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If you asked most Americans who follow politics for the reason the president's health care reform bill hasn't passed, you'd probably get a few different answers. Scott Brown's election to Ted Kennedy's old Senate seat; public resistance to the bill; opposition from the existing health sector's major players, just to name a few.

But if you listened to N.Y. Times columnist Roger Cohen on Feb. 9 at a debate at New York University's Skirball Center, you would know that all those answers are wrong.

"President Obama, I understand, has been told by some Jewish congressmen, if you want your health bill, step back on Israel," Cohen confidently declared.

The debate was organized by Intelligence Squared, and pitted Cohen and Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi against Stuart Eizenstat, who has held undersecretary positions in several U.S. administrations, and Itamar Rabinovich, former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. and peace negotiator. The debate's motion was: The U.S. should step back from its special relationship with Israel.

Khalidi and Cohen were arguing for the motion. They won the debate, by convincing more of the audience to switch their initial vote to their side.

Cohen's remark that Jewish congressmen threatened to derail Obama's health care initiative unless he put less pressure on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's government is a classic example of the conspiratorial hypocrisy of those who want the U.S. to get tough with Israel.

Cohen believes that Jews have so much power that they can -- and do -- hold hostage a U.S. president's domestic agenda until Israel gets what it wants. It's hypocritical because it presupposes that the U.S. can and should exercise command over Israel's domestic agenda while assuming that Israel is doing the same to the U.S.

Good thing I minored in psychology; that's a classic case of general projection.

It's not surprising to hear someone talk this way, but we have to give Cohen credit: Most such Zionism-obsessed conspiracy theorists (paging Stephen Walt) hide behind their blogs instead of admitting such things in public. Cohen even believes this is a winning point. (And maybe he was right; his team did win the debate.)

Eizenstat seized the moment when he was asked to respond immediately following Cohen's Protocols of the Elders of Zion-style revelation. Here is the following exchange among the four presenters:

Eizenstat: "I was wondering how long it would take and who would raise the issue of 'Untoward Jewish influence over U.S. formed policies.' I am glad you finally... came to it."

Cohen: "I didn't say untoward."

Eizenstat: "Now let me just say I have served in three administrations. I didn't say all -- this is a dangerous canard that 2 percent of the U.S. population has somehow got its hand around the neck of American foreign policy. American foreign policy towards Israel is supported by a bipartisan majority because the American public recognizes that Israel and the United States share common interests and common values.

"And those are always counter-balanced by oil interests, by corporate interests that have a major defense interest, major business interest -- that's the way policy is made in the United States, is just a clash of interests. But the notion that 2 percent of the U.S. population is driving a policy against what the public thinks is simply belied by every survey that's been made."

Cohen: "Nobody said that."

Rabinovich: "Maybe you should elect a president from Alaska where there are no Jews."

Khalidi: "You would like that."

Cohen and Khalidi were arguing that America's policy toward Israel has been a failure, because, in Cohen's words, "we are no closer to any kind of peace." Though this statement was easily debunked during the debate, Cohen had his own evidence.

"What I observe there on my visits to the West Bank amounts to a kind of primer in colonialism," Cohen said. "Imagine, Israelis in their fast cars, Blackberry-ing away, booming down these super highways, while Palestinians on their donkey carts make their way on dirt tracks, if they can get there, to their orchards."

Got that? Arabs are riding donkeys, so Israel's bid for America's failure has been a success. Or something like that.

The debate was chockfull of such golden nuggets, but Eizenstat actually divulged something important late in the debate.

"I sat with Yasser Arafat in his office in Ramallah three weeks before Camp David was supposed to start with President Clinton and Prime Minister Barak," Eizenstat recounted. "He said to me, 'Tell President Clinton not to invite me; I'm not ready to go and to negotiate'."

Arafat was telling Eizenstat that he wasn't ready to say yes to any deal with Israel, no matter what was offered, because he was sure he'd be assassinated if he did. Camp David was therefore an exercise in futility, which failure resulted in the Arafat-launched Intifada.

If Cohen is worried about Palestinians and their donkey carts and looking for someone to blame, perhaps this is where he should turn, instead of "Jewish congressmen."

Seth Mandel is the managing editor of The Jewish State.