This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Jayjg (talk | contribs) at 02:38, 28 February 2008 (remove original research and unsourced material, in particular material that is not actually about the term "Jewish lobby", per multiple lengthy Talk: page comments. Also, clean up writing). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
Revision as of 02:38, 28 February 2008 by Jayjg (talk | contribs) (remove original research and unsourced material, in particular material that is not actually about the term "Jewish lobby", per multiple lengthy Talk: page comments. Also, clean up writing)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)
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.
In the context of the United States, 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
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 writes in the Indian 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 "repeat the anti-Semitic conspiracy theories of the Islamic fundamentalists" and of making antisemitic claims after stating in The Guardian "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
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."
Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, authors of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, assert that "AIPAC and the Conference of Presidents and the Israeli media themselves refer to America’s ‘Jewish Lobby’". Walt comments, however, 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."
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.
- 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
- Atheists 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.
- Mitchell Bard, The Israeli and Arab Lobbies, Jewish Virtual Library. Accessed February 22, 2008.
- Mearsheimer, John and Walt, Stephen. The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, Farrah, Strauss and Giroux, 2007, p. 188.
- Mearsheimer, John and Walt, Stephen. "The Israel lobby", letters to the editor, October 14, 2007.