AIPAC is Good for the Jews

So says Walter (not a Jew) Russell (but understands us anyway) Mead. Read his whole piece, but here's a provocative outtake:

In the United States at least, lobbying for Zion turns out to be good for the Jews. The rise of AIPAC and other Jewish groups who make the case for stronger US support for Israel angers some international affairs specialists and others who think that on the whole the US-Israel relationship is bad for the United States.  There definitely are groups of people who, while doing their level best to fight the temptation (so are they all honorable men), are so angry and so frightened by what they see as the Jewish juggernaut crushing dissent and imposing suicidal Middle Eastern policies on the stupidly passive American gentile population, sometimes cross that all-important line that separates the virtuously anti-Zionist from the vilely anti-Semitic.  But out there where it really counts, in the great sea of American public opinion, Jewish support for Israel doesn't work that way.  In fact, from what I can see the (mistaken) view that Jews are more hawkish than most Americans on the subject of Israel probably works to reduce anti-Semitism in the United States.

AIPAC, in other words, is good for the Jews, regardless of whether the positions it advocates are good for either Israel or the United States from a foreign policy perspective.