It’s the Lobby, stupid
By Jim Reed
CBC News Viewpoint | Aug. 1, 2006

Jim Reed has worked as a researcher, writer, producer, director, reporter and news anchor for CTV, TVO and CBC. He has travelled widely and has freelanced for The Associated Press, The New York Times, The Globe and Mail and other news organizations.

Many people wonder how it is that Israel has such influence with the U.S. Congress and why it enjoys such favour with the American government. Ask anyone in Washington, D.C., that question and you will get a four-word answer, often in hushed tones and a bit of a quizzical look: “It’s the Lobby, stupid.”
“The Lobby” they mean is a group of Americans who represent the interests of Israel on Capital Hill.

Few members of the U.S. House or Senate want to talk about the subject on the record, because, on the one hand they respect this lobby group and on the other, they fear it.

Two well-known American academics, Stephen Walt, dean of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, and John Mearsheimer from the University of Chicago, recently published a lengthy essay titled The Israel Lobby. Professors Walt and Mearsheimer write that American foreign policy has been “unduly influenced and even distorted by this U.S. domestic pressure group.”
The lobby’s driving force is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC. Associated with it are many national Jewish organizations across the United States and some members of the U.S. civil service. While AIPAC does not raise money to finance candidates, it holds information workshops, sponsors paid trips to Israel and provides advice and assistance to pro Israel Political Action Committees (PACs) throughout the U.S.

PACs are a common feature of U.S. politics. They’re usually groups of private individuals organized to raise election campaign funds. They then use the money to support or oppose electoral candidates.

Powerful political force

In the case of AIPAC, it evaluates the contenders based on how friendly they are to Israel and how supportive they are of Israeli government policy.
All PACs attempt to influence congressional voting patterns and they promote or discourage the passage of certain legislation. According to Washington insiders, the Israel lobby and the PACs they influence, make up the most powerful political force of its kind in the country. There’s nothing illegal or even morally wrong about this lobby. It’s just very good at getting results. Critics, however, suggest that it has become too powerful.

It’s powerful enough in fact, according to those who have experienced its pressure first-hand, to influence – some say dictate, U.S. foreign policy.
The Walt/Mearsheimer essay is controversial and not many in the mainstream media have dared touch it for fear of being labelled anti-Semitic.

In his comments on the essay, Tony Judt of New York University agrees that the lobby does indeed affect U.S. foreign policy and he suggests it has been very successful. Judt points out, for example, that “Israel is the largest recipient of American foreign aid” and, he says, “American responses to Israeli behavior have been overwhelmingly supportive.”

Foreign policy and foreign aid have always been the lobby’s primary targets. Even some AIPAC supporters express surprise at just how effective its lobbying efforts have been.
Special treatment

Israel receives about one-fifth of all the foreign aid that the U.S. dispenses to needy countries. All countries with one exception receive their aid in instalments. Israel, however, gets special treatment. Its money is delivered each year in a lump-sum payment, up front. (Congressional critics point out that Israel can thus earn interest on free money.)

Moreover, Israel is the only aid recipient that does not have to account in detail for the ways in which the money is spent. It is even allowed to use 25 per cent of its annual allocation of approximately $3 billion to subsidize its own defence industry. These unusually generous terms are the direct result of intense lobbying by AIPAC and its friends.

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