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The “Israel Lobby” and American Politics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 May 2009

Robert C. Lieberman
Robert C. Lieberman
Affiliation:
Department of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University. E-mail: rcl15@columbia.edu
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Abstract

In their recent book, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, JohnMearsheimer and Stephen Walt argue that American support for Israel does not serveAmerican interests. Nevertheless, they observe that American foreign policy regarding theMiddle East, especially in recent years, has tilted strongly toward support for Israel,and they attribute this support to the influence of the “Israel lobby”in American domestic politics. Their book is principally an attempt to make a causalargument about American politics and policymaking. I examine three aspects of thisargument—its causal logic, the use of evidence to support hypotheses, and theargument's connection with the state of knowledge about American politics—andconclude that the case for the Israel lobby as the primary cause of American support forIsrael is at best a weak one, although it points to a number of interesting questionsabout the mechanisms of power in American politics. Mearsheimer and Walt's propositionsabout the direct influence of the Israel lobby on Congress and the executive branch aregenerally not supported by theory or evidence. Less conclusive and more suggestive,however, are their arguments about the lobby's apparent influence on the terms andboundaries of legitimate debate and discussion of Israel and the Middle East in Americanpolicymaking. These directions point to an alternative approach to investigating theapparent influence of the Israel lobby in American politics, focusing less on direct,overt power over policy outcomes and more on more subtle pathways of influence over policyagendas and the terms of policy discourse.

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Perspectives on Politics , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , June 2009 , pp. 235 - 257
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Copyright © American Political Science Association 2009

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