ich some two hundred thousand American troops are now arrayed in the Saudi desert.
Because the Israel lobby is so influential in the shaping of U.S. policy in the Middle East, we cannot fully discuss the problem of defining U.S. national interests in the Middle East without considering those interest as seen through the Israeli lobby's mirror their perception, which is ultimately the Israeli perception, of Israel's own national interests in the Middle East. Only when the forces shaping Israeli perceptions have been analysed, and a framework for Israeli interests in the Middle East established, can we fully solve the problem of U.S. interests in the Middle East. The influence of the Israel lobby, after all, is not going to disappear from American public life. Even if a stronger Arab American lobby were to emerge as a balancing influence, Israeli national security concerns would remain a major factor shaping U.S. policy towards the Middle East. We must therefore turn in part from the U.S. to Israel itself, to examine the nature of Israel's own national interests in the Middle East, and how the perception of those interests is formulated and transmitted to the American Israel lobby.
For the Israel lobby is, potentially, a two way channel. If an American national interest and U.S. policy in the Middle East were to be formulated in terms which included a lasting peaceful solution to the Israel/Palestine dilemma, the "special relationship" between the U.S. and Israel might be the means by which a peace plan could be transmitted to Israel. For all the shortcomings of Camp David, it demonstrated the central role which the U.S. is uniquely suited to play in bringing Israel into a peace process.
It is worth repeating here that the influence of the Israel lobby is neither unique not the result of a sinister conspiracy, but a natural consequence of America's multi ethnic background and pluralistic political sy...