A great Democratic Speaker of the House of Representatives, Speaker Tip O' Neill in his autobiography bought up the power of the Israeli lobby in Congress, it was the one issue that both Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan asked about before they become President. Both Carter and Reagan wanted to know how powerful was the Israeli lobby, in other words by a PR standard they had presence in Congress. As Speaker O' Neill stated Jewish voters wrote to him even when they agreed with him, they played an active part in all parts of the US civic structure, thus that equated with political power. Thus we come to to the frosty relationship between the Obama White House and Israel at the present, even Ronald Reagan made a threat to end the special relationship with Israel due to its actions in Lebanon, the President was right and Israel came to heel. Lets be honest you can be a friend of Israel but also make it aware when it goes well over the line. In the case of building 1,600 new homes in East Jerusalem the Israeli Government should tell Obama to get lost, its Israel after all not Chicago, and Obama cant use the race card on them as he used it on Clinton Campaign in 08. Also in an excellent article in RCP the power of the Israeli lobby in the Democratic Party could decided who runs the Congress after 2010. In other words the Israeli lobby could turn off the money stream to the Democratic Party, give it to the Republicans. Thus if Obama does not want to lose Congress in 2010 and the White House in 2012 he might want to back off his own arrogance towards Israel.
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