>Hence the lobby can have great influence (defeating Finley -- who
>incidentally probably was anti-semitic), but it would lose that
>influence were it not supported by the cultural and political power of
>the u.s. ruling class.
Exactly. There's a weird unstated assumption among the hijack crowd - "Congress is Israeli-occupied territory," etc. - that US foreign policy would be humane and decent if The Lobby hadn't bullied and tricked Washington into pursuing a flawed policy. This of a government that thought nothing of killing three million Indochinese.
Doug