The level of unqualified US support for Israel is neither based on shared strategic interests nor compelling moral imperatives but almost entirely due to domestic American politics and especially the Israel Lobby
National interest drives foreign policies. It is a no-brainer except when it comes to the United States (US) policy for the Middle East, where its unwavering support for Israel sets aside its interests to advance that of Tel Aviv. The support is unparalleled in history and has persisted even when it has inflamed opinions and endangered American security.
The US has refused to withhold delivery of weapons or to criticize Israel sternly even as hundreds of people have been killed in Gaza in fresh Israeli bombardments of the besieged Palestinian enclave following a seven-day truce. Over 40,000 Palestinians, 70% of them women or children, have been killed in Israeli bombardments since October 7, 2023. Rights groups have flagged many air strikes as possible war crimes as they did not find any evidence of any military objectives in carrying them out.
The desperate calls to end the genocidal military campaign have fallen on deaf ears, underlining the hollowness of the system of international organisations, rules, and norms, or the rules-based order meant to ensure international peace and security. The order has been repeatedly sacrificed on the altar of unqualified US support for Israel.
The Lion’s Share
The support since the fourth of the Arab-Israeli wars—the Yom Kippur War—in October 1973 has dwarfed what the US has provided to other countries. Israel has been the largest annual recipient of American economic and military assistance since the Second World War. Israel receives roughly one‐fifth of the American foreign aid budget.
Each Israeli would get a subsidy of about $500 annually from the US in 2006. American academics John J Mearsheimer and Stephen M Walt, the authors of the book The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy, challenge the assumptions about the Israel-US bond. They argue it is neither based on shared strategic interests nor compelling moral imperatives. The two argue neither of the reasons could account for the level of material and diplomatic support to Israel.
The academics write the overall thrust of US policy in the Middle East is almost entirely due to domestic American politics, and especially the activities of the Israel Lobby. Mearsheimer and Walt argue special interest groups have skewed American foreign policy in ways they favour. But no lobby has managed to divert it as far from what the American national interest would otherwise suggest.
The Israel Lobby, whose activities have shaped America’s actions in the region, has convinced Americans that US and Israeli interests are identical. The unmatched power of the lobby, which is a coalition of individuals and organizations working to shape foreign policy in Israel’s favour, allows it to manipulate the American political system.
American Jews form the core of the lobby, whose activities include financial contributions. Organizations in the lobby such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) support the expansionist policies of Israel’s ruling Likud Party. AIPAC is among the most powerful and well‐known organizations influencing American foreign policy.
God’s Will
Neoconservatives and Christian evangelicals, who believe Israel’s creation is part of Biblical prophecy and support its expansionist agenda, are also part of the lobby. The evangelicals see pressuring Israel as contrary to God’s will even as Palestinian Christians have been at the receiving end of Israeli occupation as much as Muslims.
Mearsheimer and Walt write the US’s divided government offers many ways to influence the policy process. They argue that Interest groups, which enjoy disproportionate power when they are committed to a particular issue and the bulk of the population is indifferent, can shape policy by lobbying elected representatives and executive members. They do so by making campaign contributions, voting in elections, molding public opinion, etc.
Policymakers tend to accommodate interest groups even if their numbers are small when they are confident the rest of the population will not punish them. Mearsheimer and Walt argue the lobby’s power flows from its unmatched ability to play this game of interest group politics. They wrote what sets it apart is its extraordinary effectiveness. Pro‐Arab interest groups are weak to non‐existent, making the lobby’s task easier.
The lobby pressures both Congress and the executive branch to support Israel as a smart political choice. Mearsheimer and Walt write that the lobby ensures a positive public discourse about Israel by repeating myths about Israel and its founding. It seeks to prevent critical commentary about Israel from getting a fair hearing in the political arena.
Mearsheimer and Walt argue that controlling the debate is essential to guaranteeing US support. A candid discussion of ties with Israel might lead Americans to favour a different policy. The influence of the Israel lobby in the US Congress, where Israel is almost immune from criticism, is a key pillar of its effectiveness. Mearsheimer and Walt call this a remarkable situation because Congress never shies away from contentious issues.
Potential critics fall silent and there is hardly any debate at all when it comes to Israel. Christian Zionists are key members of Congress and it is one of the reasons for the lobby’s success. Dick Armey, one of them, in September 2002 called protecting Israel his number one priority in foreign policy.
Jewish senators and congressmen work to make US foreign policy support Israel. Pro‐Israel congressional staffers are another source of the lobby’s power. AIPAC is the mainstay of the lobby’s influence in Congress because it rewards legislators and congressional candidates supporting its agenda and punishes those who challenge it.
AIPAC ensures its friends, who need money to fight elections, get strong financial support from pro‐Israel political action committees. AIPAC directs campaign contributions to political opponents of those seen as hostile to Israel. AIPAC organizes letter‐writing campaigns and encourages newspaper editors to endorse pro‐Israel candidates. AIPAC helped defeat Senator Charles Percy (Illinois) for displaying insensitivity and even hostility to Israel.
Striking Largesse
Mearsheimer and Walt call the US largesse striking since Israel, which also gets special deals from America, is a wealthy industrial state. Israel gets its entire appropriation at the beginning of each fiscal year. This also allows it to earn extra interest, unlike other recipients who get their money in quarterly installments.
Israel can use roughly 25% of its military assistance to subsidise its defense industry. Most other recipients of American aid are required to spend all of it in the US. Israel is the only recipient exempted from accounting for how the aid is spent. Mearsheimer and Walt write the exemption makes it virtually impossible to prevent the money from being used for purposes the US opposes.
The purposes include building illegal Jewish settlements to dispossess Palestinians in the West Bank, which is supposed to be the core of an independent Palestinian state. The US has provided Israel generous aid to develop weapons systems such as the Lavi aircraft and access to the highest quality weaponry like Blackhawk helicopters and F‐16 jets apart from intelligence it denies even to its closest allies.
The US, which has also turned a blind eye towards Israel’s nuclear weapons, has since 1982 vetoed resolutions of the United Nations Security Council criticizing Israel. It has blocked efforts to put Israel’s nukes on the International Atomic Energy Agency’s agenda. The US has rescued Israel in wartime and taken its side while negotiating peace.
George W Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq on the pretext of non-existent weapons of mass destruction, which left half a million dead, was also intended to transform the Middle East for Israel’s advantage. But it ended up hurting the US interests and benefitting Iran.
Sustained Backing
Mearsheimer and Walt write apart from wartime alliances, it is hard to think of another instance where one country has provided another with a similar level of material and diplomatic support for such an extended period. They argue Israel was neither a vital strategic asset nor was there a compelling moral case for its sustained backing.
Mearsheimer and Walt underlined Israel’s strategic value during the Cold War when it served as America’s proxy and helped contain Soviet expansion in the region should not be overstated. They wrote backing Israel complicated America’s relations with the Arab world. The US move to give Israel $2.2 billion in emergency military aid during the Yom Kippur War triggered the Saudi Arabia-led oil embargo that hurt Western economies.
The Strategic Burden
Mearsheimer and Walt write Israel’s military could not also protect American interests when the 1979 Iranian Revolution raised concerns about the security of Persian Gulf oil supplies. They argued the first Gulf War (1990‐91) revealed that Israel was becoming a strategic burden. The US could not use Israeli bases during the war without rupturing the anti‐Iraq coalition.
The US diverted resources such as Patriot missile batteries to keep Tel Aviv from doing anything that might break the alliance against Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein. Israel stayed on the sidelines in 2003 when the US attacked Iraq again. The US could not have asked for Israeli help without triggering Arab opposition.
Mearsheimer and Walt argue the rationale for the US support to Israel after 9/11 implies that Washington should give it a free hand in dealing with the Palestinians and not press for concessions. Israel is seen as a crucial US ally as its enemies are America’s enemies. Mearsheimer and Walt argue the new rationale seems persuasive, but Israel is a liability in the so-called war on terrorism and the broader effort to deal with rogue states.
The academics argue the organizations threatening Israel—Hamas or Hezbollah—do not threaten the US except when it intervenes against them. They underline that Palestinian terrorism is not random violence directed against Israel or the West but is largely a response to Israel’s prolonged campaign to colonize the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Mearsheimer and Walt argue the US has a terrorism problem in good part because it is closely allied with Israel not the other way around. They argue US support for Israel makes winning the war on terror more difficult. Mearsheimer and Walt write al Qaeda leaders, including Osama bin Laden, were motivated by Israel’s presence in Jerusalem and the plight of the Palestinians.
The US 9/11 Commission found bin Laden explicitly sought to punish the US for its policies in the Middle East, including its support for Israel. It said he even tried to time the attacks to highlight this issue. Mearsheimer and Walt argue unconditional US support for Israel makes it easier for extremists to rally popular support and attract recruits. They cite public opinion polls and add they confirm that Arab populations are deeply hostile to American support for Israel.
A US State Department’s Advisory Group on Public Diplomacy for the Arab and Muslim world found that ‘citizens in these countries are genuinely distressed at the plight of the Palestinians and at the role they perceive the United States to be playing.’
Mearsheimer and Walt argue so‐called rogue states in the Middle East were not a dire threat to vital US interests either. The US has disagreements with these states, but Washington would not be nearly as worried about Iran, Bathist Iraq, or Syria were it not so closely tied to Israel. The US ties with Israel make it harder to deal with these states and Israeli nukes are among the reason why some of its neighbors want nuclear weapons.
The American refusal to course correction is a shot in the arm for China as it seeks to create a new world order on the back of its growing power. It strengthens the disdain for what is referred to as the global rules-based order. There will be much greater resonance for its dismissal as America’s rules and order, with nothing global about it.
