What Is the Israel Lobby - Essay Example

What Is the Israel Lobby? According to Grant Smith, Israel Lobby is an overlapping mix of organizations in Israel that extract military resources from the U.S. by use of influences. According to him, the direct influence is as a result of key people, common tactics, members of Congress as well as multiple boards of directors (Smith, 2014). Some of the things that advance Israel Lobby include lack of division of labor, maintaining of offices by top people through maintaining relations with the U.S. such as the American-Israel Education Foundation.

According to Smith, the key benefit of Israel Lobby to Israel is the high return of invest which is approximately 1 to 1.5 billion dollars per year. Smith categorized Israel Lobby to power formulation, media pressure, leadership development, education foundation, and transfer of capital to Israel (Smith, 2014). Just like Grant Smith, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt claims that Israel Lobby is the support provided to Israel by the U.S. Unlike Smith, Mearsheimer, and Walt, Frankel claims that “Israel Lobby is a collection of American Jewish organizations, campaign contributors and think tanks” (slide 211).

The success of Israel Lobby, as it was argued by Smith, is in tandem with that of Mearsheimer and Walt; the Israel Lobby focuses on influencing the Congress, the executive, manipulate media, and policing academia (slide 207). However, Mearsheimer and Walt together with Frankel provide more focuses of Israel Lobby that were not expounded on by Smith. For instance, they assert that Israel Lobby also focuses on dominating think tanks, misusing anti-Semitism, and demonizing the Palestinians. The argument of Mearsheimer and Walt on the reasons for the U.S. pursuing her policies in the Middle East is in tandem with that provided by Smith; they all claim that the activities of groups as well as individuals who make up the lobby are the key reason (slide 207 and slide 211).

Smith, Mearsheimer, Walt, and Frankel claim that the work of lobby make Israel gets direct foreign aid every year (slide 211).ReferencesPower-point Slides. Smith, G. (2014).What is the Israel Lobby? Retrieved from http://scotthorton.org/interviews/2014/07/23/072314-grant-f-smith/