Anti-Israel lobby in the United States
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
foreign policy which they consider to be too favorable towards Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
. Those opposed to such policies state that they seek a more "even-handed" U.S. approach to the conflict in the Middle East.
Caroline Glick
Caroline Glick
Caroline Glick is an American-Israeli journalist for Makor Rishon and is the deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post. She is also the Senior Fellow for Middle East Affairs of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Security Policy.-Life:...
, managing editor of The Jerusalem Post
The Jerusalem Post
The Jerusalem Post is an Israeli daily English-language broadsheet newspaper, founded on December 1, 1932 by Gershon Agron as The Palestine Post. The daily readership numbers do not approach those of the major Hebrew newspapers....
, writes in an opinion column that recent years have seen "the emergence of a very committed and powerful anti-Israel lobby in Washington." However, critics of Israel's policies often object to the phrase “anti-Israel” being used in regards to such lobbying.
American Friends of the Middle East
Historian Paul Charles Merkley wrote in his 2001 book, Christian Attitudes Towards the State of Israel, that the American Friends of the Middle EastAmerican Friends of the Middle East
-History:In 1951, columnist Dorothy Thompson, together with 24 American educators, theologians, and writers including Harry Emerson Fosdick founded the American Friends of the Middle East. Kermit Roosevelt, Jr...
, which was founded in 1951, "remains an active anti-Israeli lobby."
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
Martin J. Raffel identified the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination CommitteeAmerican-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee states that it is the largest Arab American grassroots civil rights organization in the United States. According to its web page it is open to people of all backgrounds, faiths and ethnicities and has over 40 chapters in 24 states and members in all...
(ADC) as being part of "The Anti-Israel lobby", hostile to the Jewish-American community in the late 1980s. The Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor
NGO Monitor
NGO Monitor is a non-governmental organization based in Jerusalem, Israel whose stated aim is to generate and distribute critical analysis and reports on the output of the international NGO community for the benefit of government policy makers, journalists, philanthropic organizations and the...
identified it as "very active" in "anti-Israel political causes."
Council for the National Interest
Rafael MedoffRafael Medoff
Rafael Medoff is founding director of The David Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, which is based in Washington, D.C. and focuses on issues related to America's response to the Holocaust.-Academic career:...
, founding director of The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies
David Wyman
David S. Wyman is the author of several books on the responses of the United States to Nazi Germany's persecution of and programs to exterminate Jews....
, labels the Council for the National Interest
Council for the National Interest
The Council for the National Interest is a 501 organization in the United States advocating a "new direction for U.S. Middle East policy." With its sister organization the Council for the National Interest Foundation it works to educate about and promote what it describes as "even handed...
(CNI) as an organization that is part of the "anti-Israel lobby." CNI was founded following former Congressman Paul Findley
Paul Findley
Paul Findley is a former United States Representative from Illinois, representing its 20th District. A Republican, he was first elected in 1961. Findley lost his seat in 1982 to current United States Senator Dick Durbin. Findley attended Illinois College and is a member of Phi Alpha Literary Society...
's 1982 defeat by "pro Israel PAC money." CNI's website states its objective as "seeking to encourage and promote a U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East that is consistent with American values, protects our national interests, and contributes to a just solution of the Arab-Israeli conflict. It is CNI’s goal to restore a political environment in America in which voters and their elected officials are free from the undue influence and pressure of foreign countries and their partisans."
Other organizations
In 2008, The Jerusalem PostThe Jerusalem Post
The Jerusalem Post is an Israeli daily English-language broadsheet newspaper, founded on December 1, 1932 by Gershon Agron as The Palestine Post. The daily readership numbers do not approach those of the major Hebrew newspapers....
wrote that Wikipedia
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...
was "Part anarchy, part mob rule" and that "the 'mob' is the vast anti-Israel lobby that haters of our country have managed to pull together." The article focused on the negative reaction to the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting's Israeli lobby campaign in Wikipedia.
Caroline Glick wrote that the "anti-Israel Jewish lobby J Street," supported by several other Jewish groups "supports the White House's hostile positions on Israel as ends unto themselves." She also identifies George Soros
George Soros
George Soros is a Hungarian-American business magnate, investor, philosopher, and philanthropist. He is the chairman of Soros Fund Management. Soros supports progressive-liberal causes...
as the individual who "first raised the prospect of a Jewish anti-Israel lobby in October 2006."
Individuals labeled members of the "anti-Israel lobby"
- Writing in his Foreign PolicyForeign PolicyForeign Policy is a bimonthly American magazine founded in 1970 by Samuel P. Huntington and Warren Demian Manshel.Originally, the magazine was a quarterly...
blog, David RothkopfDavid RothkopfDavid J. Rothkopf is President and CEO of Garten Rothkopf, an international advisory firm specializing in transformational global trends, notably those associated with energy, security, and emerging markets....
lists former President of the United StatesPresident of the United StatesThe President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
Jimmy CarterJimmy CarterJames Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
and his former National Security AdvisorNational Security Advisor (United States)The Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, commonly referred to as the National Security Advisor , serves as the chief advisor to the President of the United States on national security issues...
Zbigniew BrzezinskiZbigniew BrzezinskiZbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski is a Polish American political scientist, geostrategist, and statesman who served as United States National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981....
as members of the "anti-Israel lobby", as well as "celebrity activists like Richard GereRichard GereRichard Tiffany Gere is an American actor. He began acting in the 1970s, playing a supporting role in Looking for Mr. Goodbar, and a starring role in Days of Heaven. He came to prominence in 1980 for his role in the film American Gigolo, which established him as a leading man and a sex symbol...
, and many members of the media."
- Jeff Robbins, in The Wall Street JournalThe Wall Street JournalThe Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
opinion piece, titled "Anti-Semitism and the Anti-Israel Lobby," writes that the billions of petrodollars Arab states spend in the U.S. for defense and business contracts have influenced U.S. politicians. He includes Edward Stettinius, Jr.Edward Stettinius, Jr.Edward Reilly Stettinius, Jr. was United States Secretary of State under Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman, serving from 1944 to 1945....
, United States Secretary of StateUnited States Secretary of StateThe United States Secretary of State is the head of the United States Department of State, concerned with foreign affairs. The Secretary is a member of the Cabinet and the highest-ranking cabinet secretary both in line of succession and order of precedence...
between 1944 and 1945, who at the time opposed American support for the creation of a Jewish state in the Middle East, stating, "It would seriously prejudice our ability to afford protection to American interests, economic and commercial . . . throughout the area."
- Medoff labels Pat BuchananPat BuchananPatrick Joseph "Pat" Buchanan is an American paleoconservative political commentator, author, syndicated columnist, politician and broadcaster. Buchanan was a senior adviser to American Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan, and was an original host on CNN's Crossfire. He sought...
as an active leader of the anti-Israel lobby.
Criticism of the term
Bret StephensBret Stephens
Bret Louis Stephens is the foreign-affairs columnist of the Wall Street Journal and deputy editorial page editor, responsible for the editorial pages of the Journals European and Asian editions...
, foreign-affairs columnist of The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
and former editor of The Jerusalem Post
The Jerusalem Post
The Jerusalem Post is an Israeli daily English-language broadsheet newspaper, founded on December 1, 1932 by Gershon Agron as The Palestine Post. The daily readership numbers do not approach those of the major Hebrew newspapers....
, in a 2006 speech to the Chicago Friends of Israel student organization at the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
, criticized John Mearsheimer
John Mearsheimer
John J. Mearsheimer is an American professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago. He is an international relations theorist. Known for his book on offensive realism, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, more recently Mearsheimer has attracted attention for co-authoring and publishing...
and Stephen Walt
Stephen Walt
Stephen Martin Walt is a professor of international affairs at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. Among his most prominent works are and . He coauthored The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy with John Mearsheimer.-Education and career:In 1983, he received a Ph.D. in...
's The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy
The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy
The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy is the title of a book by John Mearsheimer, Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, and Stephen Walt, Professor of International Relations at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, published in late August 2007...
for lumping together "the hugely disparate elements" of groups that support Israel and suggest they constitute a "lobby." To make his point, he described a hypothetical "anti-Israel lobby" made up of disparate groups, including such political opposites as Pat Buchanan
Pat Buchanan
Patrick Joseph "Pat" Buchanan is an American paleoconservative political commentator, author, syndicated columnist, politician and broadcaster. Buchanan was a senior adviser to American Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan, and was an original host on CNN's Crossfire. He sought...
and Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...
.
In 2008, University of Florida political scientist Ken Wald warned that the left leaning pro-Israel lobby group J Street
J Street
J Street is a nonprofit liberal advocacy group based in the United States whose stated aim is to promote American leadership to end the Arab-Israeli and Israel-Palestinian conflicts peacefully and diplomatically. It was founded in April 2008....
"will get hammered and accused of being anti-Israel" by "more conservative pro-Israeli factions." The founder of J Street responded to such criticism of being "anti-Israel" saying that "the most pro-Israel thing any American politician or policy maker can do is help to bring about a two-state solution and a comprehensive peace agreement between Israel and her neighbours."
Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
, during the 2008 election campaign
United States presidential election, 2008
The United States presidential election of 2008 was the 56th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on November 4, 2008. Democrat Barack Obama, then the junior United States Senator from Illinois, defeated Republican John McCain, the senior U.S. Senator from Arizona. Obama received 365...
, implicitly noted differences within the lobby in his comment that "there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says, 'unless you adopt an unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel, that you’re anti-Israel,' and that can’t be the measure of our friendship with Israel." Commentary
Commentary (magazine)
Commentary is a monthly American magazine on politics, Judaism, social and cultural issues. It was founded by the American Jewish Committee in 1945. By 1960 its editor was Norman Podhoretz, a liberal at the time who moved sharply to the right in the 1970s and 1980s becoming a strong voice for the...
magazine notes: "It was an odd choice of words—Likud
Likud
Likud is the major center-right political party in Israel. It was founded in 1973 by Menachem Begin in an alliance with several right-wing and liberal parties. Likud's victory in the 1977 elections was a major turning point in the country's political history, marking the first time the left had...
has not been Israel’s governing party for more than three years—but what Obama clearly meant was that an American politician should not have to express fealty to the most hard-line ideas relating to Israel's security to be considered a supporter of Israel's."
See also
- Anti-ZionismAnti-ZionismAnti-Zionism is opposition to Zionistic views or opposition to the state of Israel. The term is used to describe various religious, moral and political points of view in opposition to these, but their diversity of motivation and expression is sufficiently different that "anti-Zionism" cannot be...
- Israel lobby in the United StatesIsrael lobby in the United StatesThe Israel lobby is a term used to describe the diverse coalition of those who, as individuals and as groups, seek and have sought to influence the foreign policy of the United States in support of Zionism, Israel or the specific policies of its government...
- Jewish lobbyJewish lobbyThe term Jewish lobby is used to describe organized lobbying attributed to Jews on domestic and foreign policy decisions, as a political participant of representative government, conducted predominantly in the Jewish diaspora in a number of Western countries...
- Opposition in the United States to the Israeli OccupationOpposition in the United States to the Israeli OccupationOpposition in the United States to the Israeli Occupation is organized by hundreds of organizations, many of them members of the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation. These organizations include peace and anti-war, human rights and Arab- and Muslim-Americans groups...
- Projects working for peace among Arabs and Israelis
Further reading
- Barsky, Yehudit, "The Anti-Israel Lobby Today: An Examination of the Themes and Tactics of an Evolving Propaganda Movement", ADLAnti-Defamation LeagueThe Anti-Defamation League is an international non-governmental organization based in the United States. Describing itself as "the nation's premier civil rights/human relations agency", the ADL states that it "fights anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry, defends democratic ideals and protects...
Special Report, 1991.
External links
- U.S. Anti-Israel Activity portal of the Anti-Defamation LeagueAnti-Defamation LeagueThe Anti-Defamation League is an international non-governmental organization based in the United States. Describing itself as "the nation's premier civil rights/human relations agency", the ADL states that it "fights anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry, defends democratic ideals and protects...