The Israel Lobby: How Powerful is it Really?

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In contrast, Washington's Arab allies—still suspicious of U.S. intentions and lacking the Israeli advantages of well-trained armed forces, political stability, technological sophistication, and the ability to mobilize human and material resources—could never substitute for America's alliance with Israel. Since continued support of Israel —despite its ongoing repression of the Palestinians—has not precluded unprecedented U.S. cooperation with Egypt, Morocco, and the Persian Gulf monarchies, few policymakers have expressed concern that the U.S.-Israeli alliance will interfere with cultivating even closer strategic relationships with authoritarian Arab regimes.

In short, though counterproductive in the long-term, U.S. support for the Israeli government is rooted in the same strategic considerations that have led Washington to bolster other governments that violate international legal norms. Indeed, it strains credibility to assume that such an overwhelming bipartisan consensus of lawmakers would knowingly pursue policies they believed to be contrary to the national security interests of the United States. There is plenty of historic precedent, however, for a wide bipartisan consensus of lawmakers myopically pursuing policies which end up hurting U.S. interests. While the Israel lobby certainly contributes to this myopia through its distortions of the historical narrative and the current situation, there are plenty of other cultural, political, and related factors also at work.

As leading Israeli academic and peace activist Jeff Halper observed, “ Israel is able to pursue its occupation only because of its willingness to serve Western (mainly U.S. ) imperial interests” and has essentially become “a handmaiden of American Empire.” In other words, the Israel lobby appears powerful because Israel supports U.S. global interests. By contrast, i f Israel had a genuinely leftist government or an anti-imperialist foreign policy, the Israel lobby would not appear to be so powerful.

The Lobby's Influence on Policymakers

The Israel lobby appears more powerful than it really is because its agenda normally parallels the interests of those who really hold power in Washington. When its agenda conflicts with those interests, its weakness becomes apparent.

American presidents are hardly powerless when it comes to pressure by the Israel lobby. Evidence suggests that whenever U.S. presidents have come to the conclusion that policies advocated by the Israel lobby were not in America's best interests, the administration has generally won. During the Suez Crisis of 1956, just days before the presidential election, President Dwight Eisenhower—fearing a radical backlash in the Arab world if the United States failed to do otherwise—strongly condemned the Israeli/French/British invasion of Egypt. Threatening to end the tax-exempt status for Israeli bonds and related private contributions to Israel, Eisenhower forced the Israeli government to completely withdraw from Egyptian territory within months. Similarly, when Israeli forces invaded southern Lebanon in 1978, advancing as far north as the Litani River, President Jimmy Carter forced Israeli troops back to within a few miles of the border by threatening a suspension of some U.S. aid. In 1981, President Ronald Reagan successfully defeated a concerted effort by AIPAC to get Congress to block the proposed sale of advanced AWACS planes to Saudi Arabia. Ten years later, the senior President George Bush successfully fought off enormous pressure from AIPAC and delayed a $10 billion loan guarantee to Israel until after the Israeli election, thereby insuring the defeat of rightist Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, who had been stonewalling the peace process much to the chagrin of the Bush administration. In 2004, the current Bush administration successfully pressured Israel to renege on a deal with China to upgrade Harpy surveillance aircraft and forced the ouster of the Israeli Defense Ministry's director general, Amos Yaron. In short, the Israel lobby hardly has a “stranglehold” on U.S. Middle East policy, as professors Walt and Mearsheimer claim.

Though the U.S. bias in supporting the Israeli government and Washington's double standards regarding Israeli behavior are undeniable, such official U.S. conduct is not uniquely applicable to Israel. For example, Mearsheimer and Walt correctly observe how Washington's support for Israel despite its human rights abuses against the Palestinians “makes it look hypocritical when it presses other states to respect human rights,” but there is no mention of the equally hypocritical U.S. support for Saudi Arabia (see Time to Question the U.S. Role In Saudi Arabia), Egypt (see Bombings and Repression in Egypt Underscore Failures in U.S. Anti-Terrorism Strategy), Oman, Morocco (see Morocco and Western Sahara), and other repressive Arab regimes. Similarly, the authors are accurate in observing how “ U.S. efforts to limit nuclear proliferation appear equally hypocritical given its willingness to accept Israel's nuclear arsenal.” But is this any more hypocritical than signing a nuclear cooperation agreement with India or selling sophisticated nuclear-capable fighter-bombers to the Pakistani government in spite of those countries' nuclear arsenals? (See Bush Administration Stokes Dangerous Arms Race on Indian Subcontinent.)

The Israel lobby, like most lobbying groups, is most influential when it comes to Congress. Yet Congress only rarely plays a crucial role in the development of foreign policy and, in recent decades, foreign policy has become even more the prerogative of the executive branch. Congress generally plays a reactive role regarding foreign policy.

In any case, it is incorrect to assume that most members of Congress stridently defend the policies of the Israeli government because their careers would be at stake if they did otherwise. Indeed, the majority of the most outspoken congressional champions of the Israeli government are from some of the safest districts in the country and need no support from pro-Israel PACs or Jewish donors in order to be re-elected. For example, my congresswoman, Nancy Pelosi, routinely wins re-election with 80% of the vote and could easily stave off any challenge from the right in her very liberal district. (After more than a decade of communicating with her office on Middle East issues, I am convinced that her hard-line anti-Palestinian position is the result of her anti-Arab racism, not any fear that evenhandedness would harm her chances of re-election.)

Many of the cases frequently cited as evidence of the Israel lobby's power to defeat incumbents who challenge the extent of U.S. support for Israeli policies are not as clear-cut as their proponents make them out to be.

For example, Illinois Republican Congressman Paul Findley was indeed targeted by pro-Israel PACs in his unsuccessful re-election bid in 1982, but he was also targeted by pro-union, pro-environmentalist, pro-feminist, and pro-Democratic PACs. He represented a rural district at a time when farm prices were low and he was the nominee of the incumbent party in the White House in an off-year election. Not surprisingly, several other Republican incumbents from rural Midwestern districts, who were not targeted by pro-Israel PACs, were also defeated that year.

Similarly, when Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney was defeated in the Democratic primary for renomination in 2002, there were some pro-Israel PACs that contributed to her challenger's campaign. The bulk of her challenger's contributions, however, came from downtown Atlanta business interests and right-wing groups incensed at McKinney's outspoken opposition to the Bush administration on other issues. Georgia is one of the few states that allow crossover voting, and thousands of Republicans in her district voted in the Democratic primary that year, providing the margin for her defeat. In recapturing her seat two years later, McKinney acknowledged the diversity of interests responsible for her failed renomination in 2002. Yet, despite this, some still blame her defeat, like that of Rep. Findley, primarily on the Israel lobby.

Throughout most of the 1950s and 60s, it was widely assumed in Washington that there could never be diplomatic relations between the United States and communist China because of the supposed power of the pro-Taiwanese “ China lobby.” Those who raised the possibility of normalized relations were believed to be putting their political careers at risk. (There were even efforts undertaken to impeach Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas when he suggested recognizing the reality of the communist government in Beijing.) However, once President Richard Nixon, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, and other national security elites realized that it was in America's interest to open up to “Red China,” there was little the pro-Taiwan lobbyists could do about it. Similarly, if there ever came a time when those in power in Washington decided that a major shift in policy toward Israel was necessary, they could likely effect such a shift, how ever the Israel lobby might react.

Mearsheimer and Walt correctly note the bias in the mainstream media, particularly among leading columnists and other pundits, in its defense of Israeli government policies and U.S. support for such policies. It is unclear, however, whether this bias is any stronger than in other conflict regions or international policy issues in which the U.S. government is heavily invested. During the 1980s, for example, it was extremely rare to read or hear anything positive in the mainstream media about the Sandinista government of Nicaragua. Articles documenting that leftist regime's human rights abuses were more prominent than accounts of the far greater human rights abuses by rightist regimes in Guatemala and El Salvador. Today, negative press coverage regarding Cuba and Venezuela outweighs any negative stories regarding pro-U.S. governments with poor human rights records like Colombia and Mexico. Similarly, rarely is there serious critical analysis of the neoliberal model of globalization or the Pentagon's bloated budget, nor are there many positive news stories or opinion pieces regarding groups challenging corporate greed and militarization.

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