One of the predictable things about anti-Semites is they usually don't know what they're talking about.

Rep. Jim Moran is a good example. Many have accused the quick-tempered Virginia Democrat, who persistently blames the pro-Israel lobby for pushing this nation into the Iraq war, of being an anti-Semite. I won't argue with them, but when he says the Jews control the media and the lobby can destroy the political careers of its critics, I can't understand why he's still in Congress.

Where did we go wrong?

But for all of Moran's recurring wrong-headedness and apparent bigotry — he insists he's no anti-Semite because his daughter converted to Judaism and he has a Jewish grandchild — his attacks point to some legitimate questions: How did the pro-Israel lobby become as powerful as it is? And who does it represent and what are the limits of that power?

He claims the American Israel Public Affairs Committee "has pushed [the Iraq] war from the beginning." He offers no supporting evidence, and a number of his Democratic colleagues, who would have been the first to know, said no such thing happened.

He's closer to the truth when he suggests the lobby is honing in on Iran. AIPAC and other major pro-Israel groups are not explicitly pushing the war option, but their depiction of Iran as the virtual reincarnation of the Nazis hardly bolsters the case for diplomacy.

Moran said AIPAC "doesn't represent the mainstream Jewish community," and that the group has aligned itself with the Bush administration.

He's got a point there. The organization has been an enthusiastic cheerleader for the Bush administration — even taking positions the group's leadership long opposed, notably support for Palestinian statehood. Had Bill Clinton given in 1998 the same speech George W. Bush did in June 2002 endorsing Palestinian statehood — and repeated this week — AIPAC leaders might have vilified Clinton as an enemy of the Jewish people.

AIPAC maintains its standing as the pro-Israel lobby because groups on the far right like the Zionist Organization of America, sounding more anti-Arab than pro-Israel, make it look moderate — and because of the lack of serious, coherent opposition from the center and left.

Polls consistently show the Jewish community is more supportive of the peace process than AIPAC has been. The group's leadership has been dominated by small cadres of wealthy Republican activists who gladly define the administration's laissez-faire approach to peacemaking as "pro-Israel."

What are the real secrets of the lobby's power?

AIPAC touts itself as influential and powerful, but in reality it is a flea alongside the elephantine gun, oil, defense, bank, automobile, and labor lobbies.

So why does this flea appear to some to be an elephant?

For starters it's Jewish. You needn't be paranoid to know there's an obsession in Washington with Jewish power. The Wall Street Journal for years ran a regular examination of Jewish political giving after every election; no other ethnic or interest group got such attention.

Another reason is the competition — actually, the lack of any real competition — within the Jewish community or from Arab Americans.

Other ethnic lobbies, largely ignored by the critics of the pro-Israel lobby, are active in Washington — usually with an emphasis on hurting their various enemies. That includes Greeks, Turks, Armenians, Indians, Pakistanis, Arabs, and Cubans. The latter has had the most dramatic impact on U.S. foreign policy for many decades.

There is a pro-Israel lobby and an anti-Israel lobby, but no real pro-Arab lobby.

Arab Americans are as numerous and as affluent as American Jews, but few are interested in making Hamas, Hizbullah, the PLO, or the Islamists the centerpiece of the citizen political action. It is hard to defend suicide bombers or Kassam rockets fired into Israeli towns.

Within the Jewish community, the loudest voices are on the far right and are negative. On the left, the peace camp, lacking an Arab peace partner and unable to agree on unified positions, may be much bigger, but its voice in Washington is muffled.

Money is another factor. AIPAC, a lobby and not a political action committee, is prohibited from giving campaign money or directing how it is given. Nevertheless, it has enormous influence over the PACs, many of which look to it for direction in their campaign giving, and many of whose leaders sit on the AIPAC board.

The secret of the lobby's success is fear, said a veteran Hill staffer whose boss had been on the receiving end of pressure from the lobby. "They threaten to report you to your constituents and contributors — and if that doesn't work, they'll help your opponents," he said.

That may gall Moran and others — but it's old-fashioned hardball politics, the same as that practiced by countless other interest groups and completely kosher. Want to see real retaliation? Watch what happens to pro-gun-control politicians in most parts of the country.

Fear works the other way as well. Notwithstanding the lobby's fearsome reputation, it has failed to block or even seriously challenge any arms sales to Israel's enemies for more than 20 years. The reason: the fear by AIPAC leaders that they might lose access at the Pentagon and offend the administration.

Mainstream Jewish organizations defer to AIPAC, even when they disagree, because they fear being labeled soft on Israel.

One other reason for its success is that the lobby sells fear; it is easier to rally people around the fear of terrorism and Iranian nuclear weapons than around hope for peace. When it comes to raising money, nothing succeeds like tzuris.

Moran, Stephen Walt, and John Mearsheimer include elements of truth in their critiques of the pro-Israel lobby — but they fatally damage their own credibility with reckless, inaccurate charges about the war in Iraq and persistent inaccuracies that suggest motives other than scholarship and the national interest.