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The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy

Jill

A really interesting policy paper (pdf) evaluating the power of the pro-Israel lobby in influencing U.S. foreign policy. It’s been making some waves, and is definitely worth a read.

My thoughts: I can see why this paper is upsetting a lot of people. The authors’ choice of language unfortunately smacks a little too much of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, like the Elders of Zion or ideas that Jews control the media/banks/government/whatever else they supposedly control. However, that doesn’t make the facts that they present untrue, and they’re fairly clear in explaining that they aren’t suggesting that this is a big conspiracy — just that the pro-Israel lobby works like any other lobbying group, except it’s far more well-funded and well-organized, and not challenged in any real way.

That, though, leaves me to question exactly what the problem with the lobby itself is. Lobbying groups exist for just about everything. Some happen to function more effectively than others. Is the pro-Israel lobby “bad” simply because it happens to be better organized and better funded than just about any other lobby? Isn’t the onus on politicians and policy-makers, not lobbying groups, to resist pressures that are damaging to U.S. interests?

There are a great many lobbying groups whose goals I don’t like: the NRA, the “moral majority,” the anti-choice lobby, or big oil. But I can’t fault their existence any more than I can fault the existence of the AARP, or the AFL-CIO, or the pro-choice lobby. I can, however, fault politicians and policy-makers for folding to demands from special-interest groups. That’s how the modern American political system works. We can certainly criticize the existence of lobbying groups in general, but it seems a little ridiculous to criticize one particular lobbying group because (a) we don’t agree with everything it advocates, and (b) it’s really, really good at what it does.

I may not always love what the pro-Israel lobby pushes for, and I do think it’s problematic that there is no other group pushing back the other way or even balancing out the conversation. The authors of this paper posit that the pro-Israel lobby is simply too intimidating and too powerful for any other group to take a stand against them, lest they be labelled anti-Semitic. And I think they have a point there — questioning Israel’s policies as a nation is too often conflated with arguing that Israel’s very existance is unjustified (something that almost no one is saying), or with anti-Semitism in general. That’s problematic; it’s further troubling that we can’t even have a public conversation about it.

Israel should be treated like any other country: If they’re our ally (and they certainly are), then we should work together for our mutual interests. I don’t have a problem with sending aid to Israel, as we send aid to many other countries. But that aid should be accounted for, like it is in every other nation. And we should use our financial influence to push Israel — and all the other countries we’re invested in — to uphold human rights norms and democratic values. We should not be compromising our own interests and values for another nation.

Anyway, check out the article. It’s long, but worth a thorough reading. I’d love to hear more thoughts about it.

Thanks to Kyle for the link.

5 thoughts on The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy

  1. I think the problem with discussion in America about these issues is we have an inate sensitivity about ‘perceived’ anti-Semitism after the Holocaust. To talk about Zionism, which really is a philosophical movement, makes some people, including me, feel awkward and like I should be wearing a headscarf in Libya and denouncing capitalism.

  2. This has already received a lot of attention from conservative bloggers. Here are some of the issues:

    From the New York Sun (Yes, I know, but you don’t really expect the NY Times to print this stuff, do you?):
    “I do not regard this as a Kennedy School Research Paper, because it clearly does not meet the academic standards of a Kennedy School research paper,” Mr. Kalb, who is also the faculty chair for the Kennedy School’s Washington programs, told The New York Sun in an e-mail yesterday after reading the paper. “It is a rather sensational example of ‘realist’ journalism,” he continued. “My sense is that Dean Walt would be better advised to stick to scholarship and leave journalism to journalists, who generally check their ‘facts’ before publishing them.”

    (In fairness, Jill called this a “policy paper” not a Research Paper as Kalb does.)

    The most comprehensive response to the paper can be found here.

    Just a few examples from the paper itself:

    “AIPAC, a de facto agent for a foreign government, has a stranglehold on Congress, with the result that US policy towards Israel is not debated there, even though that policy has important consequences for the entire world.”

    “Although AIPAC has been able to use its political muscle to avoid having to register as a foreign agent for another governmet, it is especially concerned about that problem today because of the Larry Franklin spy scandal, and thus it is going to considerable lengths to emphasize its “American side.””

    Oh, and I love this quote (cited in the footnotes as if it is a bad thing for Sharon to be zealous in the pursuit of the interests of his own country):

    “As Jim Hoagland said in the wake of Yassin’s killing, “With the possible exception of Charles de Gaulle, no friendly foreign leader has complicated modern American diplomacy more consistently or gravely than Ariel Sharon. He pursues Israel’s interests with a warrior’s tenacity and directness that takes away the breath, and the options, of everyone else.””

    They also have a tendency to say one thing in the paper and then something else (often contradictory) in the footnotes. One example I found:
    From the paper: “No Israeli government has been willing to offer the Palestinians a viable state of their own.”
    From the footnote to that paragraph (footnote 40):
    “Barak himself said after Camp David that “the Palestinians were promised a continuous piece of sovereign territory except for a razor‐thin Israeli wedge running from Jerusalem through from Maale Adumim to the Jordan River,” which effectively would have been under Israel’s control.”

    This sure is an “interesting” paper.

  3. There is a public discussion of the influence of the pro-Israel lobby, and has been for a long time – it just isn’t touched by the MSM. Mainly because the edges of both the left and the right get freaky *fast*! On the left AND right you have the whole “the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are a cookbook! A COOKBOOK!” crowd, the communist-remnant left see Israel as a running dog lackey of the imperialist West preventing a pan-Arab socialist utopia, and the “When the rapture comes by blog will be delisted” crowd thinks Israel must exist so that… its destruction can herald in the Second Coming (followed by the Third – they *are* the Rapture crowd, after all).
    Heck, I sometimes question my sanity just for keeping track of it all.

  4. Much of the anti-criticism seems to take the form of “Oh, they just cant and dont want to discuss the truth of the allegations” but I think that largely misses the point.

    It’s all well and good that they allert us that “we are not peddaling a conporacy theory” and that The Lobby has no central ‘brain’ that controls it. This denial, however, is followed by 83+ pages filled with expressions like “The Lobby desires…” and “The Lobby monitors what professors write and think”.

    Terms like “wants” and “desires” are at best sloppy terms for discussing the aggregate motivations of many individual actors – at worst they seem chosen to deliberately imply the presence of a central “brain” that they deny on page 1.

    I’m sorry, but this is like a book on evolution that, in the intro, decries “Intelligent Design”, and then is filled with language like “birds evolved wings so they would be able to fly” – a common statement which actually belongs to the theory of ID rather than to the theory of evolution. Something does not add up.

  5. I can’t stand the assertion that the United States has little reason to support Israel, so the Israel lobby must be responsible for all of this support. Our government views Israel as an important foothold in the region. It’s a Western democracy that is, and always will be, allied with the United States.

    I would like to see our country pursue a more level-headed foreign policy with the Middle East, with less meddling and more cooperation. We would still support Israel, but also use diplomatic means to finally get the Palestinians a homeland. However, as long as there’s still oil flowing out of that region, I don’t see any of that happening. Ultimately, it’s Exxon and Chevron that are responsible for American support of Israel, not AIPAC.

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