extra-judicial executions are now legal.   

I have a problem with The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy by Mearsheimer and Walt.  I don't think they go far enough.  Instead of looking at the institutional frameworks for this lobby, they focus on personalities.  Identifying individuals is not enough.  This makes it impossible to understand the motivation of this lobby.  If they spent more time discussing the connections between Israeli hardliners and the US military industrial complex, I think they could spend less time trying to justify their case.  Follow that money trail and it is easy to demystify the tilt to Israel.

For a clear example of this marriage of convenience, look at the PNAC "Rebuilding America's Defenses" published shortly before Bush took office. This is the self-described "blueprint" for what became the Bush Doctrine.  The principal author was Thomas Donnelly. He is not an Israeli. He is not even Jewish.  However, he is Vice President for Strategic Development at Lockheed-Martin.