One of the Jewish community's least welcome books since Henry Ford's "The International Jew" in the 1920s may be "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy," by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, which arrived in bookstores on September 4. A second book, published the same day, is Anti-Defamation League chief Abraham Foxman's, "The Deadliest Lies: The Israel Lobby and the Myth of Jewish Control," a rebuttal to Mearsheimer-Walt.

If you consider the Mearsheimer-Walt's screed as akin to "blood libel," you have every right. It's the tired old anti-Semitic charge that Jews, in underhanded and secretive ways linked to their supposed great wealth, control the American government and pull the strings in the White House and Congress, all for the benefit of Israel.

Amazing how these charges of Jewish control and duplicity always gain currency during or after a bad war. Hitler made similar charges against Jews after the German defeat in WWI. And, make no mistake, these slanders can be devastating to the Jewish community. Claiming that Jews practice dual loyalty and use their economic power conspiratorially is not only wrong-headed but is completely anti-Semitic.

Two reasons why you should not dismiss the M-W book (let's abbreviate it) as a blip in the firmament, a book like all other books, soon to be a non-seller that people will forget.

First, M-W have launched a very impressive speaking campaign, including engagements at major universities. Surely, as the book becomes a numerical best seller, we will see them offering their anti-Jewish notions on television. In the first ten days, the M-W book is 44 in the Amazon book sale ranking, the Foxman book at 6,811. Round one to M-W.

The two authors, Mearsheimer and Walt, hold impressive positions at prestigious universities and present their case calmly and sound reasonable. It is what they say that is abominable. And incredibly, they smile as they proclaim their thesis that ending the so-called Jewish control of Washington is "in the long-term best interest of Israel." This patronizing foolish statement makes me want to revert to my Revere roots and punch 'em out.

No doubt publishing the Foxman book on the same day as M-W was designed to promote a one-on-two shootout between the two books' authors. The Jewish holidays has reduced Foxman's public appearances.Maybe the battle will begin later, although I hate to see additional publicity resulting in increased sales of the M-W book.

Second, the M-W book is but one book of many about the so-called American-Jewish-Israeli conspiracy. Another, as you know, is Jimmy Carter's heavily publicized "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid" (2006).

Other books by professors and politicians with the same themes but more bombastically stated and over-reaching have emerged in the past two years. I don't intend to give additional publicity by naming them at this time. But anyone visiting the Amazon website to check the M-W book gets advertising for these other books.

These professors and political writers go beyond Carter and M-W, ascribing every problem in the world, the 9/11 terror attack, the war in Iraq, the coming war (so they say) in Iran, and even the American housing and economic crisis to the Jewish conspiracy. Lies, "facts" that aren't facts at all, by professors from good universities, not the usual diatribes by Swastika-adorned hate mongers like David Duke and his mumserim. Bad news.

These books travel under the radar, absent from the pages of Jewish newspapers or from the websites of Jewish defense organizations.

All of this poses difficult questions. What do these books really mean? Do they really impact the general community and/or the Jewish community? What are possible community responses? To what extent is time, plus basic American decency, on the side of truth and rationality, and against the falsehoods of these outrageous Jewish conspiracy theories?