THE NEW ARAB
Who shapes America's Israel policy? Eli Clifton and Ian Lustick examine the power of Israel's Lobby
Book Club
6 min read
JP O'Malley
30 September, 2026
Book Club: We speak to Eli Clifton & Ian Lustick about 'Israel’s Lobby,' which explores the growing influence of money, lobbying & political power in Washington
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In late August, Jonathan Pollard, a former US Navy intelligence analyst convicted of spying for Israel in the mid-1980s and subsequently jailed for 30 years, announced that he would run in Israel's forthcoming October election as a member of the new right-wing Israel First party.
Pollard's return to public life follows his release from parole restrictions in November 2020. A month later, the US-born former spy left Newark Airport for Tel Aviv aboard a Boeing 737 owned by Israeli-American billionaire Miriam Adelson, who is said to be worth $33.9 billion and has donated more than $200 million to the Republican Party.
On arrival at Ben Gurion Airport, Pollard received a hero's welcome and was greeted by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Israel's Lobby, published in mid-August, opens with this episode. Written by two Jewish Americans — investigative journalist Eli Clifton and political scientist Ian Lustick — the book uses Pollard's return to Israel as an entry point into a much broader examination of the networks of money, politics and influence that shape US policy towards Israel.
The authors note that Pollard has since used his celebrity status to promote and champion one of Israel's most controversial politicians, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
"Pollard is a great entry point to begin a conversation about the influence of Israel's lobby in the United States," Clifton tells The New Arab.
"A spy being lifted out of the country on a billionaire's private jet sounds like a scene from a John le Carré novel. But this took place with open transparency, in the full glare of the world’s media."
So how does Israel — a country with a population of just 10 million and a landmass that is roughly the same size as the state of New Jersey — exercise so much influence in Washington?
This question is addressed several times in Israel's Lobby. Both authors define the lobby as "a loose coalition of individuals and organisations that actively work to shape US foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction."
They also stress the lobby's historical ties to Christian evangelicals and other streams within American politics, including US trade unions and the neoconservative movement.
"The Israel lobby has access to our campaign finance system here in America," Clifton, also a cofounder of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, explains.
"Other countries do not have that. Israel's lobby, by contrast, has an enormous influence over our politicians. This has serious implications for both our national security and our elections in the United States," he adds.
"Money is a major source of the lobby's influence and power,” Lustick tells The New Arab.
He recently experienced the lobby's censoring tactics firsthand while promoting his co-authored book in a church in suburban Philadelphia to a group called The Jewish Justice Collective.
"The church was subjected to demands from lobby representatives requesting the event be cancelled," Lustick explains.
"The lobby is constantly trying to prevent truthful views about Israel from being discussed in public."
A wave of repression
Both authors say the lobby's ascendancy in recent years has produced "a wave of repression and a constriction in the free-speech rights of Americans, unmatched since the anti-communist hysteria of the McCarthy period" in the 1950s.
They speak about some of the lobby's most powerful organisations, including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
In the 2022 tax year, AIPAC's primary fundraising vehicle, the American Israel Education Foundation (AIEF), had revenues of approximately $69.9 million and held assets worth over $186 million.
Today, most of AIPAC's resources are directed to influencing the voting patterns of US senators and members of Congress on matters pertaining to Israel.
The topics vary. In July 2023, for instance, Congress passed a resolution pledging continuing aid for Israel and declaring that the country was "neither racist nor an apartheid state."
"AIPAC is unquestionably the most successful foreign policy lobby in the United States," says Lustick, who served as the State Department's expert on Israel-Palestine affairs during the Carter administration (1977 to 1981).
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is another powerful group within Israel’s Lobby.
The organisation was founded in New York more than a century ago to combat anti-semitism and other forms of racism and bigotry.
Today, however, the ADL has redefined definitions of anti-semitism, say Clifton and Lustick. Presently, any criticism of the Israeli military or the Israeli government is being documented by the ADL as "anti-semitic incidents."
Both authors cite numerous examples of this information being used to shape public discourse about Israel across the United States.
In May 2023, the Biden White House issued the US National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism. This relied almost solely on data produced in the ADL annual audits, both authors explain.
In September 2025, the Trump administration did the same. On the latter occasion, the State Department organised a briefing for journalists on anti-semitism in America that relied entirely on the ADL's 2024 audit.
Clifton and Lustick claim these numbers were manipulated to dramatise a torrent of anti-semitism. The session opened with ADL statistics showing 9,354 antisemitic incidents in 2024, "the highest on record."
Citing ADL sources, the journalists were told that Jews "account for 2 percent of the US population but were the target of nearly 70 percent of religiously motivated hate crimes in 2024."
"The ADL is presently measuring things that were not previously defined as anti-semitism, such as protests against Israel," says Lustick.
"This is a shameless way to promote the false idea that a tsunami of anti-semitism has erupted in the United States because of October 7."
An anti-semitism witch hunt
Both authors describe this manipulation of statistics as "an anti-semitism witch hunt."
They say Israel's lobby uses "false, hoax-like, strange accusations of anti-semitism to try to suppress all serious debate about Israel."
Clifton and Lustick cite The Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation as a "prime example of the anti-semitism witch-hunt that Israel's lobby is presently engaged in."
In August 2025, the Milstein Family Foundation widely distributed an article originally published by Adam Milstein in The Jerusalem Post that attacked Zohran Mamdani, then a leading candidate in New York City's mayoral election.
The article referred to Mamdani as an "Islamo-leftist" who "refuses to acknowledge Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state," and as aligned with "anti-semitic incitement and terror."
Lustick describes The Milstein Family Foundation as "aggressive and far right."
He tells The New Arab, "They try to smear all critics of Israeli policy in American politics as anti-semites. They also find ways to suppress free discussion on university campuses across the United States about American policy in the Middle East."
Clifton and Lustick claim "the overwhelming majority of Jewish Americans do not prioritise Israel's well-being or interests."
And yet, Israel's lobby is consistently attempting to tell another story.
"The day-to-day messaging coming out from the social media channels of organisations like AIPAC and ADL essentially endorses the anti-semitic trope that all Jewish Americans, and all Jews, hold dual loyalties to Israel," Clifton explains. "But it's simply not true."
Lustick claims there has been a noticeable change at the "grassroots level" of Jewish institutions across the United States whenever the topic of Israel is raised, especially inside synagogues in recent years.
"Previously, it was to be expected that on major Jewish holidays there were lots of social, educational and cultural events that celebrated Israel," the political scientist explains.
"But now, in most non-Orthodox American synagogues, talking about Israel has become a very delicate and controversial issue. The rabbis avoid the topic. It's just too hot to handle, and there are now too many divisions within the Jewish community."
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JP O’Malley is a cultural critic, journalist and writer. He writes regularly about books, geopolitics, history, film, arts and culture for various publications, including the Sunday Independent, The Irish Examiner, The New World, The Age and New Eastern Europe
