Israel Lobby in The United States - Structure - Formal Lobby

Formal Lobby

The formal component of the Israel lobby consists of organized lobby groups, political action committees (PACs), think tanks and media watchdog groups. The Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks all lobbies and PACs, describes the ‘background’ of those ‘Pro-Israel’ as, “A nationwide network of local political action committees, generally named after the region their donors come from, supplies much of the pro-Israel money in US politics. Additional funds also come from individuals who bundle contributions to candidates favored by the PACs. The donors' unified goal is to build stronger US-Israel relations and to support Israel in its negotiations and armed conflicts with its Arab neighbors.”

According to Mitchell Bard, there are, three key formal lobbying groups:

  • Christians United for Israel, is the "largest" pro-Israel lobby.
  • The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) which directly lobbies the United States Congress
  • The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations which "is the main contact between the Jewish community and the executive branch" of the US government.

Christians United for Israel give “every pro-Israel Christian and Christian church the opportunity to stand up and speak up for Israel.” According to the group's founder and head, Pastor John Hagee, the members “ask the leadership of our government to stop putting pressure on Israel to divide Jerusalem and the land of Israel.”

In his 2006 book The Restoration of Israel: Christian Zionism in Religion, Literature, and Politics, historian Gerhard Falk describes the evangelical Christian groups that lobby on behalf of Israel as being so numerous that "it is not possible to list" them all, although many are linked via the National Association of Evangelicals. It is a "powerful religious lobby" that actively supports Israel in Washington.

According to the author of Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism, Michelle Goldberg, "Evangelical Christians have substantial influence on US Middle East Policy, more so than some better-known names such as AIPAC."

According to Mitchell Bard, the two Jewish groups aim to present policy makers with unified and representative messages via the aggregation and filtering of the diversity of opinions held by smaller pro-Israel lobby groups and the wider American Jewish community. The diverse spectrum of opinions held by American Jewry is reflected in the many formal pro-Israel groups, and as such some analysts make a distinction within the Israel lobby between right-leaning and left-leaning groups. This diversity became more pronounced following Israel’s acceptance of the Oslo Accords, which split “liberal universalists” and “hard-core Zionists --- the Orthodox community and right wing Jews”. This division mirrored a similar split for and against the Oslo process in Israel, and led to a parallel rift within the pro-Israel lobby. During the 2008 election campaign, Barack Obama 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 Magazine, notes “It was an odd choice of words—Likud 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.”

US foreign policy scholars John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, focusing almost exclusively on Jewish groups, define the core of the lobby to include the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the Anti-Defamation League and Christians United for Israel. Other key organizations which they state work to benefit Israel, in many cases by influencing US foreign policy, include the American Jewish Congress, the Zionist Organization of America, the Israel Policy Forum, the American Jewish Committee, the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, Americans for a Safe Israel, American Friends of Likud, Mercaz-USA, and Hadassah. Fifty-one of the largest and most important come together in the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, whose self-described mission includes “forging diverse groups into a unified force for Israel’s well-being” and working to “strengthen and foster the special US-Israel relationship”

Stephen Zunes, in a response to Mearsheimer and Walt, lists "Americans for Peace Now, the Tikkun Community, Brit Tzedek v' Shalom, and the Israel Policy Forum" as "pro-Israel" organizations that, unlike the right-leaning organizations focused on by Mearsheimer and Walt, are opposed to "the occupation, the settlements, the separation wall, and Washington's unconditional support for Israeli policies." These organizations, however, are not PACs and therefore, like AIPAC, are prohibited by campaign finance regulations from financially supporting political campaigns of candidates for federal office.

John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt state in their controversial bestseller, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, that the tone of the right-leaning component of the Israel lobby results from the influence of the leaders of the two top lobby groups: the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. They go on to list, as right-leaning think tanks associated with the lobby, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the American Enterprise Institute, and the Hudson Institute. They also state that the media watchdog group Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America is part of the right-wing component of the lobby.

In The Case for Peace, Alan Dershowitz also of Harvard, argues that the most right-leaning pro-Israel groups in the United States are not Jews at all, but Evangelical Christians. Dershowitz cites "Stand for Israel, an organization devoted to mobilizing Evangelical Christian support for Israel" co-founded by "ormer Christian Coalition executive director Ralph Reed." Although the rhetoric of most groups like Stand for Israel is similar to their Jewish-based counterparts, some individuals have based their support on specific biblical passages, thus they have been vulnerable to criticism from Israelis and US Jews for having "ulterior motives" such as the fulfillment of "prerequisite to the Second Coming" or having "better access for proselytizing among Jews."

In April 2008, J Street was established, describing itself as the only federal "pro-peace, pro-Israel" Political Action Committee (PAC). Its goal is to provide political and financial support to candidates for federal office from US citizens who believe a new direction in US policy will advance US interests in the Middle East and promote real peace and security for Israel. Founded by former President Bill Clinton advisor Jeremy Ben Ami and policy analyst Daniel Levy and supported by prominent Israeli politicians and high-ranking officers (see Letter of support from prominent Israeli leaders), J Street supports diplomatic solutions over military ones, including with Iran; multilateral over unilateral approaches to conflict resolution; and dialog over confrontation with a wide range of countries and actors.

Read more about this topic:  Israel Lobby In The United States, Structure

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