The Israeli Lobby in the United States’ Foreign Policy

The American-Israeli relationship is regarded as one of the strongest relations between two states in the contemporary world. For a number of cultural, strategic, and political reasons, the United States strongly supports the Zionist regime. On the other hand, the role of the strong and influential Israeli lobby in the United States is also another significant factor that led to a close relationship between the two countries in the past decades.

 

The Israeli lobby resorts to various methods – from sponsoring Congress and Presidential candidates and media propaganda to influencing the scientific and research circles, to direct the activities of the United States-led policy-making entities as well as the public opinion of this country towards supporting the Zionist regime.

 

However, there is an ongoing debate among political researchers concerning the main reason for the United States’ support of Israel. The question is whether this support is mainly due to the strategic role played by Israel in the Middle East which seeks to serve the United States’ interests or brought about by the influence of and the pressure exerted by the Zionist lobby in the United States. 

 

A Review of the History of Strategic Relations Between the United States and Israel

 

Regarding the importance of Israel to the United States, it suffices to say that the United States was the first country to recognize it only eleven minutes after the establishment of the State of Israel was declared on May 14, 1948. However, the United States’ aid to Israel during the first decade of its establishment was very small and did not include military aids. From the time of John F. Kennedy, American-Israeli relations were dependent and developed, and arms sales to Israel began. He believed that such a relationship is comparable only to that which it has with the United Kingdom. At the same time, he repeatedly warned Israeli officials that United States-Israeli relations should be like a two-way street that benefits both countries, and that Israel should accept the United States’ recommendations to moderate its policy toward the Arabs.

 

After Kennedy, Johnson significantly increased his financial and disciplinary support for Israel, and even indirectly agreed that Israel can have nuclear facilities. 

 

But the serious and comprehensive support of Israel by the United States- selling weapons and the aids that worth billions of dollars- dates back to the Nixon era of the Republican Party; the period of a president who did not come to power without the support of the Jews and, like any other republican, did not seek the political support of the Jews.

 

Nixon wanted the United States’ relationship with Israel to reflect the national interest and not merely the influence of the Israeli lobby in the United States. In the next years, he came to this idea that during the Cold War, Israel proved to be a kind and reliable friend for the United States. Pointing to the October 1973 War, some analysts are of the opinion that supporting of Israel by Nixon at that event, is rooted more in the geopolitical considerations of Nixon’s administration than the influence of the Israeli lobby; Considerations that required supporting Israel for the protection of the United States’ interests in the region.

 

Hence, Nixon was the first president who avoided making a balance with respect to the relationships with the Arabs calling Israel as a strategic asset to the United States during the Cold War.

 

During his successor, Gerald Ford, the United States replaced France as Israel’s largest supplier of weapons. The United States’ aid to Israel has risen sharply and from $300 million rose to more than $2 billion a year. Thus, Israel became the largest recipient of aid from the United States.

 

During the Nixon and Ford administrations, such developments made the relationship with Israel an important issue in Washington. As a result, American supporters of Israel have become important players in the capital of the United

States and have been able to expand their activities. In other words, it is argued that a change in Nixon’s Middle East policy empowered the Jewish lobby, not vice versa. Based on this assumption, the United States in the Nixon period, due to its special considerations during the Cold War and the requirements of the competition between the two rivals, turned to Israel, and the Jewish lobby played only a subsidiary role in this regard.

 

Immediately following Israel’s rapid victory in the 1967 war, when it demonstrated its military powers compared to the power of the Arab states in the region, the United States’ aid shot up by 450%. Part of this increase was apparently related to Israel’s willingness to provide the United States with examples of new Soviet weapons captured during the war. Following the 1970-71 civil war in Jordan, when Israel’s potential to curb revolutionary movements outside its borders became apparent, aid increased another sevenfold. After attacking Arab armies in the 1973 War were successfully countered by the largest American airlift in history, the United States military aid to Israel increased by another 800%. These increases paralleled the British decision to withdraw its forces from east of the Suez, which also led to massive arms sales with the Shah. Aid quadrupled again soon after the fall of the Shah and the ratification of the Camp David Treaty. Following the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, reaching an agreement on a plan for strategic cooperation in 1983 and 1984, as well as the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq, all in all, led to the increase of the United States aid to Israel. 

 

Undoubtedly, protecting Israel has never been the only goal of the special relationship between the United States and Israel; because, if the United States was concerned simply with Israel’s security, the United States would be dedicated to maintaining Israeli defences to the point where they would be approximately equal to any combination of Arab armed forces. Instead, leaders of both American political parties have called for insuring qualitative Israeli military superiority comparing to the Arab countries.

 

Indeed, the primary reason for the comprehensive American supports of Israel is the role Israel plays for the United States in the region. Israel has successfully prevented victories by radical nationalist movements in Lebanon, Jordan, and Yemen, as well as in Palestine. They have kept Syria, for many years an ally of the Soviet Union, in check. The Israeli air force is predominant throughout the region. Israel’s frequent wars with the Arab states have provided battlefield testing for American arms, often against Soviet weapons.

 

During the Cold War, the Israeli army, as a stable army in the region, was an issue for the United States which constantly sought to help Israel. On the other hand, due to the dependence of the leaders of the conservative Arab states on the United States and their concern regarding the radical forces within their societies as well as their potential foreign backers (that is to say the East bloc and then the Islamist fundamentalists) it was assumed that they have no choice but to follow the United States Middle East policy.

 

At the same time, during and after the Kuwait War, efforts were being made for establishing a strategic partnership with the Arab states of the Persian Gulf region. These efforts included selling weapons, military cooperation, the establishment of bases, and so on; However, it soon became clear that the potentially unstable Gulf monarchies, still suspicious of the United States intentions and lacking the advantages of Israel in terms of well-trained forces, technological sophistication, and ability to mobilize their human and material resources, could never be a substitute for the United States alliance with Israel.

Thus, the end of the Cold War did not end Israel’s strategic importance to United States interests in the Middle East; Because indeed, radical nationalism and -- more recently – Islamic fundamentalism have been also seen by Americans as a threat to American interests in the region; furthermore, Israel sought to act as a reliable ally of the United States in the so-called “combating terrorism.” In addition, the “Greater Middle East” plan, which has been proposed in recent years, shows that Israel is the focus of the United States’ attention in the Middle East and that the United States strategists are planning to make this regime more powerful in the region.

 

In this regard, Israel has been an important tool in the hands of the United States for threatening the Islamic Republic of Iran and controlling it since the 1990s. Of course, this threat is a policy that, in practice, has not been very successful. It seems that given the new developments that occurred in the Middle East (especially ones that occurred in Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt) and the expansion of the sphere of influence of Iran in the region, this threat has proved costly for Israel and hence the United States.

 

The Concept and Manner of Lobbying in the Process of Policy-Making in the United States

 

The term “Jewish power in the United States” is an expression which is used (especially in Islamic countries) to explain why the United States supports Israel. Generally, this term is used in other countries to show how Jews influence the foreign policy of the United States regarding different issues such as the Middle East. In the eyes of the people, the “Jewish lobby” in the United States is in a state of mystery; therefore, it is reminiscent of freemasonry and other secret movements throughout history. in fact, “lobby” does not indicate a negative meaning in the United States and it is not considered an illegal activity.

 

Political power in the United States is more decentralized than in any other country. The Constitution of the United States gives individuals, groups, and organizations the right to defend their interests by presenting a petition against the legislative and executive bodies of the country. This has made it possible for influential currents and organizations to influence the complex process of political decision-making in the United States.

 

Lobbying is not a phenomenon belonging to Jews, and different pressure groups from different racial and social backgrounds, (especially immigrants and religious minorities, or even major guilds and industries) use the tool of lobbying in the legislator and executive powers of the United States in an attempt to find their demands being met. Among the most important ethnic lobbies in the United States, after the Israeli lobby, one can refer to the Armenian lobby, the Chinese (Taiwanese) lobby, the Cuban lobby, and the Mexican lobby.

 

Also, the lobby of the oil industry and the arms industry are among the important pressure groups. The distribution of power between different lobbies is not the same, and any group or organization that can better and more skillfully use the tool of the political game of the pressure groups can have a greater impact and influence on the process of policy-making in that area. The pressure groups, especially when focusing on a specific goal, can effectively pursue their interests. Lobbies usually pursue their goals in a variety of ways; in short, they are:

 

1) Establishing close relations with representatives of Congress and the Senate and trying to persuade them to support lobbying in the legislative sphere. In this regard, sometimes the financial supports of the candidates during the election campaigns are used as an effective tactic. In addition, the number of votes that the supporters of each lobby can cast for a congressional representative is of importance.

 

2) Efforts to influence the executive branch by lobbying for gaining key positions at the local, state, and federal levels and to support (in terms of financial issues, media campaigns, and guiding the votes of the advocators of the lobby in favour of the intended individual) the candidates who adopt a same approach of the lobby during their election campaigns (from provincial to Presidential).

 

3) Efforts to influence public opinion through the following ways: Controlling media and press; publishing various books and articles; holding public speaking sessions; propagation campaigns in universities and attracting students.

 

Thus, it can be said that lobbies generally propagate at both official (governmental) and non-official levels (socially) for their interests and goals. As far as the success in achieving the goals is concerned, lobbies differ from other pressure groups. The reality is that this difference lies in the extent of the access of each lobby to power resources (especially financial resources) as well as the layers of power (the levels of influencing).

 

One of the tools for understanding the United States foreign policy, especially in relation to Middle East issues, is the objective and realistic understanding of the causes and factors of Zionist power in the United States and how the influential Zionist lobby works in that country (as one of the factors influencing the United States foreign policy regarding the Middle East). Undoubtedly, such a perception is the requirement of the causes of the actions of the United States and finding ways to influence them.

 

Israel’s official lobby in the United States includes several small but powerful groups that have been formally registered and have declared their duty as influencing the decisions of the United States government regarding Israel. One of the most important of these groups is the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee, known as AIPAC. Most official members and the leaders of this committee are Jews.

 

But the Zionist lobby in the United States, in the general sense, includes organizations, social groups as well as Jewish and non-Jewish currents which directly or indirectly seek to influence the political decision-making in Washington with the aim of serving the interests of Israel. On the other hand, American Jews have numerous and powerful organizations that cannot be categorized as “lobbies.”

 

Many of these organizations are only involved in creating integrity in actions within the Jewish community (regarding a wide range of matters, including encouraging them to participate in local, regional, and federal political activities). Also, the Zionist power in the United States is not limited to the actions of Jews. There are other groups in the United States that, without their members being Jewish, sometimes try to protect Israel’s interests more than Jewish groups. In this regard, right-wing Christians (who are also known as Zionist Christians), as well as neoconservatives, can be mentioned. Therefore, it seems that it is more precise to refer to the issues that we discuss with the term “Israel” lobby or “Zionist” lobby than the “Jewish” lobby.

 

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