THE MIDDLE EAST: The lobby's focus over the years has been to prevent the US from staying Israel's hand, writes Patrick Smyth, Washington Correspondent
If Israel's army is the stuff that military legends are made of, its political lobby in the US also puts rivals in the shade, with money, manpower, and the sort of lobbying techniques that only the likes of tobacco and the gun lobby can emulate.
Its motto might be "my country right or wrong". Its focus over the years has been to campaign, overwhelmingly successfully, to prevent the US from staying Israel's hand.
That "hands off Israel" approach, however, is significantly more hawkish than the views held by the US Jewish community who, even after September 11th, back both the Oslo land-for-peace deal and US mediation between Israel and the Palestinians by three to one, according to a recent poll. And then, there's the not insignificant matter of money - Israel, despite its prosperity, is the US's largest recipient of foreign aid - $3 billion a year. The lobby makes sure no politician dares touch it.
Two groups - the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), regarded as the most effective foreign-policy lobby in Washington, and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organisations (CPMAJO) - divide up the work.
AIPAC, which has an annual budget of $19.5 million, a staff of 130, and 60,000 members throughout the country, concentrates its firepower on Congress.
And, headed by the hawkish Mr Malcolm Hoenlein, a strong ally of the controversial settler movement, and consisting of the heads of 51 Jewish organisations, the Presidents' Conference is meant to reflect the broad spectrum of opinion among America's 6.1 million Jews. But with each organisation, large or small, entitled to one vote, it is easily dominated by its more extreme elements, many of them opposed to the peace process. Though it has a staff of only six and an annual budget of less than a million dollars, Mr Hoenlein, who focuses his energies on the administration, finds a ready ear in both the White House and the State Department.
He dismisses complaints within the US Jewish community that he is closer to the Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, than the more dovish Labour Party.
"People have said we're too close to Rabin, to Barak, to Sharon, to Bibi. But we have to be in the centre," he insists. "I was and am close to Al Gore and the Clintons, but I've formed a real relation with George Bush, too." But Rabbi Eric Yoffie, the president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations and a prominent dove, maintains that the conference "has been much more outspoken and forceful in supporting governments of the right than those of the left".
Mr Hoenlein's sway has been reinforced by the stream of deeply conservative chairmen the organisation has elected over the years.
That is also true of the leadership of AIPAC with which the conference works closely, and whose wealthy board members mostly have political views well to the right of their members.
It is the ability of this group to raise cash for politicians that ensures they are listened to - contributing substantially is a qualification for office in AIPAC. Between 1997 and 2001, the 46 members of AIPAC's board together gave well in excess of $3 million to politicians.
The Centre for Responsive Politics estimates that the pro-Israeli lobby contributed as much as $6.5 million to candidates in the 2000 election cycle. While the Democrats got two thirds of that, many of the bigger spenders were staunch Republicans.
And although the first Jewish candidate for the vice-presidency, Mr Joe Lieberman, picked up $231,000 of that, Mr Bush netted some $131,000.
"In all, hundreds of members on both sides of the aisle receive substantial pro-Israel contributions. This giving packs all the more punch because of the lack of a counterweight by pro-Arab and pro-Muslim groups," writer Michael Massing argued recently in Prospect.
Most of the time AIPAC works to ensure there is no daylight between the two governments, but sometimes it has even defied Tel Aviv to push more hawkish stances.