Is the group actually steering US politics and foreign policy in a direction it wouldn't go on its own? The two eminent international relations scholars argued that there's no way to explain the US-Israel relationship, from an IR perspective, other than as AIPAC and its allies pushing the US to act counter to its own interests.
They reject that either strategy or shared values fully explain the US support for Israel, so lobbying must. This argument is hugely controversial, including among international relations theorists. Some argued that The Israel Lobby creepily invoked classic anti-Semitic tropes of Jews secretly controlling the government.
Others dismissed it as, in one particularly memorable phrase , "piss-poor, monocausal social science. One of the main criticisms of Walt and Mearsheimer's thesis is that they don't present very much direct evidence that AIPAC lobbying influenced specific votes. Another criticism is that Walt and Mearsheimer premise their thesis on the argument that Israel is neither strategically nor morally worthy of American support, and so policymakers must be supporting Israel because they've been coerced into it by AIPAC, whereas a number of policymakers will tell you they earnestly believe the alliance is worthwhile absent lobbying.
Critics also argue that the definition of "Israel Lobby" beyond AIPAC used in the book is so large as to encompass basically the entire American foreign policy establishment.
Whatever you think of this debate, it can be easy to get lost in a binary between "the Israel lobby is all that matters" and "the Israel lobby is irrelevant. AIPAC doesn't always win. For instance, it lost a major fight in Congress when it pushed for more sanctions on Iran in February ; the sanctions were likely designed to kill the ongoing US-Iran nuclear negotiations.
AIPAC's influence is a product of financial resources and power, sure, but also of choosing to push for policies that have public support and are consonant with American grand strategy in the Middle East.
A rally against the Gaza offensive in New York. Bilgin S. It's hard to know where one driver of America's Israel policy ends and another begins. For instance: early in his administration, President Obama pushed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to halt settlement growth in the West Bank; Netanyahu resisted this in part by rallying his allies in Congress.
Netanyahu's allies in both parties, who are always eager to appear pro-Israel, pressured Obama to drop his anti-settlements push, which he did. The question here is whether, in this case and others, US foreign policy interests or US domestic politics was ultimately more consequential to driving the US-Israel relationship.
For example, w ould Obama have pushed harder against settlements had Netanyahu not been able to call up so many allies in Congress? Were those members of Congress primarily driven by pure domestic politics, which do favor pro-Israel policies, by an earnest concern that Obama's approach was bad for Israelis, or by a belief that Obama was hurting US foreign policy interests? In thinking about the future of US-Israel relations, it's much more helpful to examine what might cause these broad-bush factors to change.
In simpler terms: is there a scenario under which the US and Israel drift apart? Barnett, the George Washington University scholar, sees Israel's continued occupation of the West Bank as the greatest threat to the relationship. Israel's prime minister, Yitzhak Shamir, tried to fight it, but the Bush administration stood firm. Shamir lost, both in Congress and with the executive, because the Israeli position wasn't consistent with the US vision of a Western, democratic Israel.
Beinart argues that Israel's ongoing occupation of the West Bank is already alienating younger and more secular Jews, and that AIPAC and other mainstream Jewish organizations risk losing their broad base of support unless they become more willing to criticize Israel on these points.
Barnett's conclusion only follows if you think "shared values" are the linchpin of US-Israel relations. Maybe the US would still think it's strategically useful to support Israel. Maybe Israel remains popular among certain Christians and the broader public regardless of its Palestinian policy.
Maybe Israel comes to an agreement with the Palestinians and Barnett's point becomes moot. For now, though, there's little evidence that American support for Israel is fundamentally breaking down — whether you think that's a good or bad thing. Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment: to empower through understanding. Financial contributions from our readers are a critical part of supporting our resource-intensive work and help us keep our journalism free for all.
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Alex Lockie. Sign up for notifications from Insider! Stay up to date with what you want to know. Loading Something is loading. Email address. Deal icon An icon in the shape of a lightning bolt. Israel Palestine Iran. The US was taking over from severely weakened European powers as the primary western power broker in the Middle East.
That is partly rooted in the aftermath war in which Israel defeated the poorly led armies of Egypt, Syria and Jordan and occupied the rest of historical Palestine — as well as some territory from Syria and Egypt. Partly to drive a wedge between Egypt and Syria and thwart Soviet influence, the US used the aftermath of the war to lay the groundwork for a peace deal between Israel and Egypt that was eventually cemented in You bet.
Bear in mind, Israel is not exactly in need of aid. It is a high-income country with a thriving high-tech sector. Like all things foreign policy-related, public opinion, money — and the influence money buys in politics — have also played a role in US policy towards Israel and the Palestinians.
American public opinion has long tilted in favour of Israel and against the Palestinians, in part because Israel had a superior PR machine. But headline-grabbing, violent actions by pro-Palestinian groups such as the Munich Massacre in which 11 Israeli Olympic athletes were killed also generated sympathy for Israel. More Americans are warming to the Palestinian cause, according to an annual survey conducted by Gallup. The February poll found that 25 percent of Americans sympathise more with Palestinians — a 2-percentage-point increase over the previous year and a full six percentage points higher than Favourable ratings for the Palestinian Authority also hit a new high of 30 percent — a 7-percentage-point improvement over That same Gallup poll found that 58 percent of Americans sympathise more with Israel, while 75 percent of Americans rate Israel favourably.
Members of the organisation wield influence through grassroots organising, advocacy and fundraising among American Jews in the US as well as Christian evangelical churches. Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is also a regular attendee.
A smaller, pro-Israel group called J Street organised by Democrats has sought to build a constituency in US politics that is supportive of Israel and Palestinian rights. Pro-Israel interest groups donate millions to US federal political candidates. That is about twice as much as they donated during the campaign, according to OpenSecrets.
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