Who's not intimidated?

• Author: Peters, Charles
• Position: TILTING at windmills - Analysis of Chuck Hagel and Lindsay Graham's conversation about the Israeli lobby - Brief article

The Washington Post captured what seems to have been the general reaction to Chuck Hagel's testimony at his confirmation hearing in this excerpt: "Hagel struggled when Lindsay Graham asked him to expound on his past assertion that the Israeli lobby 'intimidates a lot of people' and challenged him to point to a single senator who had been intimidated. 'Now, name one, name one,' Graham said, eliciting a meek response from Hagel who said, 'I do not know.'"

What could Hagel have said in response? Should he have singled out one senator when it was true of the majority? Most members of Congress, definitely including Lindsay Graham, and indeed most presidents in my memory, have been keenly aware of the power of groups like AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

As long ago as 1980, in the first edition of How Washington Really Works, I told of the reaction to Senator Charles Percy's modest criticism of Israel, as described in a memo to him by a...