Jewish lobby
Encyclopedia
The 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. While at times self-described, usage of the term is viewed as inaccurate, and – particularly when used to allege disproportionate Jewish influence – it can be perceived as pejorative or may constitute antisemitism.
describes the term "Jewish Lobby" as "A conglomeration of approximately thirty-four Jewish political organizations in the United States
which make joint and separate efforts to lobby for their interests in the United States, as well as for the interests of the State of Israel." He also notes that "[a]mong those organizations which are most actively involved in lobbying activities at federal, state and local levels of political and governmental institutions are: the American Israel Public Affairs Committee
(AIPAC), the American Jewish Committee
... and the B'nai B'rith
." Dominique Vidal, writing in Le Monde diplomatique
, states that in the United States the term is "self-described" and it "is only one of many influence groups that have official standing with institutions and authorities."
The B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation Commission of Australia states in its description, "It is important to recognise that lobbies are natural parts of pluralist, democratic societies such as Australia. Lobbying constitutes a mainstream method of influencing government policy, as a means of enhancing representative government. As such, just as other communities and interest groups have lobbies, there is a ‘Jewish lobby’ – an unwieldy group of individuals and organisations devoted to supporting the needs and interests of the Jewish community. This Jewish lobby is a player in representative government, and its very existence confirms the ordinary place Jews have within Australian politics. The assumption, however, that Jews have a disproportionate power and influence over decision making is what transforms a descriptive reality about politics to an antisemitic argument about Jewish power." Noting the high voting rate of individual American Jews
in elections, J.J. Goldberg
, editorial director of The Forward
, stated in a 2004 speech that "The Jewish lobby... is actually more than just a dozen organizations. The Anti-Defamation League
, the American Jewish Committee
, Hadassah
, of course, AIPAC, but it is also the impact of the Jewish role. ... So, the Jewish influence is a lot of things. It is the organizations, it’s the vote, it’s fundraising."
, director of the non-profit Jewish Virtual Library
, writes that: "Reference is often made to the 'Jewish lobby' in an effort to describe Jewish influence, but this term is both vague and inadequate. While it is true that American Jews are sometimes represented by lobbyists, such direct efforts to influence policy-makers are but a small part of the lobby’s ability to shape policy." Bard argues the term Israel lobby is more accurate, because it comprises both formal and informal elements (which includes public opinion), and "...because a large proportion of the lobby is made up of non-Jews." In his 1987 work, The Lobby: Jewish Political Power and American Foreign Policy, Edward Tivnan states that the term "needed some fine-tuning; what was most at issue... was the influence of the 'pro-Israel lobby.'"
In a letter to the editor of the New York Times Sunday Review of Books
, responding to a review by Leslie Gelb of their 2007 book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy
, University of Chicago
professor John Mearsheimer
and Harvard University
professor Stephen Walt
write: "Gelb refers repeatedly to a 'Jewish lobby,' despite the fact that we never employ the term in our book. Indeed, we explicitly rejected this label as inaccurate and misleading, both because the lobby includes non-Jews like the Christian Zionists and because many Jewish Americans do not support the hard-line policies favored by its most powerful elements." The previous week, in a live Q&A session at The Washington Post
, they stated they themselves "never use the term 'Jewish lobby' because the lobby is defined by its political agenda, not by religion or ethnicity."
, of the International Center for the Study of Antisemitism, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
, sees reference to the phrase, when used to describe an "all-powerful 'Jewish Lobby' that prevents justice in the Middle East", as reliance on a classic antisemitic stereotype. Bruno Bettelheim
detested the term, arguing "The self-importance of Jews combined with the paranoia of the anti-Semite had created the image of this lobby." Michael Lasky describes the term as an "unfortunate phrase", and "imagines" that Alexander Walker
's use of it while writing about the Nazi films of Leni Riefenstahl
was not intended pejoratively.
The B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation Commission of Australia states that "the stereotype of the 'Jewish lobby' is that the Jewish engagement in politics and policy debate is above and beyond the ordinary participation of a group in public policy-making. It paints Jewish involvement as surreptitious, and as subverting the democratic process. It alleges that a 'Jewish lobby', through bribery, bullying and manipulation, pressures politicians to act against their will and duties.” Michael Visontay, editor of Australia
's The Sydney Morning Herald
, wrote in 2003 that "The way the phrase 'Jewish lobby' has been bandied about in numerous letters implies there is something inherently sinister in lobbying when Jews do it." According to Geoffrey Brahm Levey and Philip Mendes, the term is used in Australia as a pejorative description of the way in which the Jewish community influences the Liberal Party "by talking to its leaders and making them aware of Jewish wishes and views".
Dominique Schnapper, Chantal Bordes-Benayoun and Freddy Raphaėl write that following the 1991 Gulf War
, the term "began to be heard in political life" in France
. Vidal writes that the term has been used there exclusively by the French far right
as "a phrase that combines standard anti-semitic fantasies about Jewish finance, media control and power; the term is the contemporary equivalent of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion
". Loyola University Chicago
professor Wiley Feinstein wrote in 2003 that "there is much talk of the 'Jewish lobby' in the Italian Press and in Europe", describing the term as "a phrase[] of scorn for Jews and Judaism".
William Safire
wrote in 1993 that in the United Kingdom
"Jewish lobby" is used as an "even more pejorative" term for "the 'Israel lobby'". Susan Jacobs of Manchester Metropolitan University
writes that the phrase "Jewish lobby", when used "without mentioning other ‘lobbies’ or differentiating Jews who have different political positions on a number of questions, including Israel and Palestine", is a contemporary form of the fear of a Jewish conspiracy.
winner Desmond Tutu
used it in a 1985 speech at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America
, a supporter wrote him privately urging him to avoid the phrase, stating it was "language... normally associated with the less than philo-Semitic elements of our acquaintance". Tutu used the phrase again in a 2002 editorial in The Guardian
, stating "People are scared in this country [the US], to say wrong is wrong because the Jewish lobby is powerful – very powerful." This use was criticized by Melanie Phillips
of the Daily Mail
. When he edited and reprinted parts of his speech in 2005, Tutu replaced the words "Jewish lobby" with "pro-Israeli lobby". In 2007, an invitation to Tutu to speak at the University of St. Thomas
in Minnesota was rescinded because of the speech; writing in Mother Jones
, Justin Elliot stated "Tutu's use of the phrase 'Jewish lobby' is regrettable, mainly because the pro-Israel lobby he is referring to is not made up exclusively of Jews (remember Texas preacher John Hagee's Christians United for Israel?). But one minor slip five years ago is hardly grounds for blacklisting him."
Chris Davies
, MEP
for the northwest of England was forced to resign in 2006 as leader of the Liberal Democrats group in the European Parliament after writing to a constituent “I shall denounce the influence of the Jewish lobby that seems to have far too great a say over the political decision-making process in many countries.” In comments to TotallyJewish.Com
he "confessed he didn’t know the difference between referring to the 'pro Israel lobby' and the 'Jewish lobby'," and added “I’m quite prepared to accept that I don’t understand the semantics of some of these things.” Commenting on Davies' use of the term, David Hirsh of The Guardian wrote that Davies "had to resign because his laudable instinct to side with the underdog was not tempered by care, thought or self-education." He compared Davies' rhetoric with the "care to avoid openly antisemitic rhetoric taken by sophisticates like Mearsheimer and Walt and Robert Fisk
."
A 2007 editorial in The New York Sun accused Richard Dawkins
, a British evolutionary biologist and writer
, of repeating antisemitic conspiracy theories after he used the term in an interview published in The Guardian
. In the interview Dawkins said: "When you think about how fantastically successful the Jewish lobby has been, though, in fact, they are less numerous I am told - religious Jews anyway - than atheists and [yet they] more or less monopolise American foreign policy as far as many people can see. So if atheists could achieve a small fraction of that influence, the world would be a better place." In a National Review
column discussing the influence of "high-profile atheists" on the American left, Arthur C. Brooks
wrote that Dawkins' claim was "anti-Semitic, slanders religion, and asserts victimhood." David Cesarani
, commenting in The Guardian, stated that "Mearsheimer and Walt would doubtless chide Dawkins for using the term 'Jewish lobby', which they studiously avoid in order to give no truck to anti-Jewish innuendo."
's sharp shift of American policy towards significant military and foreign aid support for Israel following the 1973 Yom Kippur War
. Tivnan writes that a "full-fledged 'Jewish lobby'" was developed in 1943, in which the moderates represented by Stephen Samuel Wise
and the American Jewish Committee
were defeated by supporters of Abba Hillel Silver
and "the maximalist goal of a 'Jewish Commonwealth'" at the American Jewish
and Biltmore Conference
s. Silver became the new leader of American Zionism, with his call for "loud diplomacy", and he then "cranked up the Zionist Organization of America
's one-man lobbying operation in Washington—renaming it the American Zionist Emergency Council (AZEC)—and began to mobilize American Jewry into a mass movement."
Former New York Times journalist Youssef Ibrahim writes: "That there is a Jewish lobby in America concerned with the well-being of Israel is a silly question. It is insane to ask whether the 6 million American Jews should be concerned about the 6 million Israeli Jews, particularly in view of the massacre of another 6 million Jews in the Holocaust. It's elementary, my dear Watson: Any people who do not care for their own are not worthy of concern. And what the Israel lobby does is what all ethnic lobbies — Greek, Armenian, Latvian, Irish, Cuban
, and others — do in this democracy."
Lobbying
Lobbying is the act of attempting to influence decisions made by officials in the government, most often legislators or members of regulatory agencies. Lobbying is done by various people or groups, from private-sector individuals or corporations, fellow legislators or government officials, or...
attributed to Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
on domestic and foreign policy decisions, as a political participant of representative government, conducted predominantly in the Jewish diaspora
Jewish diaspora
The Jewish diaspora is the English term used to describe the Galut גלות , or 'exile', of the Jews from the region of the Kingdom of Judah and Roman Iudaea and later emigration from wider Eretz Israel....
in a number of Western
Western world
The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...
countries. While at times self-described, usage of the term is viewed as inaccurate, and – particularly when used to allege disproportionate Jewish influence – it can be perceived as pejorative or may constitute antisemitism.
Descriptions
In his Dictionary of Politics (1992), Walter John RaymondWalter John Raymond
Walter John Raymond was chairman of the Saint Paul's College's Department of Social Sciences until he retired in 1986.-Early life:...
describes the term "Jewish Lobby" as "A conglomeration of approximately thirty-four Jewish political organizations in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
which make joint and separate efforts to lobby for their interests in the United States, as well as for the interests of the State of Israel." He also notes that "[a]mong those organizations which are most actively involved in lobbying activities at federal, state and local levels of political and governmental institutions are: the American Israel Public Affairs Committee
American Israel Public Affairs Committee
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee is a lobbying group that advocates pro-Israel policies to the Congress and Executive Branch of the United States...
(AIPAC), the American Jewish Committee
American Jewish Committee
The American Jewish Committee was "founded in 1906 with the aim of rallying all sections of American Jewry to defend the rights of Jews all over the world...
... and the B'nai B'rith
B'nai B'rith
B'nai B'rith International |Covenant]]" is the oldest continually operating Jewish service organization in the world. It was initially founded as the Independent Order of B'nai B'rith in New York City, on , 1843, by Henry Jones and 11 others....
." Dominique Vidal, writing in Le Monde diplomatique
Le Monde diplomatique
Le Monde diplomatique is a monthly newspaper offering analysis and opinion on politics, culture, and current affairs. It was first created mainly for a diplomatic audience as its name implies...
, states that in the United States the term is "self-described" and it "is only one of many influence groups that have official standing with institutions and authorities."
The B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation Commission of Australia states in its description, "It is important to recognise that lobbies are natural parts of pluralist, democratic societies such as Australia. Lobbying constitutes a mainstream method of influencing government policy, as a means of enhancing representative government. As such, just as other communities and interest groups have lobbies, there is a ‘Jewish lobby’ – an unwieldy group of individuals and organisations devoted to supporting the needs and interests of the Jewish community. This Jewish lobby is a player in representative government, and its very existence confirms the ordinary place Jews have within Australian politics. The assumption, however, that Jews have a disproportionate power and influence over decision making is what transforms a descriptive reality about politics to an antisemitic argument about Jewish power." Noting the high voting rate of individual American Jews
American Jews
American Jews, also known as Jewish Americans, are American citizens of the Jewish faith or Jewish ethnicity. The Jewish community in the United States is composed predominantly of Ashkenazi Jews who emigrated from Central and Eastern Europe, and their U.S.-born descendants...
in elections, J.J. Goldberg
J.J. Goldberg
J. J. Goldberg is Editor-at-Large of the newspaper The Forward, where he served as editor in chief for seven years . He served in the past as U.S...
, editorial director of The Forward
The Forward
The Forward , commonly known as The Jewish Daily Forward, is a Jewish-American newspaper published in New York City. The publication began in 1897 as a Yiddish-language daily issued by dissidents from the Socialist Labor Party of Daniel DeLeon...
, stated in a 2004 speech that "The Jewish lobby... is actually more than just a dozen organizations. The Anti-Defamation League
Anti-Defamation League
The 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...
, the American Jewish Committee
American Jewish Committee
The American Jewish Committee was "founded in 1906 with the aim of rallying all sections of American Jewry to defend the rights of Jews all over the world...
, Hadassah
Hadassah
Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America is an American Jewish volunteer women's organization. Founded in 1912 by Henrietta Szold, it is one of the largest international Jewish organizations, with around...
, of course, AIPAC, but it is also the impact of the Jewish role. ... So, the Jewish influence is a lot of things. It is the organizations, it’s the vote, it’s fundraising."
Viewed as inaccurate
Mitchell BardMitchell Bard
Mitchell Geoffrey Bard is an American foreign policy analyst, editor and author who specializes in U.S.-Middle East policy. He is the Executive Director of the non-profit American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise , and the director of the Jewish Virtual Library.-Education:Bard received his B.A...
, director of the non-profit Jewish Virtual Library
Jewish Virtual Library
Jewish Virtual Library is an online encyclopedia published by the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise . Established in 1993, it is a comprehensive website covering Israel, the Jewish people, and Jewish culture.-History:...
, writes that: "Reference is often made to the 'Jewish lobby' in an effort to describe Jewish influence, but this term is both vague and inadequate. While it is true that American Jews are sometimes represented by lobbyists, such direct efforts to influence policy-makers are but a small part of the lobby’s ability to shape policy." Bard argues the term Israel lobby is more accurate, because it comprises both formal and informal elements (which includes public opinion), and "...because a large proportion of the lobby is made up of non-Jews." In his 1987 work, The Lobby: Jewish Political Power and American Foreign Policy, Edward Tivnan states that the term "needed some fine-tuning; what was most at issue... was the influence of the 'pro-Israel lobby.'"
In a letter to the editor of the New York Times Sunday Review of Books
New York Times Sunday Review of Books
The New York Times Sunday Review of Books is a weekly collection of book reviews published by The New York Times. Reviews are often written by the top writers in the English language, and the choice of a writer to review a book can create controversy...
, responding to a review by Leslie Gelb of their 2007 book 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...
, 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...
professor 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 Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
professor 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...
write: "Gelb refers repeatedly to a 'Jewish lobby,' despite the fact that we never employ the term in our book. Indeed, we explicitly rejected this label as inaccurate and misleading, both because the lobby includes non-Jews like the Christian Zionists and because many Jewish Americans do not support the hard-line policies favored by its most powerful elements." The previous week, in a live Q&A session at The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
, they stated they themselves "never use the term 'Jewish lobby' because the lobby is defined by its political agenda, not by religion or ethnicity."
Viewed as antisemitic and/or pejorative
Robert S. WistrichRobert S. Wistrich
Robert Solomon Wistrich is the Neuburger Professor of European and Jewish history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the head of the University's Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism. Wistrich is "a leading scholar of the history of antisemitism."-Early...
, of the International Center for the Study of Antisemitism, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem ; ; abbreviated HUJI) is Israel's second-oldest university, after the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. The Hebrew University has three campuses in Jerusalem and one in Rehovot. The world's largest Jewish studies library is located on its Edmond J...
, sees reference to the phrase, when used to describe an "all-powerful 'Jewish Lobby' that prevents justice in the Middle East", as reliance on a classic antisemitic stereotype. Bruno Bettelheim
Bruno Bettelheim
Bruno Bettelheim was an Austrian-born American child psychologist and writer. He gained an international reputation for his work on Freud, psychoanalysis, and emotionally disturbed children.-Background:...
detested the term, arguing "The self-importance of Jews combined with the paranoia of the anti-Semite had created the image of this lobby." Michael Lasky describes the term as an "unfortunate phrase", and "imagines" that Alexander Walker
Alexander Walker (critic)
Alexander Walker was a film critic, born in Portadown, Northern Ireland. He worked for the Birmingham Post in the 1950s, before becoming film critic of the London Evening Standard in 1960, a role he held until his death in 2003...
's use of it while writing about the Nazi films of Leni Riefenstahl
Leni Riefenstahl
Helene Bertha Amalie "Leni" Riefenstahl was a German film director, actress and dancer widely noted for her aesthetics and innovations as a filmmaker. Her most famous film was Triumph des Willens , a propaganda film made at the 1934 Nuremberg congress of the Nazi Party...
was not intended pejoratively.
The B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation Commission of Australia states that "the stereotype of the 'Jewish lobby' is that the Jewish engagement in politics and policy debate is above and beyond the ordinary participation of a group in public policy-making. It paints Jewish involvement as surreptitious, and as subverting the democratic process. It alleges that a 'Jewish lobby', through bribery, bullying and manipulation, pressures politicians to act against their will and duties.” Michael Visontay, editor of Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
's The Sydney Morning Herald
The Sydney Morning Herald
The Sydney Morning Herald is a daily broadsheet newspaper published by Fairfax Media in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1831 as the Sydney Herald, the SMH is the oldest continuously published newspaper in Australia. The newspaper is published six days a week. The newspaper's Sunday counterpart, The...
, wrote in 2003 that "The way the phrase 'Jewish lobby' has been bandied about in numerous letters implies there is something inherently sinister in lobbying when Jews do it." According to Geoffrey Brahm Levey and Philip Mendes, the term is used in Australia as a pejorative description of the way in which the Jewish community influences the Liberal Party "by talking to its leaders and making them aware of Jewish wishes and views".
Dominique Schnapper, Chantal Bordes-Benayoun and Freddy Raphaėl write that following the 1991 Gulf War
Gulf War
The Persian Gulf War , commonly referred to as simply the Gulf War, was a war waged by a U.N.-authorized coalition force from 34 nations led by the United States, against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait.The war is also known under other names, such as the First Gulf...
, the term "began to be heard in political life" in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. Vidal writes that the term has been used there exclusively by the French far right
Far right
Far-right, extreme right, hard right, radical right, and ultra-right are terms used to discuss the qualitative or quantitative position a group or person occupies within right-wing politics. Far-right politics may involve anti-immigration and anti-integration stances towards groups that are...
as "a phrase that combines standard anti-semitic fantasies about Jewish finance, media control and power; the term is the contemporary equivalent of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a fraudulent, antisemitic text purporting to describe a Jewish plan for achieving global domination. It was first published in Russia in 1903, translated into multiple languages, and disseminated internationally in the early part of the twentieth century...
". Loyola University Chicago
Loyola University Chicago
Loyola University Chicago is a private Jesuit research university located in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded by the Society of Jesus in 1870 under the title St...
professor Wiley Feinstein wrote in 2003 that "there is much talk of the 'Jewish lobby' in the Italian Press and in Europe", describing the term as "a phrase[] of scorn for Jews and Judaism".
William Safire
William Safire
William Lewis Safire was an American author, columnist, journalist and presidential speechwriter....
wrote in 1993 that in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
"Jewish lobby" is used as an "even more pejorative" term for "the 'Israel lobby'". Susan Jacobs of Manchester Metropolitan University
Manchester Metropolitan University
Manchester Metropolitan University is a university in North West England. Its headquarters and central campus is in the city of Manchester, but there are outlying facilities in the county of Cheshire. It is the third largest university in the United Kingdom in terms of student numbers, behind the...
writes that the phrase "Jewish lobby", when used "without mentioning other ‘lobbies’ or differentiating Jews who have different political positions on a number of questions, including Israel and Palestine", is a contemporary form of the fear of a Jewish conspiracy.
Defense of the term
In a 2004 speech Goldberg said "There has been an awful lot of talk in the last few years about the rise of the Jewish lobby and the influence of the Jewish lobby. It used to be that you couldn’t talk about this sort of thing. When I wrote [the book] Jewish Power in 1996 ... I was accused by various Jewish lobbyists of inflating and buying into the old myths of international Jewish conspiracies simply by the use of the title." Goldberg disagrees with the sensitivity towards the use of the term, arguing that: "There is such a thing as a Jewish lobby, that the network of organizations that works together to put across what might be called the Jewish community’s view on world affairs is not insignificant, it's not an invention, but it is not some sort of all-powerful octopus that it’s sometimes portrayed as these days." Mearsheimer and Walt wrote in 2006 that "even the Israeli media refer to America's 'Jewish Lobby'", and stated the following year that "AIPAC and the Conference of Presidents and the Israeli media themselves refer to America's 'Jewish Lobby'."Reaction to the term's use
After South African activist, Christian cleric, and Nobel Peace PrizeNobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel.-Background:According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who...
winner Desmond Tutu
Desmond Tutu
Desmond Mpilo Tutu is a South African activist and retired Anglican bishop who rose to worldwide fame during the 1980s as an opponent of apartheid...
used it in a 1985 speech at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America
Jewish Theological Seminary of America
The Jewish Theological Seminary of America is one of the academic and spiritual centers of Conservative Judaism, and a major center for academic scholarship in Jewish studies.JTS operates five schools: Albert A...
, a supporter wrote him privately urging him to avoid the phrase, stating it was "language... normally associated with the less than philo-Semitic elements of our acquaintance". Tutu used the phrase again in a 2002 editorial in The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, stating "People are scared in this country [the US], to say wrong is wrong because the Jewish lobby is powerful – very powerful." This use was criticized by Melanie Phillips
Melanie Phillips
Melanie Phillips is a British journalist and author. She began her career on the left of the political spectrum, writing for such publications as The Guardian and New Statesman. In the 1990s she moved to the right, and she now writes for the Daily Mail newspaper, covering political and social...
of the Daily Mail
Daily Mail
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...
. When he edited and reprinted parts of his speech in 2005, Tutu replaced the words "Jewish lobby" with "pro-Israeli lobby". In 2007, an invitation to Tutu to speak at the University of St. Thomas
University of St. Thomas (Minnesota)
The University of St. Thomas is a private, Catholic, liberal arts, and archdiocesan university located in St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States...
in Minnesota was rescinded because of the speech; writing in Mother Jones
Mother Jones (magazine)
Mother Jones is an American independent news organization, featuring investigative and breaking news reporting on politics, the environment, human rights, and culture. Mother Jones has been nominated for 23 National Magazine Awards and has won six times, including for General Excellence in 2001,...
, Justin Elliot stated "Tutu's use of the phrase 'Jewish lobby' is regrettable, mainly because the pro-Israel lobby he is referring to is not made up exclusively of Jews (remember Texas preacher John Hagee's Christians United for Israel?). But one minor slip five years ago is hardly grounds for blacklisting him."
Chris Davies
Chris Davies
Christopher Graham Davies is a Liberal Democrat politician in the United Kingdom. He is a former Member of Parliament, and since 1999 he has been a Member of the European Parliament.- Biography :...
, MEP
Member of the European Parliament
A Member of the European Parliament is a person who has been elected to the European Parliament. The name of MEPs differ in different languages, with terms such as europarliamentarian or eurodeputy being common in Romance language-speaking areas.When the European Parliament was first established,...
for the northwest of England was forced to resign in 2006 as leader of the Liberal Democrats group in the European Parliament after writing to a constituent “I shall denounce the influence of the Jewish lobby that seems to have far too great a say over the political decision-making process in many countries.” In comments to TotallyJewish.Com
Totally
Totally Plc is a publication company that has an international portfolio of publications and online services that target the world's Jewish communities. It is listed on London's Alternative Investment Market , has offices in London, Boston and Tel Aviv.Totally owns and operates:* Jewish News,...
he "confessed he didn’t know the difference between referring to the 'pro Israel lobby' and the 'Jewish lobby'," and added “I’m quite prepared to accept that I don’t understand the semantics of some of these things.” Commenting on Davies' use of the term, David Hirsh of The Guardian wrote that Davies "had to resign because his laudable instinct to side with the underdog was not tempered by care, thought or self-education." He compared Davies' rhetoric with the "care to avoid openly antisemitic rhetoric taken by sophisticates like Mearsheimer and Walt and Robert Fisk
Robert Fisk
Robert Fisk is an English writer and journalist from Maidstone, Kent. As Middle East correspondent of The Independent, he has primarily been based in Beirut for more than 30 years. He has published a number of books and has reported on the United States's war in Afghanistan and the same country's...
."
A 2007 editorial in The New York Sun accused Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
Clinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL , known as Richard Dawkins, is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author...
, a British evolutionary biologist and writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
, of repeating antisemitic conspiracy theories after he used the term in an interview published in The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
. In the interview Dawkins said: "When you think about how fantastically successful the Jewish lobby has been, though, in fact, they are less numerous I am told - religious Jews anyway - than atheists and [yet they] more or less monopolise American foreign policy as far as many people can see. So if atheists could achieve a small fraction of that influence, the world would be a better place." In a National Review
National Review
National Review is a biweekly magazine founded by the late author William F. Buckley, Jr., in 1955 and based in New York City. It describes itself as "America's most widely read and influential magazine and web site for conservative news, commentary, and opinion."Although the print version of the...
column discussing the influence of "high-profile atheists" on the American left, Arthur C. Brooks
Arthur C. Brooks
Arthur C. Brooks is an American social scientist and musician. He is the president of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. Brooks is best known for his work on the junctions between culture, economics, and politics...
wrote that Dawkins' claim was "anti-Semitic, slanders religion, and asserts victimhood." David Cesarani
David Cesarani
David Cesarani OBE is an English historian who specialises in Jewish history, especially the Holocaust. He has also written several biographies, notably Arthur Koestler: The Homeless Mind.-Early life:...
, commenting in The Guardian, stated that "Mearsheimer and Walt would doubtless chide Dawkins for using the term 'Jewish lobby', which they studiously avoid in order to give no truck to anti-Jewish innuendo."
Activities
In his book Jewish Power, Goldberg writes that in the United States the "Jewish lobby" for decades played a leadership role in formulating American policy on issues such as civil rights, separation of church and state, and immigration, guided by a liberalism that was a complex mixture of Jewish tradition, the experience of persecution, and self interest. It was thrust into prominence following the Nixon AdministrationRichard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
's sharp shift of American policy towards significant military and foreign aid support for Israel following the 1973 Yom Kippur War
Yom Kippur War
The Yom Kippur War, Ramadan War or October War , also known as the 1973 Arab-Israeli War and the Fourth Arab-Israeli War, was fought from October 6 to 25, 1973, between Israel and a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria...
. Tivnan writes that a "full-fledged 'Jewish lobby'" was developed in 1943, in which the moderates represented by Stephen Samuel Wise
Stephen Samuel Wise
Stephen Samuel Wise was an Austro-Hungarian-born American Reform rabbi and Zionist leader.-Early life:...
and the American Jewish Committee
American Jewish Committee
The American Jewish Committee was "founded in 1906 with the aim of rallying all sections of American Jewry to defend the rights of Jews all over the world...
were defeated by supporters of Abba Hillel Silver
Abba Hillel Silver
Abba Hillel Silver was a U.S. Rabbi and Zionist leader. He was a key figure in the mobilization of American support for the founding of the State of Israel.-Biography:...
and "the maximalist goal of a 'Jewish Commonwealth'" at the American Jewish
American Jewish Conference
American Jewish Conference was an ad hoc organization that first met in Pittsburg in January 1943, and had its first official conference in August that year. The initial meeting included delegates from thirty-two national Jewish organizations...
and Biltmore Conference
Biltmore Conference
The Biltmore Conference, also known by its resolution as the Biltmore Program, was a fundamental departure from traditional Zionist policy with its demand "that Palestine be established as a Jewish Commonwealth." The meeting was held in New York City at the prestigious Biltmore Hotel from May 6...
s. Silver became the new leader of American Zionism, with his call for "loud diplomacy", and he then "cranked up the Zionist Organization of America
Zionist Organization of America
The Zionist Organization of America , founded in 1897, was one of the first official Zionist organizations in the United States, and, especially early in the 20th century, the primary representative of Jewish Americans to the World Zionist Organization, espousing primarily Political Zionism.Today,...
's one-man lobbying operation in Washington—renaming it the American Zionist Emergency Council (AZEC)—and began to mobilize American Jewry into a mass movement."
Former New York Times journalist Youssef Ibrahim writes: "That there is a Jewish lobby in America concerned with the well-being of Israel is a silly question. It is insane to ask whether the 6 million American Jews should be concerned about the 6 million Israeli Jews, particularly in view of the massacre of another 6 million Jews in the Holocaust. It's elementary, my dear Watson: Any people who do not care for their own are not worthy of concern. And what the Israel lobby does is what all ethnic lobbies — Greek, Armenian, Latvian, Irish, Cuban
Cuban-American lobby
The Cuban-American lobby describes those various groups of Cuban exiles in the United States and their descendants who have historically influenced the United States' policy toward Cuba...
, and others — do in this democracy."
See also
- JCallJCallJCall is a nonprofit advocacy group based in Europe to lobby the European parliament on foreign policy issues concerning the Middle East and Israel in particular. They say they are based along the lines of the America group J Street, founded just months before this group...
- Diaspora politics in the United StatesDiaspora politics in the United StatesDiaspora politics in the United States is the study of the political behavior of transnational ethnic diasporas, their relationship with their ethnic homelands and their host states, as well as their prominent role in ethnic conflicts. This article describes case studies and theories of political...
- Ethnic interest groups in the United StatesEthnic interest groups in the United StatesEthnic interest groups in the United States are ethnic interest groups within the United States which seek to influence the foreign policy and, to a lesser extent, the domestic policy of the United States for the benefit of the foreign "ethnic kin" or homeland with whom the respective ethnic groups...
- 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...
- Israel lobby in the United KingdomIsrael lobby in the United KingdomThe term Israel lobby in the United Kingdom is a term used to describe the loose coalition of groups and individuals who attempt to influence British foreign policy in support of Israel and its policies...
Further reading
- Rafael MedoffRafael MedoffRafael 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:...
, Jewish Americans and political participation: a reference handbook Chapter 4, The Jewish Lobby - Alan J. Ward, Immigrant Minority "Diplomacy": American Jews and Russia, 1901 - 1912, 1964, British Association for American StudiesBritish Association for American StudiesThe British Association for American Studies is a learned society in the field of American studies. It was founded in 1955.The association produces the Journal of American Studies, American Studies in Britain, US Studies Online, BAAS Paperbacks, and Resources for American Studies.It has produced...
- Hasia R. Diner, The Jews of the United States, 1654 to 2000, (2004), University of California Press