The New York Times just ran an article in which an Israeli documentary filmmaker asserts that “Evangelicals are the only significant power outside Israel that is openly supporting the settlements. No one else does.” This is simply not true, and reporter David Halbfinger was a witness to it in the powers of Trump aides David Friedman and Jared Kushner.
The American Jewish Committee decided that it must support Israel over President Bush in 1991 over settlements, even though many of its officials privately supported Bush, because the AJC had a “primary responsibility” to back the “collective will” of the Jewish people, which Israel represents, Steve Bayme, an AJC official says in a Zoom webinar.
Liberal Zionists have set out rules for how to criticize the Israel lobby without offending them. They are trying to obscure a 70 year pattern of Zionists influencing U.S. policy, from the recognition of Israel’s establishment by Truman, who depended on Zionist donors, to Trump trashing the Iran deal in deference to Sheldon Adelson.
In 1991 the late George H.W. Bush took on Israel and its lobby over settlement construction, famously saying “I’m one lonely little guy” against 1000 lobbyists. Some say the stance made him a one-term president, and paved the way for his son to out-Israel his father, with disastrous results.