Why Is The Israel Lobby So Anxious?

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Pappe draws on the work of Palestinian–American critic and activist Edward Said to argue Zionism increasingly allied itself to the story of Western modernity and progress. In doing so, he argues, it helped perpetuate Orientalism : a Western understanding of the Arab and Islamic Middle East as underdeveloped and backward.

From the late 19th century, Palestinians were perceived as“at best, an exotic spectacle and, at worst, an ecological nuisance”, Pappe writes. Recently, US President Donald Trump has dismissed Palestinians' connection to the land in Gaza, calling it a“big real estate site”.

As antiracism has become a cultural norm in the West, Israel, like other nations, has become wary of comparisons to apartheid South Africa.

However, those comparisons have existed for a long time . In recent decades, the Israel lobby has amplified claims of antisemitism as a defense against them,“weaponizing anti-Semitism to procure public support for Israel”, Pappe argues.

Israel had a close military alliance with apartheid-era South Africa, before the anti-apartheid African National Congress came to power in 1994. Last year, South Africa argued at the International Court of Justice in The Hague that Israel is responsible for apartheid against Palestinians.

In a searing account, Pappe charts an intensive campaign by the Israel lobby against former UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who called for the immediate recognition of a Palestinian state .

The newspaper The Jewish Chronicle, for example, accused Corbyn of associating with“Holocaust deniers, terrorists and some outright anti-Semites”, he writes. Corbyn stepped down in 2019.

In 2020, a report by the UK Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) found the culture within the Labour Party under Corbyn“at best, did not do enough to prevent anti-Semitism and, at worst, could be seen to accept it.”

Antisemitism in the UK Conservative Party gets much lighter treatment, Pappe argues. For example, former frontbencher Jacob Rees-Mogg described Jewish members of his party as“illuminati who are taking power to themselves.”

Pappe believes the reason for this discrepancy in treatment is that Corbyn was in a position of power“that could affect British policy towards Israel.”

The Israel lobby intensively campaigned against former UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn (pictured with now prime minister Keir Starmer), Pappe writes. Photo: Matt Dunham / AAP via The Conversation
The lobby and the US

In the book's second half, Pappe shifts his attention to the US, now Israel's major geopolitical sponsor. He argues that the US is intent on exempting Israel from any reckoning with international law.

He details the emergence of the American Zionist Emergency Council , a forerunner of AIPAC that emerged in the 1950s. These organisations' early successes included US recognition in 1947 of the UN's Assembly Resolution 181 , which called for the partition of Palestine into Arab and Jewish states, with Jerusalem as a separate, internationally governed entity.

This led to the 1948 Arab–Israeli war, which ended with an enlarged and consolidated state of Israel. Rapid US recognition of the new state was another early success for the lobby. Signature achievements include the constant flow of arms and aid to Israel.

Another is the US using its position on the United Nations Security Council (and its power and influence more generally) to enable Israel to avoid complying with numerous UN resolutions.

However, Pappe shows the lobby has by no means always had its way. Since its inception, it has come up against the more sceptical,“pro-Arab” US State Department, which employs Middle East experts who are more sympathetic to its various populations. There have been periods of friction with Israel, including in the 1950s, when the US temporarily suspended economic aid.

Lobbying strategies developed since the 1950s are noteworthy. If the US executive branch of government wavers on unconditional support, the Israel lobby cultivates the Congress. In the UK, the lobby curries favour with MPs in the Labour and Conservative parties, including organising trips to Israel through allied groups, such as Labour Friends of Israel and Conservative Friends of Israel.

In the US, AIPAC funds the campaign of pro-Israel candidates and holds lavish conferences, high on pomp and display, at which legislators and politicians (including Trump, former president Joe Biden and former vice president Mike Pence) profess their identification with Israel.

The lobby vs civil society

Pappe argues that the lobby's cultivation of political elites threatens to widen the gap between political and media elites on one side, and global civil society (trade unions, churches, academic associations, non-government organisations, and activist groups) on the other. We can certainly see this happening today against the backdrop of the current war in Gaza.

In recent decades, dissent over Israel's actions has also increased within the US Jewish community. A significant segment of the Jewish diaspora is reasserting itself and its progressive values, derived from the Jewish experience of victimisation and statelessness, in relation to Israel.

Pappe draws attention to the emergence in 1996 of Jewish Voice for Peace , which calls itself“the largest progressive Jewish anti-Zionist organization in the world”, and the liberal Zionist lobby J Street , which works towards a democratic Jewish homeland in Israel, with a negotiated resolution, agreed to by Israelis and Palestinians.

J Street wants to normalize Israel as a democratic Jewish state committed to a two-state solution and is uncomfortable with Israel as an occupying power. In its own words, it“rejects any proposal to have Israel and the United States forcibly displace the people of Gaza and/or occupy the Strip.”

Pappe notes that active support for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement is strong in UK civil society. Perhaps this is due to Britain's postcolonial guilt, after enabling the creation of the state of Israel before then largely vacating the diplomatic field.

The UK Israel lobby, which is frequently given voice in the Murdoch media in particular, consistently attempts to align antisemitism and criticism of Israel in the public consciousness.

Disenchanted up close

Despite its current influence, Pappe does not think the lobby's future as a political force is necessarily guaranteed.

Throughout the book, he insists the Israel lobby is driven, at its heart, by his country's lack of ethical foundations. As a careful historian, he tellingly believes most of the lobby's efforts are at war with truth itself.

The Israel lobby, for example, likes to present supporters of the rights of Palestinians as antisemitic. But in fact, they are typically driven by a sense of injustice at the Palestinians' occupation and an understanding of their struggle for civil and political rights.

Of course, that's not to say antisemitism doesn't exist. And it can exist alongside criticisms of Israel.

As Dennis Altman wrote last year ,“the passions aroused by Israel's escalating response to the Hamas attacks have revived centuries-old stereotypes of Jews as both alien and all-powerful” and sometimes“the distinction between opposition to Israel and hatred of Jews becomes blurred”.