The Straussian cabal goes deeper than just our foreign policy; many people accuse Leon Kass, the head of the president’s council on bioethics, to be Straussian. He has loaded the committee with people of a similar bent, and many scientists are speaking out loudly about the bias. It has recently gotten worse with the dismissal of Elizabeth Blackburn and William May, whose views contradicted Kass. They were replaced by two people who are much more closely allied with him (as well as a devout neurosurgeon).
Some of the views espoused by Kass are not Jewish in nature – specifically the sanctity of life from conception. Orthodox Jews assure me that a fetus is not considered truly alive until IIRC 40 days, and therefore stem cell harvesting, production, and research is fully warranted.
To the group of neocons that people accuse of being too pro-Israel. First, I think they brought whatever criticism on themselves, from being too insular and from self-identifying with terms like “Likudnik.” Rumsfeld has built this ring of people around him (Feith, Wolfowitz, Perle, etc.) who are of monolithic viewpoint, of closed ranks, of similar intellectual background, and are kind of arrogant and elitist. Add the “neocon” and “Likudnik” label and voila you have the makings of a seemed cabal.
But OTOH, if one takes a step back from things, the US foreign policy has not particularly helped Israel tremendously, for all of the noise made about it. Bush has maintained a hands-off policy to Israel, has not actively encouraged Israeli actions in the territories, has not laid hands on the greatests threats to Israel (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Syria). Under Bush there has only been more talk of land-for-peace and of unilateral withdrawal. Israel is in no ground better off than it was at the beginning of the intifada.
Given the amount of influence this cabal has on foreign policy – they allegedly dragged us into a war – you would think that if being pro-Israel were there first goal, they would have accomplished more to date. Israel would have had free reign to do the Likudnik wet dream of complete reoccupation of the territories. Israel could easily accomplish what the US has in Iraq – invasion, occupation, banishment of the leadership, and attempted demilitarization. Many in the Likud (and to the right) argue that the territories need to be razed to the ground and then rebuilt, like Germany after WWII. The fact that we don’t see anything close to this is maybe a hint that this “cabal” doesn’t care as much about Isarel as everybody assumes.