Israel's Lobby

An unflinching exposé of Israel's Lobby, showing how its outsized influence works against our national interests and threatens our freedom. > Israel’s Lobby combines investigative journalism and political science to tie together the stories of American and Israeli oligarchs capturing the policymaking process in successive presidential administrations and the geopolitical, national security and domestic consequences of American foreign policy effectively sold to the highest bidder. Eli Clifton and Ian Lustick explain how shifts in global politics, Israel’s lurch to the extreme right, and the evisceration of American campaign finance laws make the influence of Israel’s lobby more costly and more dangerous today than it ever was before, why the lobby launched an antisemitism witch hunt to suppress opponents rather than attempt to defend Israel's policies, and how the Lobby not only distorts American policy but helps make Israel a “crazy” state. Israel’s Lobby follows the money and lifts the veil on a seemingly unassailable feature of American politics, importantly detailing how we can unite around traditional American values and the importance of substantive debate to resist Israel-first vigilantism.

Eli Clifton is an investigative journalist who focuses on money in politics and US foreign policy. He is a cofounder of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft where he serves as a senior adviser. His work has appeared in The Guardian, The Nation, The Intercept, The South China Morning Post, LobeLog, Salon, HuffPost, The Daily Beast, Slate, Gawker, Foreign Policy, and Responsible Statecraft. Ian S. Lustick is the Bess W. Heyman Chair, Emeritus, in the Political Science Department of the University of Pennsylvania. He served in the Carter administration as the State Department’s expert on Israel-Palestine affairs and subsequently became a regular consultant with American administrations on US foreign policy and national security affairs. He is a founder and past President of the Association for Israel Studies and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.