Discard the mythology of 'the Israel Lobby', the reality is bad enough

They are not all-powerful, but Israel's advocates in the US do play hardball - often hurting the cause they are meant to serve.

Now they have their Joan of Arc. Those who have long claimed that the sinister, shadowy forces of "the Israel Lobby" pull the strings of US foreign policy at last have a martyr. Last week Charles Freeman, a former diplomat, said he would not take the job he had been offered, chairing the US National Intelligence Council: he had, he said, been the victim of a campaign of "character assassination" conducted by an "Israel Lobby [willing to] plumb the depths of dishonour and indecency". In a furious statement, he declared that the "aim of this Lobby is control of the policy process".

Those who in 2006 lapped up the thesis argued by the US academics John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, attributing to the mighty lobby the power to divert the US from its own interests, seized on Freeman's fall as decisive proof. Walt himself declared: "For all of you out there who may have questioned whether there was a powerful 'Israel lobby'," he blogged, "think again."

Read further the article written by Jonathan Freedland here.