Obama’s pressure has finally broken a leading Israel lobbyist: Tom Friedman in the Times today. Note the frank references to the Israel lobby and its influence in the Bush administration. Not long ago Friedman dismissed this sort of talk as "conspiracy theory" in the Arab world. Soon he’ll be quoting Walt and Mearsheimer. About time. Take it away, Tom:

For years, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the pro-Israel lobby, rather than urging Israel to halt this corrosive process, used their influence to mindlessly protect Israel from U.S. pressure on this issue and to dissuade American officials and diplomats from speaking out against settlements. Everyone in Washington knows this, and a lot of people — people who care about Israel — are sick of it… Bottom line: Israelis need to understand this is not the Bush administration anymore, where they had the run of the White House; they have a real problem with America on settlements.

How long before Friedman does a column explaining what he told Ari Shavit in Haaretz, that if you had kidnaped 25 neoconservatives within a mile of his D.C. office before the Iraq war, the war wouldn’t have happened? A statement of the Israel lobby’s influence.