The pro-Israel lobby is dominating American headlines during the current election because of its outsized role in competitive House and Senate races \u2014 a role that’s drawn scrutiny as Israel’s popularity among American voters declines.<\/p>\n
Eli Clifton and Ian Lustick\u2019s new book \u201cIsrael\u2019s Lobby: America in the Grip of Foreign Power<\/a>\u201d unpacks how this network of lobbying groups works to influence American politics, foreign policy, civil liberties and more.<\/p>\n Clifton, a Quincy Institute co-founder, and Lustick, a professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, recently joined Alex Jordan and Courtney Rawlings on Always at War to discuss the impetus for the book. They also talk about how the Israel<\/a> lobby has changed in the years since John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt published \u201cThe Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy<\/a>,\u201d and how the lobby will try to to adjust to changing political realities in the United States.<\/p>\n Clifton and Lustick say that beyond advocating for a foreign policy that does not serve the American national interest, the lobby has in recent years worked to curb free speech, particularly on college campuses.<\/p>\n \u201cWe 1787593212 have the problem of the lobby\u2019s’ attack on American freedoms domestically,\u201d Lustick said on the podcast. \u201cThis is a result of the lobby not being to defend Israeli policies because they\u2019ve become so extreme. So it attacks American freedoms to try to suppress debate, intimidate dissidents and break the institutions that produce those dissidents.\u201d <\/p>\n Candidates supported by AIPAC, the United Democracy Project, its affiliated Super PAC, and other pro-Israel donors and groups, have had notable successes and failures so far in the 2026 primary elections. A challenger, backed by this pro-Israel network, managed to unseat<\/a> sharp Israel critic Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) in the country\u2019s most expensive ever House primary; while a similar effort in the second most expensive Senate primary in history was unsuccessful<\/a> when Abdul El-Sayed defeated Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) earlier this month. <\/p>\n The authors found nine billionaires who, in Clifton’s words, indicate that \u201cIsrael is the driving motivation for their engagement in American politics.\u201d These individuals have given over $1.7 billion in campaign contributions. In the Michigan Democratic Senate primary specifically, Clifton has noted<\/a>, an outsized proportion of funds came from out-of-state donors who have previously given primarily to Republican candidates. <\/p>\n As Israel\u2019s popularity suffers in both major political parties, the authors warn that the lobby will look for ways to influence American policy in ways that are more difficult to overturn, turning their preferences into reality without clear oversight from elected officials and the public. <\/p>\n \u201cThey want to keep the United States as close as it has been historically,\u201d said Clifton. \u201cAnd they understand that what that might look like might change over time because public opinion is swinging in a different direction. So they\u2019re trying to figure out how you lock in the United States.\u201d <\/p>\n From Your Site Articles<\/p>\n Related Articles Around the Web<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The pro-Israel lobby is dominating American headlines during the current election because of its outsized role in competitive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":262867,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[31578,2922,37,41657,1047],"class_list":["post-262866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-2026-midterms","tag-aipac","tag-israel","tag-israel-lobby","tag-video"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117151716188621523","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262866\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}