POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY MICHAEL BELL IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL
The American campaign-finance system keeps the Congress tied up in knots by special interests.
No special interest has a better organized and intensely systematic approach to Congress than America's apologists for Israel's excesses.
Your views as a Congressperson are tracked and tested.
If your views are considered not sufficiently in Israel's interests, your opponent receives contributions and help.
If your views are acceptable, you receive contributions and help.
It is all extremely focused, and it is all extremely effective.
Favored Congresspeople even receive goodies like deluxe vacations in Israel under the guise of studying aspects of society there.
The terrible problem is that the only power which can push Israel to a fair and decent settlement is, unfortunately, the United States.
And it is incapable of exercising its strength for good precisely because of the effects of the campaign-finance system.
Obama started by seeming determined to a fresh start. He was encouraging for those wanting to see fairness done, but The Lobby has already worn him down to an ineffectual voice on this great issue of our time.