Madam, - John Kelly (January 2nd) fulminates at length on the power of the Jewish lobby in the US. I fail to see what is unusual about members of an ethnic group in the US lobbying to help their cousins overseas. Every other group does the same, often demanding actions by the US which run contrary to its strategic interests. Why should Jews should any different?
Our own lobby managed to convince the Clinton administration to grant Gerry Adams a visa in the teeth of opposition from its greatest ally, the UK. Last year the small Armenian lobby got as far as the floor of the House of Representatives with a vote declaring the massacre of Armenians by the Turks in the early part of the last century to be genocide. Again, this annoyed a key Nato ally, Turkey, while the US was fighting a war next door in which Turkey's help was vital.
It is unfortunate, in view of the stereotyping of Jews over the centuries, that their lobby, and their lobby alone, is portrayed as a sinister cabal.
Furthermore, Mr Kelly might note that it isn't just Jews who lobby the US government on the conflict in Israel/Palestine. The Christian right has demanded unswerving US support for Israel and many key Christian leaders such as Falwell and Robertson have been rabidly pro-Israel. For some strange reason they don't get opprobrium heaped on them in the same way as the the way Jewish lobby does. - Yours, etc,
PAUL WILLIAMS, Kilkee, Co Clare.