AIPAC

Suddenly I'm getting emails from Democratic lawmakers warning of possible cuts to Israel's big foreign aid allotment when the new Congress takes over in January – but I'm not sure I buy it.

Now the Jerusalem Post is reporting that “Democrats are blasting the prospect that a GOP-led House of Representatives might trim aid to Israel or consider it separately from the rest of the foreign aid budget,” citing as evidence comments by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen – the incoming Foreign Affairs chair – that it's not inconceivable the House GOP leadership could impose across-the-board aid cuts that would not exempt Israel.

 In the interests of honest reporting, I have to tell you: my blog headlined “big fight over non-binding resolution on Palestinian unilateralism” was misleading.

Girls know what boys like (the great song by The Waitresses about being shomrei negiya).

This week the House of Representatives passed a resolution opposing any unilateral Palestinian move toward statehood after a few days of fierce lobbying by both opponents and supporters.

I bet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is really worried and will change his plans immediately.

Politico's Ben Smith has an interesting item this morning on efforts by two Jewish senators – Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) – to get AIPAC to endorse renewal of the START treaty.

A few readers took me to task for downplaying the threat to AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobbying giant, posed by the surprisingly lurid legal drama centering on the defamation suit by Steve Rosen, the former AIPAC honcho fired after his arrest in 2005.

Well, it's lurid enough, but I can't exactly see how this week's revelations that a former high-ranking AIPAC official looked at pornography on his office computer and that some of his colleagues may have done the same will make much of a difference in the big pro-Israel lobby group's political muscle.