Discussion of the Israeli lobby and its influence in Washington tends to center on AIPAC, the largest Israel-centered lobbying group currently operating in the US. The oldest continually operating such lobby group, however, the Zionist Organization of America, was for decades one of the most powerful lobbying organizations in the country, helping to shape American policy toward the formation of Israel. Its members have been connected to illegal Israeli smuggling rings of both conventional and nuclear weapons technologies. And it is currently embroiled with the American government in a fight over its tax-exempt status. What is once again interesting to note is that groups like the ZOA and AIPAC are�like the Royal Institute of International Affairs and its branch organizations which we examined last week on this program�not secretive, cabals of shadowy figures meeting in darkened rooms, but openly public organizations with a readily documentable history of flouting laws and harboring criminal elements.
