The pro-Israel lobby is painted as uniquely sinister on the far left and far right. In truth it speaks for millions of Americans, Jewish and non-Jewish, who simply support a strong US-Israel relationship
October 17, 2025 14:12
There may be no bigger bogeyman in American politics than AIPAC.
Going “beyond criticism,” public conversations around the American Israel Public Affairs Committee can veer into “demonisation,” Izabella Tabarovsky, Senior Fellow at Z3 Institute for Jewish Priorities, observed. “It taps into some really longstanding tropes about Jewish power and influence,” with AIPAC as “the go-to villain.”
AIPAC’s supposed villainy is representing 5 million Americans – Jews and non-Jews, who support a strong U.S.-Israel relationship – in the American political process. According to OpenSecrets, which tracks American political spending, AIPAC ranked 18th for contributions in 2024 and 46th in 2022. Still, opponents treat AIPAC as particularly threatening.
“There are hundreds of powerful lobby organisations in Washington, yet only AIPAC is routinely portrayed as proof of ‘foreign control,’” Gunther Jikeli, Associate Director of the Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism, explained. “Across the spectrum, critics turn it into evidence of a supposed ‘Jewish grip’ on Washington. On the far-right, this takes the form of the old ‘Zionist Occupied Government’ conspiracy; on parts of the far-left, it reappears as claims about an all-powerful ‘Israel lobby.’ The language differs, but the underlying idea is the same – that Jewish or pro-Israel political engagement is somehow uniquely powerful or disloyal.”
Realist Professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt chipped away at post-War taboos in publishing The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy in 2007. AIPAC is “the core component of the book,” and the professors argue it’s “the most prominent and powerful” of the “multiple organisations” in the “‘Israel Lobby,’” Karys Rhea, Writing Fellow with the Middle East Forum, said.
“Walt and Mearsheimer's book couches its argument in contemporary, academic terms, replacing the previously popular but now clearly antisemitic trope of the ‘Jewish lobby’ with the politically fashionable ‘Israel Lobby.’ It claims “that a select, powerful group of Jews (and their supporters) manipulate policy to serve their own ends. The evidence is selectively marshalled to fit a predetermined conclusion.”
Since October 7, “we’ve seen AIPAC blamed for everything that Jews are blamed for, but also for advancing the evil ideas that the ‘good people' are all fighting against,” Tabarovsky remarked. Prior to that, AIPAC “came up any time progressive politicians lost.”
In 2022, anti-Zionist Mondoweiss denounced AIPAC for “sneaky” “dirty work,” in funding opposition to Israel boycott supporter Yuh-Line Niou in a New York Congressional primary. Squad-aligned, New York Rep. Jamaal Bowman slammed AIPAC as a “Zionist regime” that’s “funded mostly by racist, MAGA Republicans,” before losing his primary last year. (Bowman’s defamatory comments ignore non-partisan AIPAC’s historically tilting leftward.)
When the Squad’s Missouri Rep. Cori Bush lost her primary, she bellowed, “AIPAC, I’m coming to tear your kingdom down!” And on last week, progressive California Rep. Ro Khanna tweeted, “I don’t take a dime from any PAC or lobbyist, including AIPAC”.
Over on the right, The Hill reported in August that Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene “said AIPAC should have to register as a foreign lobbyist” – as if they represent Israelis. Last month, Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie fundraised on X with a colour-drained photo of a Hasidic man and House Speaker Mike Johnson, writing ominously, “Speaker Johnson just met privately with the Kentucky AIPAC guy who’s been trying to defeat me.” Except Rabbi Shlomo Litvin, Chairman of the Kentucky Jewish Council, is affiliated with Chabad, not AIPAC. He works in Massie’s district and was visiting Washington as Congress’ guest chaplain. Litvin shared, Massie “knows who I am very well and refuses to meet with me.”
AIPAC is a potent symbol that requires no explanation. Rhea noted, “The durability of this narrative comes from its archetypal roots that audiences recognise, subconsciously or not . . . Because it is so ingrained, it can be easily re-coded in contemporary language and travel seamlessly across the political spectrum.”
Meanwhile, AIPAC remains resolute. Spokesman Marshall Wittmann told me, “Our 5 million members are not deterred in robustly engaging in the democratic process by rabid anti-Israel extremists who are far outside the American mainstream.”
That mainstream should consider these tropes weaken the body politic and can endanger Jews. Speak up, donate to candidates, and vote accordingly.
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