[SenAnder]

No. The suggestion is that there is a reason for this variance of success. The reason being that they share this agenda item with another group, explaining why they triumph here while they have only middling success elsewhere.

In your own words: We don’t really need to look for a single cause. All of these things are happening and interacting with each other. - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37446682

It's a simple concept - you understood it perfectly well when the topic was different. Why do you suddenly find it hard to grasp?

[ethanbond]

Uh huh... well I'm open to good reasons for this. All the ones that you've mentioned seem like run-of-the-mill anti-semitic conspiracy stuff: they're overrepresented in the current White House admin (an astounding 34% of a body that has unknown/unnamed/questionable impact on US policy regarding Israel), the Federal Reserve Chair has been held by Jewish folks disproportionately (relevant how?), the President's children are marrying Jewish folks (relevant how?).

Now, if you came out saying, "AIPAC is an extremely powerful lobbying group that lobbies for pro-Israel bills and foreign aid," you'd definitely get credit for that. Or "ADL is extremely proactive in 'managing speech' around Israel throughout American culture," you'd get credit for that too.

But no, "Jews are relatively overrepresented yet still clear minorities in positions which are not obviously relevant to US policy or cultural attitudes toward Israel" doesn't hold much explanatory power.

[SenAnder]

Government staff and cabinet [1] and 50% of all donations to Democrats, and 25% to Republicans [2], are not obviously relevant to US policy?

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37473807 - Despite your "clear minorities" phrasing, at 7/26 cabinet positions, Jews are the largest group, followed by gentile Whites at 6, Blacks at 5, and Latinos at 3.

[2] https://www.jpost.com/US-Elections/US-Jews-contribute-half-o...

[ethanbond]

Sure, that’s definitely relevant. It would be great if we could talk about the influence of money in US politics without veering through “the President’s kids married Jews” territory.

FWIW it’s not quite 50%/25% of donations, but a napkin math estimate of donated money. I.e. there are a few mega-donors (about 50) who are more likely than the general population to be Jewish.