HEAVILY ABRIDGED FROM SOURCE [Opinion. I’m about halfway through an advance copy of the book. In this posting I’ve left out a lot of Presidents. Israel’s disproportionate influence on American votes means that peace initiatives by every President has been sabotaged. The Zionist lobby has been manipulating the outcomes of US elections since Roosevelt. Presidents are literally made or broken by their policies on Israel. It is reprehensible that 8 million have a stranglehold on what is purported to be the greatest nation. The Israel lobby and PMs and FMs squeezing the Presidents aren’t asking for peaceful solutions. They’re asking for more weapons and more land. Time to cut Israel loose. The Jewish Telegram puts it this way for American Jews: Support for Israel's Existence: 88% of US Jews believe that "Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish, democratic state". The "Zionist" Label: Only 37% explicitly label themselves as Zionist. Many distance themselves from the term because they associate it with modern right-wing Israeli military actions or state policies rather than its core definition. [1, 2] The "Anti-Zionist" Label: Only 7% choose the anti-Zionist label. The remaining majority falls into categories like "non-Zionist" (8%), unsure (18%), or reject labels altogether (30%)] This essay was adapted from the book Israel’s Lobby: America in the Grip of a Foreign Power The pro-Israel lobby has swayed US presidents since Truman. It must end with Trump Ian Lustick and Eli Clifton The Guardian: 2 Aug 2026 SOURCE: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/aug/02/pro-israel-lobby-presidents In 1948, with war raging in Palestine, Harry Truman found himself trapped. On one side were Zionist lobbyists and the president’s domestic political advisers, who were urging him to support the establishment of a Jewish state in as much of Palestine as possible. On the other were his top foreign policy and national security officials, led by the secretary of state, George C Marshall. Their unanimous recommendation was to prevent the establishment of a Jewish state, which they believed would trigger war in the Middle East and endanger the future of US relations with the Arab and Muslim world. In the mid-1940s, Marshall pushed quietly but steadily against the Zionist movement’s proposals to establish a Jewish state in Palestine. He was concerned that American support would open opportunities for the Soviet Union to exploit Arab anger, put Middle Eastern oil supplies at risk in the event of a war between the Soviet Union and the United States, and require the deployment of unavailable American troops to prevent bloodshed and instability in Palestine. These were, indeed, the strongly held views of virtually all of Truman’s most important military and foreign policy advisers. Truman was personally and deeply moved by the suffering of Jewish survivors of the Nazi “Final Solution”, but also irritated by and at times furious with the constant hectoring to which he was subjected by campaigners for recognition of a Jewish state in Palestine, including the World Zionist Organization and a host of other Jewish delegations, friends and politicians. Marshall said, recognition of Israel would leave the “great dignity of the office of the President … seriously diminished”. However, within two days, exquisitely sensitive to the tenuousness of his hold on the presidency and the power of Zionist sympathizers to throw New York’s electoral votes to the Republicans, he ordered that the US recognize Israel. Today, the influence of the groups loosely known as the Israel lobby has only become more powerful. Truman’s bind – caught between his sense of the national interest and the domestic political price of defying a powerful lobby – was something that, in the decades to come, president after president would experience. The fact is that from Truman to Trump, most American presidents have caved to the demands of Israel and its advocates. Driven by the fear of domestic political defeats, presidents have regularly rejected or abandoned foreign policies that both they and their most senior advisers believed were in the best interests of the US and at the expense of making meaningful progress in bringing a peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Carter voiced his belief in March 1977 in the need for a “Palestinian homeland” as a key feature of the Middle East peace he wished to achieve. The pro-Israel lobby immediately mobilized against Carter’s peace initiative. In a closely held 50-page memorandum for the president in early June, Carter’s senior adviser on domestic political affairs warned him that he would suffer serious consequences, including risks of failing to receive the renomination of his party, as a result of lobby opposition to his public consideration of a Palestinian homeland. Undeterred, Carter offered direct criticism of what he described in an Oval Office meeting as the prime minister Yitzhak Rabin’s increasingly inflexible positions. His differences with Menachem Begin, who became Israel’s prime minister in May 1977, were even sharper. Meanwhile Carter began intensive communications with Egyptian, Syrian and Palestinian leaders. But unless other groups are able to act freely with other interests in mind – and without the threat of antisemitism accusations – US policy in the Middle East will remain dangerously distorted. Both to secure and advance American interests abroad and to protect American freedoms at home, Americans must unite to prevent any foreign power from enjoying the influence over policy and public debate that Israel has exercised, both directly and through the faction operating on its behalf. Eli Clifton is a co-founder and senior adviser at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft Ian Lustick is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Pennsylvania specializing in Arab-Israeli relations and US foreign policy This essay was adapted from the book Israel’s Lobby: America in the Grip of a Foreign Power , out 11 August by Atria/One Signal Publishers
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