First, this debate (for the most part) illustrates what we wanted when we started PostGlobal two years ago--which was to create a global online forum for discussion of issues that people care about, the more diverse the viewpoints, the better. And I think we have had good passionate debate here--from Saul Singer and Yossi Melman in Israel, from a pro-Israel Kin-Ming Liu in Hong Kong, from Daoud Kuttab, Lamis Andoni and Vivian Salama speaking from the Arab world. The posts reflect sharp differences--no surprise there--but in a way that I hope will make people think.

So what's my own take on the "Israel Lobby" question? For starters, I am not a great fan of lobbies in general. I think they tend to skew policies in the direction of interest groups that can mount effective and well-financed lobbying campaigns. I see that with the gun lobby, the anti-abortion lobby, the Armenian lobby (I'm an Armenian-American, by the way), and the lobby for corporate tax breaks. But these lobbies are a part of American democracy, circa 2007. You could no more ban them than restrict other forms of speech.

I worry whenever lobbies restrict the range of debate on an issue. Their power can become intimidating. We don't have a real debate about gun control, for example, because the power of the National Rifle Association is so great. And I worry sometimes that the U.S. debate about Middle East policy is too narrow--not necessarily because of direct pressure from AIPAC, but because of self-censorship. There is, as is often noted, a wider debate about Middle East policy within Israel than in the United States.

That wide-open debate is part of what I like so much about Israel. It's a passionate democracy. An example was my interview published last Sunday with Efraim Halevy, former director of Mossad, in which he called for talks with Iran and Syria. That's hardly evidence of the sort of lockstep thinking that critics of the Israel Lobby caution against. So I hope the "Israel Lobby," in the broadest sense--a lobby that includes a Halevy, as well as a Netanyahu--will encourage a searching debate about future policies in the Middle East. America needs it; Israel needs it; the world needs it.