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Talking About the Pro-Israel Lobby

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U.S. Foreign Policy Discourse and the Israel Lobby

Abstract

In this chapter, I offer a definition of how this book will use the term ‘pro-Israel lobby’ in contrast to how this concept has been discussed and defined in other notable scholarly works. This chapter also examines the lobby group phenomenon in terms of American political pluralism and how lobbying is said to impact legislation, along with the relationship between lobbying and public opinion. Further, the chapter will critically discuss the literature surrounding the supposed influence which pro-Israel groups have on the US foreign policy formation process. Primarily, this chapter generally outlines the differences between this author’s position on the subject and the arguments made by Mearsheimer and Walt (London Review of Books 28:3–12, 2006, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, London, Penguin Books, 2007) in their work.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    There are several examples, listed by Mearsheimer and Walt (2007:164), of what could be termed defamation as recurring tactic. The authors argue that Presidential candidates regularly make pro-Israel speeches in order to avoid a similar fate to Howard Dean in the 2004 Presidential campaign. Dean had called for the United States to play a more even-handed role in the Palestinian–Israeli conflict. According to Mearsheimer and Walt, Dean was reprimanded and challenged by fellow democrats, including Joseph Lieberman, for ‘selling Israel down the river’. Mearsheimer and Walt remark that an email campaign was waged which warned Jewish leaders around the country that Dean would somehow be bad for Israel.

  2. 2.

    Even the more recent obstructionist tendencies of Congress under President Obama conform to this pattern, but that is another more complex discussion around the evolution of US identity and foreign policy discourses since 2008.

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    Keith Peter Kiely

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Kiely, K.P. (2017). Talking About the Pro-Israel Lobby. In: U.S. Foreign Policy Discourse and the Israel Lobby . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52986-8_2

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