...The problem is particularly tough for hard core realists who believe that the behavior of every state is determined by the nature of the international system. For these thinkers, domestic politics don't matter; states do what they must. States are like billiard balls; they move when struck. It doesn't matter what the billiard ball thinks; it rolls where it's pushed.

So what about the red, white and blue ball on the pool table that keeps cozying the blue and white ball with the Star of David no matter where you push it? Why does it behave so strangely?

The scholars seek a theoretical explanation which can accommodate this peculiar case, but they are looking for a small explanation -- one that reaffirms the general theory of billiard ball realism even as it explains the exceptional case of the United States.

The simplest, most elegant answer to this problem to say that the Israel lobby is different from all other lobbies. It is the one and only exception to the rule that domestic politics don't matter: The Jews are so rich, so focused and so good at what they do that they have built a lobby that is unique in the world.

There are only two problems with this approach. The first is that the idea of a uniquely powerful Jewish lobby is catnip for anti-Semites. As I've repeatedly said, you don't need to be an anti-Semite to hold this view, but this idea (that the Jews have a wealthy, well connected and ruthless power lobby that is like no other and that this cabal manipulates the political system the way that a puppeteer dangles marionettes) draws angry loners and anti-Semites like ants to a jelly jar.

Hint to the youth: Anytime a young intellectual is trapped in a nasty spot like this, squatting in a foxhole with anti-Semites and assorted tinfoil hatters, your first thought should be, "Where did I go wrong?"

The quest for truth leads us all on some strange journeys, but the 'discovery' that a Jewish conspiracy explains some otherwise inexplicable historical development is one of the great dead ends of all times. It provides a faux eureka moment, the illusion of earthshaking discovery just as you fall into the pit. August Bebel called anti-Semitism the 'socialism of fools'; he could have gone further. It's the economics of fools, the sociology of fools, the theology of fools, the history of fools and, sadly, the geopolitics of fools as well...