Jewish lobby

Jewish lobby is a term used to indicate Jewish exercise influence in a number of areas, including politics, government, business, the media, academia, popular culture, public policy, international relations, and international finance. In the United States the phrase is sometimes used to refer loosely to various pro-Israel lobbying groups.

Its validity as a term is disputed by a number of commentators and on several grounds. Some claim that, when referring to American groups, it is an inaccurate label for a political coalition that doesn't represent most American Jews and includes many non-Jews, and whose primary concern is policy towards Israel. Others argue that it attributes undue influence to Jews and is fundamentally antisemitic.

Usage

In his 2006 speech at Rutgers University, the editor of The Forward, J.J. Goldberg, talked about his 1996 study of American-Jewish politics titled Jewish Power. He called for an open and frank discussion of the "Jewish lobby" as a positive force in the United States. "We do good. We should be proud of it... If you look at the programs in Jewish studies departments around the country... you can learn about the Talmud, you can learn about Jewish history in the 1500s, you can learn about the Jewish theater, but what we don’t have is Jewish political science." He described the milestones in Jewish political activism, which included the alliance of Jewish defense organizations and black groups that fought for civil rights legislation in the 1950s and 1960s. Goldberg stated: "We are here not to make people feel better about being Jewish, not to massage them, not to defend the good name of the Jews to the world, but to help Jews be better citizens of the Jewish community." and noted that in recent years The Forward has reported on sex abuse in synagogues and labor abuses in kosher slaughterhouses, among other unsavory topics. Goldberg said that part of his paper's task is "holding the Jewish leadership to account the same way The New York Times holds the White House and the Pentagon to account."

Chip Berlet of Political Research Associates, an American research group that tracks right-wing extremists, writes that it combines the classic elements of anti-Semitic stereotyping and scapegoating, and is part of the discourse of conspiracism. 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 as reliance on a classic antisemitic stereotype. Dominique Vidal, writing in Le Monde diplomatique, says it is "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. 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." According to George Michael, it is used most commonly by the far right, far left, and Islamists.

According to Mitchell Bard, director of the non-profit American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise (AICE), "...reference is often made to the 'Jewish lobby' in an effort to describe Jewish influence, but this term is both vague and inadequate." 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 comments that he and co-author John Mearsheimer of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy "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, Mearsheimer and Walt 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." 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."

Michael Visontay, editor at the 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." Dominique Vidal, writing in Le Monde diplomatique, says that in France "only the far right used to refer to a 'Jewish lobby'", but that in 2004 it had been used by "a Jewish writer, Elisabeth Schemla".

William Safire writes that in the United Kingdom "Jewish lobby" is used as an "even more pejorative[]" term for "the 'Israel lobby'". Commenting on Chris Davies, MEP for the northwest of England's use of the term, The Guardian's David Hirsh feels that the term indicates a lack of "care, thought" and "self-education." Davies resigned after having used the term in an e-mail considered inappropriate by the public and the Liberal Democrats.

Reviewing Queen Noor of Jordan's memoir Leap of Faith: Memoirs of an Unexpected Life, Kenneth Jacobson of the Anti-Defamation League writes that though she refers to the "Zionist lobby", "...Queen Noor is not so insensitive or crass as to actually use the phrase 'Jewish Lobby,'." Joseph Lelyveld, in a The New York Review of Books review of Jimmy Carter's Palestine Peace Not Apartheid points out that Carter "doesn't resort to the term 'Jewish lobby'".

See also

• Anti-Zionism
• New antisemitism
• American Jewish Committee
• American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)
• Israel lobby in the United States
• Zionist Occupation Government