Did you know that…

That one of the most powerful lobbying groups in America is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)?

That it does not make contributions to election campaigns, but maintains on its Web site details of how every member of Congress voted on “AIPAC” issues and publishes a brochure on candidates who complied—or did not--that is scrutinized, according to the “Washington Post,” by thousands of potential campaign donors?

Since 1990, pro-Israeli interests have contributed $57 million to federal political candidates?

AIPAC lobbying for foreign aid from America to Israel procures about $3 billion a year, so that Israel in total has gotten more foreign aid since World War II than any other recipient (about $108 billion)?

That in 1992, AIPAC president David Steiner was forced to resign because he was taped boasting that he “met with [then Bush Secretary of State] Jim Baker and I cut a deal with him. I got, besides the $3 billion, you know they're looking for the Jewish votes, and I'll tell him whatever he wants to hear ... Besides the $10 billion in loan guarantees which was a fabulous thing, $3 billion in foreign, in military aid, and I got almost a billion dollars in other goodies that people don't even know about...”?

That in the same taped conversation, Steiner said he was "negotiating" with the incoming Clinton administration its choice of a Secretary of State and a head of the National Security Agency, and that AIPAC had placed "a dozen people in [the Clinton] campaign, in the headquarters... in Little Rock, and they're all going to get big jobs..."?

That in 2005, an AIPAC policy director, Steven Rosen, and an AIPAC senior Iran analyst, Keither Weissman, were fired by AIPAC because the FBI was investigating whether or not they passed classified U.S. information to the government of Israel?

That they were indicted, AIPAC agreed to pay the legal fees for Weissman's defense through appeal, if necessary, but charges were subsequently dropped?

That the same year the Justice Department arrested Lawrence Anthony Franklin, a U.S. Air Force Reserves colonel working in the Pentagon , and charged him with providing classified national defense information to Israel, at which point he described a luncheon meeting where he passed government secrets to AIPAC’s Rosen and Weissman, and was sentenced to 13 years in prison—but all charges against the two former AIPAC employees were dropped in 2009?

Approximately two-thirds of members of Congress attended AIPAC's 2011 policy conference and so did President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Reid, and Speaker of the House Boehner—and that attendance at the council by federal officials is second only to the State of the Union address?

That in a working paper, and then a book, University of Chicago Professor John Mearsheimer and Harvard University Kennedy School of Government Professor Stephen Walt wrote that: “AIPAC's success is due to its ability to reward legislators and congressional candidates who support its agenda, and to punish those who challenge it. ... AIPAC makes sure that its friends get strong financial support from the myriad pro-Israel [political action committees]. Those seen as hostile to Israel, on the other hand, can be sure that AIPAC will direct campaign contributions to their political opponents. ...

And continued: “The bottom line is that AIPAC, which is a de facto agent for a foreign government, has a stranglehold on the U.S. Congress. Open debate about U.S. policy towards Israel does not occur there, even though that policy has important consequences for the entire world.”

That when an essay based on the paper appeared, with all scholarly references, in the “London Review of Books,” the two scholars—one of whom holds a chair at the Kennedy School at Harvard and is academic dean, there—were labeled by prominent scholars and writers as “Crackpot” (Martin Peretz), “could have been written by the less intelligent members of Hamas” (Alan Dershowitz), “as scholarly as…McCarthy…and just as nutty” (Max Boot), “puts The Protocols of the Elders of Zion to shame (Josef Joffe), “dishonest so-called intellectuals…entitled to their stupidity” (NY Rep. Eliot Engel)…

That when the U.S. and European allies, plus the U.N. Atomic Energy Agency, reached an agreement with Iran to curtail its work on enrichment of uranium (-feared by Israel and many others to be preparatory to creating a nuclear weapon)-- and to open its scientific and technological facilities to international inspection—in exchange for lifting stringent economic embargoes on Iran—AIPAC immediately lobbied in Congress for legislation (Menendez-Kirk bill) that would continue and strengthen the sanctions against Iran—and kill the proposed agreement?

That AIPAC had prepared a massive campaign by members to lobby Senate and House members for the bill but suffered one of its very rare defeats when President Obama said in his State of the Union that the bill was not in “our national interests” and its Democratic supporters abandoned it?

That former and current members of the House and Senate have argued that AIPAC must be designated a lobby for a foreign government, so it can continue all its education and advocacy, but cannot directly or indirectly intervene in U.S. political campaigns?