There is a certain similarities and parallels between George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984” and AIPAC’s influence over U.S. policy toward Israel. If any real-life organization merits the descriptor “Orwellian,” it is AIPAC. Consider the language on the AIPAC website, which claims that the lobby promotes “moral values” through its unquestioned embrace of Israel. Is it possible to be more Orwellian than to invoke “moral values” in the midst of a relentless and seemingly endless campaign of genocide in Gaza, which has slaughtered more than 50,000 people—most of them women and children—and created a climate in which only famine and disease can flourish?
Actually, it may be possible to be even more Orwellian, as in the same sentence AIPAC claims that the U.S.-Israeli relationship “promotes peace and stability.” In reality, Israel has throughout its history been a congenitally aggressive warfare state. Today, under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel glories in the expansion of indiscriminate warfare beyond Gaza and into Lebanon, a perennial Israeli target. Netanyahu would like nothing more than an all-out war with Iran, knowing that the colossal military power of the United States is mobilized on Israel’s behalf.
Orwellian doublespeak extends to one of the most favored of the lobby clichés, namely, that Israel is the “only democracy” in the Middle East and thus deserves American support. In 2018, Israel enacted the “nation-state law” formally establishing Judaism and the Hebrew language as preeminent and declaring “Jewish settlement as a national value.” More than 720,000 Jewish “settlers” now live on land seized in the illegally occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, which was supposed to be the Palestinian capital under the mythical two-state solution that Israel has fended off since the war of aggression that it launched in 1967.
So, Israel is a democracy only if the language one speaks is Orwellian. If the language is truthful, Israel is an apartheid state that privileges one people and one religion over all others and has for decades promoted an illegitimate occupation and the coinciding dispossession of hundreds of thousands of indigenous residents.
While promoting doublespeak about Israeli democracy, the Israeli lobby actively undermines freedom of speech —the foundation of any genuine democracy— within the United States. In the early years of the current century, alarmed by the emergence of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, the Israel lobby went on the offensive as it unleashed an ongoing campaign to “attack” and “sabotage” critics of Israeli policies.
The Israel lobby strategy that ultimately emerged was to equate any and all criticism of Israeli policies with anti-Semitism. Several U.S. states subsequently passed measures effectively criminalizing criticism of Israel.
Much of the assault has centered on college campuses, which have traditionally provided a forum for free speech and policy debate. In several cases, craven college administrators have responded to lobby criticism and threats by influential Jewish donors to withdraw their financial support by stifling debate, canceling classes deemed insufficiently pro-Israel, and limiting or quashing protests by students and professors, some of which have been, respectively, expelled or fired for exercising their supposed right to free speech.
Mainstream media coverage in the United States is also susceptible to the chilling effect on free expression that is being fostered by the Israeli lobby. Over the years, coverage of the repeated Israeli assaults on Gaza, even in the supposedly “liberal” news media such as CNN, has been sharply one-sided in Israel’s favor. Coverage of the October 7 Hamas attack and previous wars in Gaza, as well as the repressive occupation in the West Bank, are devoid of context in coverage by the mainstream media, which parrots the main talking point of the lobby—that Israel is always the aggrieved party and is merely exercising “the right to defend itself.”
AIPAC Domination of the U.S. Congress
It is not surprising, or even remarkable, that the Israel lobby routinely distorts reality for its own purposes, but what is remarkable is the monolithic effectiveness of the lobby. Within the United States Congress, there is virtually no debate over the American-Israel “special relationship.” AIPAC and its partners— such as the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the Zionist Organization of America, and literally hundreds of other pro-Israel groups—function as Big Brother and the Thought Police.
AIPAC plays the leading role because it is centered in Washington and throughout its history has kept the focus squarely on the Congress. Even before the creation of Israel in 1948, Zionist organizations grasped that regular funding and unquestioned political support could be generated by homing in on the elected representatives and senators. They soon realized that propaganda, demonstrations and letter-writing campaigns could prove remarkably effective in generating and maintaining congressional support.
Since the foundation of AIPAC and its predecessors in the aftermath of World War II, the pro-Israel lobby has had an unbroken record of extracting money from the Congress. Since 1948, the little state of Israel, a country of some nine million people, has received more than $150 billion from American taxpayers— more financial assistance than the United States has provided to any other country in the world, according to the Congressional Research Service.
For decades, AIPAC has followed a simple strategy in which the Israel lobby rewards representatives and senators for their political support while targeting and attempting to oust those that do not toe the line. With very few exceptions—Senator Bernie Sanders (DVT) and the handful of representatives in the House known as “the Squad”—the entire U.S. Congress is servile to Israel. The absolute control of the U.S. Congress, which ensures massive funding for Israeli militarism, is what makes the Israel lobby by far the most powerful lobby representing a foreign government in American history. No other country’s lobby remotely compares in power and influence with the Israel lobby.
The overarching strategy of rewarding friends and targeting enemies has been remarkably consistent and highly successful, but the lobby is willing and able to change tactics. In 2021, AIPAC created the United Democracy Project (UDP) “super PAC” (political action committee) to intervene directly, rather than indirectly, in election campaigns. This past summer, AIPAC pumped $23 million into just two primary campaigns, both of which succeeded in ousting progressive Reps. Jamal Bowman (D-NY) and Cori Bush (D-Missouri). Both had criticized Israel and spoken out for Palestinian rights.
Some pro-Palestinian progressives, however, notably Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA), won their primary campaigns. AIPAC doesn’t win them all, but it does win the vast majority of campaigns. In the 2022 election cycle, according to the Times of Israel, AIPAC spent more than $50 million enabling AIPAC-backed candidates for Congress to win 342 of 365 races in which the lobby got directly involved.
In addition to extracting billions of dollars from Congress, the Israel lobby effectively contains efforts to propel Israel toward recognition of a Palestinian homeland. Most Republicans, closely tied with evangelical Christians, most of which are fervent Zionists, offer uncritical support for Israel and even encourage its aggression. Democrats typically and tepidly call for a two-state solution, but AIPAC ensures that the empty rhetoric stops short of action.
Since the June 1967 War, AIPAC and the broader lobby have prevented every presidential administration as well as the Congress from linking financial aid to Israel with halting the expansion of settlements and entering into a viable two-state solution. With the continuing expansion of the occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in 2017, the prospect of a two-state solution is practically non-existent.
Considering the clout of AIPAC and the broader lobby, is there any hope for the emergence of American support for justice in Palestine? It remains to be seen, but clearly Israel’s unbridled aggression in Gaza has spurred widespread criticism. Large numbers of American Jews, traditionally liberals, have become more critical of Israeli repression in recent years. However, a small number of billionaire Jewish donors ensures that the lobby remains well-funded.
In 2024 Vice President Kamala Harris faced the prospect of losing a tight race in Michigan, a “must-win” state for Democrats in the presidential campaign but also one with a substantial ArabAmerican population, which was outraged over the genocide in Gaza. Many of them vowed not to vote for Harris because of the Democrats’ ongoing enabling of Israeli aggression.
If support for Israel were to cost Democrats control of the White House, more of them might have the courage to link U.S. support with Israel’s actions. But if that ever happens, you can be sure that AIPAC and its cohorts will be ready to mount a vigorous response.
