One of the important, even historic, changes taking place in the United States these days is the slow but steady erosion of the once absolute taboo to speak about the excessive influence of pro-Israeli groups in the United States. Pro-Israeli forces in politics and the mass media can still destroy a public career, especially for a politician, but the stranglehold on discussing this phenomenon is slowly loosening.

I witnessed one example of this earlier this week when I participated in the second annual symposium on Gaza, jointly organized by and hosted at two outstanding universities, Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Equally noteworthy was that it was sponsored by mainstream units at the universities, including MIT's Center for International Studies and the Program on Human Rights and Justice, and Harvard's Middle East Initiative at the Kennedy School, the Center for Middle East Studies, and the Human Rights Program at the Harvard Law School.<…