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Jewish lobby is a term used to describe or allege organized Jewish influence in a number of areas, including politics, government, public policy, international relations, as well as business, international finance, the media, academia, and popular culture.
The phrase is sometimes used to refer loosely to various pro-Israel lobbying groups and individuals in the United States and other countries - in this context Walter John Raymond defines it as "A conglomeration of approximately thirty-four Jewish political organizations in the United States which make joint and separate efforts to lobby for their interests in the United States, as well as for the interests of the State of Israel."
The validity of the term "Jewish lobby" is disputed by a number of commentators and on several grounds. Some state that, when referring to American groups, it is an inaccurate label for a group of political organizations which do not represent most American Jews, which include many non-Jews, which may advocate a diversity of conflicting political positions, and whose primary concern is policy towards Israel. Others argue that the term is antisemitic when used to attribute a manipulative and all-powerful character to Jews.
Usage
Descriptive
| Lobbying in the United States | |
|---|---|
| History | |
| Topics | |
| Major industrial and business lobbies | |
| Major single-issue lobbies | |
| Diaspora and ethnic lobbies | |
| See also | |
The term "Jewish lobby" has been used to refer to the groups organized in the US and other countries to promote the special interests of their Jewish members. The Oxford English Dictionary uses it in this way to serve as an example of a special interest lobby, quoting from a 1958 article in the Listener: "The United States Government, sensitive to the Jewish lobby .. backed the Jews".
J.J. Goldberg, Editorial Director of the Jewish-American newspaper The Forward, writes that in the United States the "Jewish lobby" was thrust into prominence following the Nixon Administration's sharp shift of American policy towards significant military and foreign aid support for Israel following the 1973 war. Goldberg notes that the "Jewish lobby" predated the Nixon years by decades, playing a leadership role in formulating American policy on issues such as civil rights, separation of church and state, and immigration, guided by a liberalism that was a complex mixture of Jewish tradition, the experience of persecution, and self interest. In a speech in 2004, Goldberg stated: "The Jewish lobby ... is actually more than just a dozen organizations. The Anti-Defamation League, The American Jewish Committee, Hadassah, of course, AIPAC." The late Jewish scholar Arthur Hertzberg writes that following the Six-Day War, "he "Jewish lobby" was no longer spoken of in whispers, and its official leaders no longer pretended that they advanced their cause only by gentle persuasion."
Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, authors of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, write that "AIPAC and the Conference of Presidents and the Israeli media themselves refer to America’s ‘Jewish Lobby’". Prominent Jewish groups in other countries have also used the term "Jewish lobby" descriptively. For example the B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation Commission of Australia defines the "Jewish lobby" as "an unwieldy group of individuals and organisations devoted to supporting the needs and interests of the Jewish community."
Criticism
Some writers criticize the use of the term "Jewish lobby" claiming that it is limited as a descriptive term. Mitchell Bard, director of the non-profit American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise (AICE), writes that: "Reference is often made to the 'Jewish lobby' in an effort to describe Jewish influence, but this term is both vague and inadequate. While it is true that American Jews are sometimes represented by lobbyists, such direct efforts to influence policy-makers are but a small part of the lobby’s ability to shape policy." Bard argues the term Israel lobby is more accurate, because it is comprises both formal and informal elements (which includes public opinion), and "...because a large proportion of the lobby is made up of non-Jews."
Edward Tivnan concurs, writing in his 1988 book The Lobby that the "Jewish lobby" in the United States "had become primarily a pro-Israel lobby, one so aggressive, omnipresent and influential on matters relating to the Middle East that the denizens of Capital Hill refer to it simply as “the lobby,”…"
Stephen Walt commented that he and co-author Mearsheimer "never use the term 'Jewish lobby' because the lobby is defined by its political agenda, not by religion or ethnicity." In a letter to the editor of The New York Times, they state "Indeed, we explicitly rejected this label as inaccurate and misleading, both because the lobby includes non-Jews like the Christian Zionists and because many Jewish Americans do not support the hard-line policies favored by its most powerful elements."
Antisemitic
See also: Protocols of the Elders of Zion
For centuries, a key element of antisemitic thought were conspiracy theories that the Jews, as a group, were plotting to control or otherwise influence the world. Vijay Prasad described The myth of the "Jewish lobby" in India's magazine Frontline:
The idea of the "Jewish lobby" is attractive because it draws upon at least a few hundred years of anti-Semitic worry about an international conspiracy operated by Jewish financiers to defraud the European and American working poor of their livelihood. The "Jew," without a country, but with a bank, had no loyalty to the nation, no solidarity with fellow citizens. The anti-Semitic document, "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," is a good illustration of this idea. The Nazis stigmatized the "Jew" as the reason for poverty and exploitation, and obscured the role played by capitalism in the reproduction of grief. The six million Jews in the U.S. do not determine U.S. foreign policy; nor are they united. Jews in America, like other communities, are rent with division, not united behind one agenda.
Susan Jacobs of Manchester Metropolitan University states that the phrase, when used "without mentioning other ‘lobbies’ or differentiating Jews who have different political positions on a number of questions, including Israel and Palestine", is a contemporary form of the fear of a Jewish conspiracy. Robert S. Wistrich, of the International Center for the Study of Anti-Semitism, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, sees reference to the phrase, when used to describe an "all-powerful 'Jewish Lobby'" that controls Middle Eastern policy, as reliance on a classic antisemitic stereotype.
Dominique Vidal, writing in Le Monde diplomatique, claims that in France, the term had been exclusively used by the French far right as "a phrase that combines standard anti-semitic fantasies about Jewish finance, media control and power; the term is the contemporary equivalent of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion," but that in 2004 it had been used by "a Jewish writer, Elisabeth Schemla". Vidal noted that this usage was distinct from that in the United States, "where the self-described Jewish lobby is only one of many influence groups that have official standing with institutions and authorities. Bruno Bettelheim detested the term, arguing "The self-importance of Jews combined with the paranoia of the anti-Semite had created the image of this lobby."
Michael Visontay, editor of Australia's The Sydney Morning Herald, writes that "The way the phrase 'Jewish lobby has been bandied about in numerous letters implies there is something inherently sinister in lobbying when Jews do it." According to Geoffrey Brahm Levey and Philip Mendes, the term is used in Australia as a pejorative description of the way in which the Jewish community influences the Liberal Party "by talking to its leaders and making them aware of Jewish wishes and views".
William Safire writes that in the United Kingdom "Jewish lobby" is used as an "even more pejorative" term for "the 'Israel lobby'". Michael Lasky describes the term as an "unfortunate phrase", and "imagines" that Alexander Walker's use of it while writing about the "Nazi" films of Leni Riefenstahl was not intended pejoratively.
In 2006 Chris Davies, MEP for the northwest of England was forced to resign as leader of the Liberal Democrats group in the European Parliament after writing to a constituent “I shall denounce the influence of the Jewish lobby that seems to have far too great a say over the political decision-making process in many countries.” In comments to TotallyJewish.Com he "confessed he didn’t know the difference between referring to the ‘pro Israel lobby’ and the ‘Jewish lobby’," and added “I’m quite prepared to accept that I don’t understand the semantics of some of these things.” Commenting on Davies' use of the term, The Guardian's David Hirsh writes Davies "has had to resign because his laudable instinct to side with the underdog was not tempered by care, thought or self-education." He compared Davies' rhetoric with the "care to avoid openly antisemitic rhetoric taken by sophisticates like Mearsheimer and Walt and Robert Fisk."
Richard Dawkins, a British evolutionary biologist and atheist writer, was accused of being antisemitic after using the term in an interview published in The Guardian. In the interview Dawkins said: "When you think about how fantastically successful the Jewish lobby has been, though, in fact, they are less numerous I am told - religious Jews anyway - than atheists and more or less monopolise American foreign policy as far as many people can see. So if atheists could achieve a small fraction of that influence, the world would be a better place." David Cesarani, commenting in The Guardian on Richard Dawkins use of the term, states that "Mearsheimer and Walt would doubtless chide Dawkins for using the term 'Jewish lobby', which they studiously avoid in order to give no truck to anti-Jewish innuendo."
Criticism
Some writers reject the "anti-semitic" claims of other writers. J. J. Goldberg discussed the term "Jewish lobby" in a speech in 2004: "There has been an awful lot of talk in the last few years about the rise of the Jewish lobby and the influence of the Jewish lobby. It used to be that you couldn’t talk about this sort of thing. When I wrote "Jewish Power" in 1996 ... I was accused by various Jewish lobbyists of inflating and buying into the old myths of international Jewish conspiracies simply by the use of the title." But Goldberg disagrees with the sensitivity towards the use of the term, arguing instead that: "There is such a thing as a Jewish lobby, that the network of organizations that works together to put across what might be called the Jewish community’s view on world affairs is not insignificant, it’s not an invention, but it is not some sort of all-powerful octopus that it’s sometimes portrayed as these days."
Stephen Walt and co-author John Mearsheimer go further, claiming that a false cry of "antisemitism" is sometimes used as a tactic to stifle criticism of Israel. They write: "No discussion of the Lobby would be complete without an examination of one of its most powerful weapons: the charge of anti-semitism. Anyone who criticises Israel’s actions or argues that pro-Israel groups have significant influence over US Middle Eastern policy – an influence AIPAC celebrates – stands a good chance of being labelled an anti-semite. Indeed, anyone who merely claims that there is an Israel Lobby runs the risk of being charged with anti-semitism, even though the Israeli media refer to America’s ‘Jewish Lobby’. In other words, the Lobby first boasts of its influence and then attacks anyone who calls attention to it. It’s a very effective tactic: anti-semitism is something no one wants to be accused of."
See also
- Israel lobby in the United States
- Israel lobby in the United Kingdom
- American Jewish Committee
- American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)
- Anti-Zionism - New antisemitism
- Zionist Occupation Government
References
- ^ Walter John Raymond. The Dictionary of Politics: Selected American and Foreign Political and Legal Terms, Brunswick Publishing Corporation, 1992, p. 253.
- 'The Media, Stereotypes and the Jewish Lobby, the B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation Commission, Inc. (Australia).
- ^ Bard, Mitchell. The Water's Edge and Beyond: Defining the Limits to Domestic Influence on United States Middle East Policy, Transaction publishers, 1991, p. 6. ISBN 088738286X
- ^ Mearsheimer, John and Walt, Stephen. "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy", Washington Post, Book World Live, October 9, 2007. Accessed January 7, 2008.
- Ramadan, Tariq. "Muslims and Anti-Semitism", UN Chronicle, June 10, 2005:
"Much like the situation across the Muslim world, there exists in the West today a discourse which is anti-Semitic, seeking legitimacy in certain Islamic texts and support in the present situation in Palestine. This is the attitude of not only the marginalized youth but also of intellectuals and Imams, who see the manipulative hand of the “Jewish lobby” at each turn or every political setback."
- ^ Jacobs, Dr. Susan. "AntiSemitism and other forms of racism Continuities, discontinuities, (and some conspiracies….)" Paper presented at the 2005 CRONEM (Centre for Research on Nationalism, Ethnicity and Multiculturalism) Conference, Roehampton University, Southlands College, 14th-15th June 2005:
"That some type of shadowy Jewish conspiracy exists is commonsense, taken-for-granted element in many quarters: e.g. rumours that the predominance of neo-conservatives in the USA is a ‘Jewish conspiracy’ (Greenspan, 2003; Berlet, 2004; Interview, 2004 ). Perhaps even more common is a vague suspicion that such a conspiracy might exist but that it is impolite to articulate this. A contemporary form of this fear is the phrase ‘the Jewish lobby’ without mentioning other ‘lobbies’ or differentiating Jews who have different political positions on a number of questions, including Israel and Palestine."
- ^ Klug, Brian & Wistrich, Robert S. "Correspondence between Prof. Robert Wistrich and Brian Klug: When Is Opposition to Israel and Its Policies Anti-Semitic?", International Center for the Study of Anti-Semitism, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Retrieved January 11, 2008:
"Does he or she rely on classic anti-Semitic stereotypes in so doing: for example, by dredging up the alleged Jewish/Zionist 'conspiracy' to dominate the world, or by evoking Jewish/Israeli 'warmongers' who supposedly run American foreign policy; or through referring to an all-powerful "Jewish Lobby" that prevents justice in the Middle East."
- ^ Vidal, Dominique. "France: racism is indivisible", Le Monde diplomatique, May 2004.
- Seven Days, Jerusalem Post, June 18, 2004
- A little louder, please, Jerusalem Post, June 1, 2005
- Continental divide, Jerusalem Post, April 19, 2002
- The Oxford English Dictionary, p. 1074, 2nd Edition, 1989
- Jonathan Jeremy Goldberg. Jewish Power: Inside the American Jewish Establishment. Basic Books, 1996.
- American Foreign Policy and The Jewish Lobby, J.J. Goldberg, Speech before the Los Angeles World Affairs Council, March 22, 2004
- Arthur Hertzberg. Jewish Polemics. Columbia University Press, 1992
- Mearsheimer, John and Walt, Stephen. The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, Farrah, Strauss and Giroux, 2007, p. 188.
- "The Media, Stereotypes and the Jewish Lobby". Retrieved February 2, 2008.
- Mitchell Bard, The Israeli and Arab Lobbies, Jewish Virtual Library. Accessed February 22, 2008.
- Edward Tivnan. The Lobby: Jewish Political Power and American Foreign Policy. Touchstone Books, 1988. ISBN 0671668285. Preface, p8.
- Mearsheimer, John and Walt, Stephen. "The Israel lobby", letters to the editor, October 14, 2007.
- Prasad, Vijay. The myth of the "Jewish lobby", Frontline (India's National Magazine) Volume 20 - Issue 20, September 27 - October 10, 2003.
- Sutton, Nina (David Sharp trans.) Bettelheim: A Life and a Legacy, BasicBooks, p. 486. ISBN 0465006353
- Visontay, Michael. "Free speech for some, others pay", The Sydney Morning Herald, November 14, 2003.
- Geoffrey Brahm Levey, Philip Mendes. Jews and Australian Politics, Sussex Academic Press, 2004, ISBN 1903900727, p. 91.
- Safire, William. Safire's New Political Dictionary: The Definitive Guide to the New Language, Random House, 1993, p. 120. ISBN 0679420681
In Great Britain the "Israel lobby" is called, even more pejoratively, "the Jewish lobby," as in this Financial Times usage in 1977...
- Lasky, Melvin J. The Language of Journalism, Transaction Publishers, 2000, p. 147. ISBN 0765800012
- Hirsh, David. "Revenge of the Jewish lobby?", The Guardian, May 5, 2006.
- Alex Sholem, MEP Disciplined Over Slur, TotallyJewish.Com, May 4, 2006.
- Suppressed Scholarship, New York Sun, October 4, 2007
- Athiests Hold Sway Among American Left, CBS news reprinted from National Review, December 2, 2007
- Ewen MacAskill, Atheists arise: Dawkins spreads the A-word among America's unbelievers, The Guardian, October 1, 2007.
- Cesarani, David. "Exerting influence", The Guardian, October 8, 2007.
- John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt: Authors, "The Israel Lobby", London Review of Books, March 23, 2006. Accessed January 21, 2008.