That is under threat, however. Social media and Palestinians with camera phones have exposed a global audience to systematic abuses by the Israeli army the western media largely ignored. For the first time, Israel supporters sound evasive and dissembling.
Meanwhile, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's strident efforts in the US Congress through 2014 and 2015 to prevent a nuclear accord with Iran dragged the lobby even farther out of the shadows.
The Israel lobby's dirty tricks in the UK were exposed earlier this year too. A TV documentary showed Conservative party officials colluding with the Israeli embassy to "take down" Alan Duncan, a foreign office minister who supports the Palestinian cause.
It is noteworthy that Ms Patel's downfall came about because of social media. Israeli officials like police minister Gilad Erdan were so unused to scrutiny or accountability themselves that they happily tweeted photos with Ms Patel. Mr Erdan is a key player in the lobby, running a "smear unit" to target overseas critics of Israel.
We may never know why Ms Patel so grossly flouted ministerial rules or what she quietly promised in those meetings in Israel. Colleagues have hinted that, in a pattern familiar from US politics, she hoped to win over the lobby and its wealthy donors for a future leadership bid.
There is no way to know, given the lobby's penchant for secrecy, whether Ms Patel simply proved less adept at treading a path marked out by former Conservative and Labour party leadership hopefuls.
There is growing hysteria about foreign interference in US and European politics. Is it not time for western states to show as much concern about the malign influence of Israel's lobbyists as they do about Russian hackers?
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