EXPOSED: How Israel’s Lobby Captured The US Government | With Eli Clifton & Ian Lustick

There's a vital new book out and it's on a topic our politicians and media class really don't like us to discuss called Israel's lobby. It explores how Israel interferes in US domestic politics via APAC and other groups. In this wide-ranging interview with its authors Quincy Institute co-founder and investigative journalist Eli Clifton and political scientist Ian Lustik, they explain how the lobby has subverted American national interests as well as Britain's too to the interests of the Israeli state. Now they joined me on Friday and I began by asking Eli to define what exactly they meant by Israel's lobby. >> So Israel's lobby is a popoly of organizations Jewish, Christian and otherwise uh who openly and explicitly are advocating for US policies that are beneficial for Israel, the state of Israel. So in the book you're also like very very careful to separate talk of Israel's lobby from talk of you know American Jewish communities and you outline actually some of the significant political electoral differences between um you know the interests of the lobby and and how how Jewish Americans vote. >> That's right. So, and this is something to be very clear that the lobby often obiscates with and tries to suggest the lobby tries to tell the lie that Jewish Americans are synonymous with Israel's lobby. And simply the data doesn't support that theory. For starters, Jewish Americans when you look at polling about what issues uh determine their votes, uh the polling shows that Israel is a pretty low salience issue for them. Uh, and that's consistent with most voters in the United States. In short, Jewish voters vote largely for the same reasons that other Americans vote, which is domestic issues that impact them in a more immediate way. And a lot of those are issues that cut across different religious or ethnic groups. Uh, but secondarily, there's there's this other piece of evidence, which is that the Republican party in the United States has become more and more synonymous with being pro- Israel and with the Israel lobby. the Republican party uh is now more knee-jerk pro-Israel. It's very hard, at least historically, to find in the past 20 years, to find much daylight between the Republican party and its leadership and Israel. And one would expect, were Jewish Americans to be uh a part of the Israel lobby in such a clear and measurable manner for Jewish American votes to shift to the Republican party. But that has simply not happened. The Jewish American vote is one of the most consistent voting groups. They tend to vote roughly twothirds of Democ for Democratic candidates. Roughly one-third associate with being Republican. Uh and that has not changed over this time period in which the Republican party has become more pro-Israel. But I go back to the point I was making earlier, which is that when you look at what the APAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee or the Anti-Defamation League or a variety of other pro-Israel organizations are really trying to emphasize recently in their messaging, they are trying to claim that criticism of Israel and criticism indeed of these very groups is inherently anti-Semitic because they are trying to conflate Jewish Americans with the pro-Israel lobby. And that is a very dangerous argument to make. It is an anti-semitic argument to make because it is claiming that uh that Jewish Americans are are hold dual loyalties or all of them hold dual loyalties with Israel. Uh it's a very very concerning thing we're seeing right now and I think it it's evidence of the fact that these groups are largely losing the battle for public opinion. So they're falling back on trying to smear their critics as anti-semmites. Yeah, I think it's very clear that actually in a number of electoral cases quite recently in the US uh that argument is not working at all. So you had obviously Zaran Mamani winning in the the New York mayoral race and now you have um Abdel Abdul Elsa and Mitchkin Senate race where his his Democratic uh competitor um Haley Stevens was really backed 32 billion 32 million rather dollars of of Apac money behind her. Do these kind did these sort of changes in perception especially amongst like DSA figures in the Democrat party did that did that play any role in the writing of the book at at this time maybe I can ask you that I >> actually we started writing the book before that became as apparent but we did start writing the book during the uh what I call October 8th during the genocidal campaign that developed in Gaza after October 7th. So, we were alive to the potential that this could be a transformative moment and that it was extremely important to get out an an a new analysis of the Israel lobby, one that updated the uh important analysis that John Mirshimer and Steven Walt did 20 years ago because of the not only because of the changes in the world that made the lobby more dangerous, but because in a world in which the lobby is threatened, it can it becomes more desperate and attacks and and damages not only American national interests abroad but American freedoms at home something I think that British listeners or viewers will be familiar with and those are the things we did anticipate uh I don't think we quite anticipated how uh how strongly certain parts of the Democratic party how swiftly they would react uh to a message of criticism of Israel uh but going along with what Eli has said the we are very uh set on making sure people understand we're not talking about the Jewish lobby. That is the way of the writing about the Israel lobby in the past has been dismissed by the lobby by misportraying [clears throat] it as claims about a Jewish lobby. We are not talking about that at all. First of all, polls are showing that most Jews don't at all agree with the Netanyahu government, let alone support Israel in a way that would lead them to determine their vote by their sentiments for Israel. And uh what we can say, however, and when Eli referred to a paniply of organizations, there are many many Jewish organizations and Christian organizations that are involved in the lobby. It's that is not the same proportion as at the grassroots. The lobby has increasingly become unmed from grassroots Jewish opinion and relying much more on a small group of ultra-wealthy right-wing donors. And this is something which is new. It was not something around when Stephen John wrote their book. And it's having massive uh and and dangerous effects. Yeah, I think our our audience will really understand that distinction really easily. You know, you can have you can have um Jewish groups in the US who are um advocating for their interests as US citizens or you know living in the US as you know part of the domestic policy there. Um what you're really talking about are groups, individuals um of all kinds who are who are lobbying not for US domestic interests but rather for the interest of a second a second state, its military, territorial uh reputational um interests. But I want to put an argument to you that's often made about um the idea of talking about the Israel lobby which is that you know all countries lobby for their interests all all and especially if it's in the US you know the one one of the most powerful states in the world all countries are going to be there lobbying for the interests of their of their state but in the argument in your book I think is that uh the way in which this features in American politics is particularly insidious and particularly dangerous to American democracy. Can you say a little bit more about that? Ian, maybe I'll start with you. >> Sure. One of the things we we focus on in the book is a warning that our first president, George Washington, made in his famous farewell address when he uh left office. And he warned in detail that the United States, as it was constituted, was a government that could handle factional mobilization domestically with every group in the country authorized and encouraged to bring its selfish interests to the political arena, knowing that it would encounter uh other groups opposed to its interests, and the result would be a kind of resolution of forces that would keep the United States on a somewhat even keel. even though it might prevent us from doing wise uh wise things for the future. But what he warned was that this would not work in foreign affairs because if he said there was a group in the United States, a faction that was quote passionately attached to a foreign country that they would be able to exert influence on American politics way out of proportion of their importance because there would be no natural lobby against that faction. And so he said in that because of that um politics must stop at the wat's edge. We must not allow foreign policy issues to be uh enshed in factional disputes in the United States. And he warned that we should not be overly involved abroad. we should that these kinds of passionate attachments that could arrive or passionate antagonisms would lead the United States to make huge mistakes abroad, distort our foreign policy, distort our domestic politics. The Israel lobby, which is much different from other uh registered lobbies of other countries, the Israel lobby, Apac, for example, which is only one of many organizations, is not a registered agent. It's not registered on the FAR act. It is based on a groups in the country, Christian evangelicals, Jews, others with passionate attachment to Israel and against Israel's enemies. So that is there's only one other case in American foreign policy where this is true and that is Cuba. And we see in both Cuba and with respect to Israel that American foreign policy is distorted to way in a weird way to diff be different completely from the policies of its allies. Why those two issues produce such distorted American foreign policies because those are the two foreign policy issues that feature a passionately attached domestically powerful minority a faction. So both of them illustrate what Washington was warning about. >> Well, if if I can jump in here, one thing that that means uh sort of where the rubber hits the road as it were uh and I think this is important especially for uh your audience in the UK who might not be quite as familiar with US laws that are at play here, which is that you can have foreign lobbies in the United States that are registered. The money usually comes from abroad. they are being directed from abroad uh to so-called U agents as they're often referred to in in various legislation about this who are Americans or uh US residents who are uh acting at the direction of these foreign principles. That's typically how a foreign lobby works. Now, traditionally the way that Israel's lobby has worked is that these are American citizens or dual nationals who are funding and directing the work that is going on inside the United States uh to advocate for Israel. What this means in our elections is that they are able to give money to candidates. They are able to to spend money on so-called independent expenditures which are to support or oppose a candidate without coordinating with the with the campaign. In doing so, they can give unlimited amounts of money to those sorts of causes inside our elections. And that is something that other countries are pretty much completely locked out from because if you are operating in that more traditional manner that I described of a foreign principal, a domestic agents inside the United States and registering under the foreign agent registration act, that foreign money cannot be put into our elections because you need to be a US resident or a US citizen to be making those sorts of expenditures. Israel's lobby is in a unique position. So you cannot compare dollars for dollars exactly how let's say Qatar the Amirati lobby is functioning uh or spends versus Israel's lobby because Israel's lobby has unique access to that marketplace of influence over politicians >> and that influence has only grown right in in in recent years because now you have a kind of bureaucratic system of billionaires who are involved here as as well. Um and you know I wanted to ask you about about them uh but also about the foreign agent registration act because as you say you know there has to be some distance between the Israel lobby and the state of Israel itself otherwise it would have to reg there would there would have to be registration in some way under that that act. So what is the way in which Israel's needs uh desires etc are communicated through that lobby um which means that it doesn't have to be regarded as one that's doing international sort of interference in domestic politics. >> Well let's let me give you an example that's featured in our book. Uh at first the Israeli uh foreign ministry and the Israeli government tried to ignore the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement BDS but after the some events uh the AI mara massacre uh BDS became strong enough that the Israeli uh government took it serious started taking it seriously and Ron Durmer who's often was called a close adviser to Benjamin Netanyahu who the Israeli prime minister often called uh BB's mini me came to the United States and spoke to American audiences about how they were how American Jewish audiences in in a speech in Cleveland for example how do you engage with BDS how should you respond and his argument was do not engage with them do not argue with them treat them as anti-semites try to pass laws in uh different states against BDS pass, which is what happened. We we show how many states almost 40 states have have laws almost exactly written almost with the exact language because the lobby coordinates this. So that's an example of how pretty publicly the Israeli government without having to do much uh clandestine communication guides what the lobby is doing. uh and and the fact is that as Israel has become extremely right-wing in its policies uh partly as a result of unconditional American aid that the lobby secured so the lobby has moved in that direction also to stay in step it has lost support as a result from Jewish and other grassroots supporters but that doesn't matter as much because it has gained support from these small number of of ultraalthy the right-wing Americans and many of them who have Israeli and American citizenship. So there has been this process of Israel in a way being the victim of the lobby's success because it has produced a country. The lobby has produced a country almost unintentionally in which reasonable candidates for office could not win elections because they were warning and of American pressure that never came. where it is the right-wing politicians who pandered to the fears and fantasies of Israelis about being able to ignore the Palestinians, keep all the territories, settle wherever they wanted, and still get American support and protection constantly were proven correct. And so we have the logical extension of that is the most extreme government Israel has ever had and behavior that has led Israel into a kind of pariah rogue state category. We call it a crazy state using the definitions that Israeli uh that that a prominent Israeli analyst has presented. >> You know, I think a very interesting argument in the book is that actually uh in terms of foreign policy, the presence of the Israel lobby in the US has meant that America just very often hasn't acted in its national interests. Um, and you know, an argument that you sometimes hear and that, you know, at times maybe I've been I've been amanable to myself is that actually the reason that Israel gets so much money, military money and other other forms of aid from from the US and the reason why it's protected in the US as a state is that it it occupies some essential uh foreign policy national interest role. Um, that's something in the book that you say is not the case. Um, Eli, I wonder if you could take me through through that argument. >> I mean, we present a number of of case studies and examples in our book of instances in which US presidents uh in in agreement with their uh top foreign policy adviserss and national security adviserss uh had a pretty clear notion of what they wanted US policy to be. In the case of Truman, even in the recognition of Israel, uh his foreign policy advisers were advising uh not to immediately recognize uh Israel in 1948 as a as a as an independent state. Uh you have we have examples in the in the Ford and Carter administration where once again these presidents in coordination with their with their top advisers had had come to the conclusion that it was in the interest of the United States to uh work with the Soviet Union to impose a peace plan on the Israelis and the Palestinians. Uh and we have more recent examples. We have Obama in his first term uh saying that he wanted to go big on the peace process uh and that this was going to be his signature foreign policy issue uh from 2008 to 2012. Uh and we have successive presidents uh be they uh Obama to to to Trump to Biden uh all talking about wanting to pivot the focus of US diplomacy as well as military planning towards the Pacific and away from the Middle East. And in every single one of these examples, as we as we as we lay out, they faced domestic political push back, particularly from the lobby to prevent them from pursuing these goals. Now, we can have a debate about what American national interest might be. But in the book, we use that as the standin when you have a president and basically a consensus with their adviserss about what they want to pursue for uh for their own strategic and foreign policy reasons. Uh again that can be debated whether that's the were good ideas or not but the point is they had a clear direction they wanted to go and they were thwarted uh for a variety of reasons but one of the most clear ones that comes out is the domestic political pressure that was threatened or brought to bear by Israel's lobby. >> There's also one uh particular I think uh item in the book that touches on your question. There was an argument made by a leading uh political scientist called Israel America's 36 billion dollar bargain in which he argued AFK Oransky that uh not only was the aid to Israel the massive aid to Israel in American interests but we were getting much more out of it than we spent because Israel was such an important asset in keeping the Soviet Union and communism from expanding into the Middle East and But he wrote that in the 1970s and 80s he was writing about uh that actually allowed us to test his argument because if that were true then if the Soviet Union disappeared and the cold war ended then the amount of aid $3 billion a year would drop because it wouldn't be needed anymore. But when the Soviet Union collapsed and the Cold War ended in the early 90s, we saw no change in the massive levels of aid that the United States provided to Israel, military and economic. That shows that that aid never was a function of Israel's strategic role. It was a function of a domestic political uh uh faction that was able to exert the kind of influence that Eli has has described. Yeah, that was a really um striking argument in the book about the the the co the end of the cold war because um you know what what nothing what happened to aparate South Africa a kind of bastion of um antis-siet sympathy in in in Africa didn't happen to Israel right you know the the west sort of just moved out of South Africa lost interest in it as soon as as as the the cold war war came to an end um one of the things that you you go go into at length and you sort of put you know, kind of put it as a tool in the arsenal of of of Israel's lobby in the US is the IH definition of anti-semitism. Now, you know, here in the UK, there was a sort of flurry in the late 2010s of adoption of that of that definition. So, the government adopted it, the major parties adopted it. You won't find really a public institution in this country that hasn't adopted that definition. It was not really part of any serious debate. Um, obviously it's being it's adopted in in the the US as well. How how did that all all happen? And and and what was it what was its function? >> Well, that is a very intricate and uh horrible story which we go into in the book. And just as we can show that the massive levels of aid to Israel were a function of political pressure were nothing to do with the content of the argument that Israel was an ally against the Soviet Union. Uh so the IH definition and its acceptance by all these groups in Britain and in the United States was a function of political pressure not a function of the integrity or meaning of the uh of the formula because the formula itself is a hoax. It was developed in order [clears throat] to deflect and and promulgated in order to deflect and suppress criticism of Israel as anti-se by classifying it as anti-semitism. Not only that, but the if you look at the formula itself, anyone with looks at it seriously knows it's not a definition at all of anything because it starts off saying anti-semitism may be dot dot dot. That's like saying a triangle may be a polygon with three sides, but it might implying it could be a polygon with four or five or six sides or not even a polygon. So it is absurd to think of the IH definition quote unquote as something that was adopted because this actually describes anti-semitism. It doesn't. Even the world's agencies of the World Zionist organization reject uh used what is now the the Jerusalem declaration uh declar definition which is anti-semitism is prejudice, hostility or discrimination against Jews as Jews. That was the traditional definition. And it was abandoned when the Israel lobby and Israel Hazbara a propaganda decided they could no longer defend Israeli policies in front of American or world audiences. It was necessary to come up with a way to make arguments disappear from the public debate and that was to use the anti-semitism card. That required a much broader definition. Finally, I'd note that the single individual most responsible for the wording of that definition, Kenneth Stern, who uh developed it as part of the American Jewish Committee uh decades ago, has has repudiated it. He wrote a whole book saying, "Nate, this was a big mistake. Totally misunderstood. I completely repudiated. It should not be used as a definition of anti-semitism. It was a formula for a technical uh ideas for how to collect data." None of that affects the campaign the lobby has made to make people think that if you don't accept this bizarre definition which forces you to to uh avoid criticizing Israel because otherwise you would be anti-semitic and which forces you to use a double standard against Israel. Why is that true? Because the definition, the formula says you can't use you can't call Israel a racist state, but you can call other states a racist state. At the same time, it says you can't use a double standard against Israel. But it says you must use a double standard because you can't when you're thinking about questions regarding racism. The whole thing is a hoax. And the fact that it's it's not known widely as that is an intellectual and political embarrassment. I >> I think it's important to contextualize the IH definition in the overarching trends both in terms of public opinion as well as how the lobby has responded to it. And what that shows, I think, is that the emergence of the IHR definition or so-called definition uh comes alongside a period of time in which Israel's lobby faced a slow but steady decline in public support. And in doing so, the efforts that they made to to respond and to rebut the arguments they were facing change. It goes from trying to engage with the arguments, maybe deflect sometimes, but ultimately to challenge the assertions that are being made about Israel and about its mistreatment of Palestinians or the fact that Israel was uh continuing to expand settlements or the fact that there appeared to be less and less possibility of the two-state solution either being imposed or being implemented by the parties in the region uh turns into something else. And what it clearly comes in and then that's where I think the IH uh uh formulation uh very much runs in parallel. This is an effort no longer to engage with arguments but to simply say any criticism of Israel, any criticism of Zionism is inherently anti-Semitic and therefore beyond the pale and one cannot have that conversation. One cannot discuss Israel's behavior in a critical manner. And one certainly can't try to mobilize public support to take action in the manner that BDS was was and is still trying to do. >> But isn't it sort of you know such an indictment of in some way of like American political power domestically, political culture domestically that you know something which seems so clearly an affront to your your constitutional rights to free speech could be so easily accepted by by by by the government? Well, it's actually gotten a lot worse. And we've seen over the past uh year or two, certainly during the second Trump administration, uh efforts that are really weaponizing uh uh the state in ways that, you know, bringing the coercive power of the government in ways that civil society uh really can't uh typically do. And the examples that I that I would provide, uh a key one has been the threat and the real suspension of federal grant monies to universities. Now, that represents hundreds of millions of dollars in funding in some cases to universities. And essentially the the terms that the that the Trump administration presented were that uh these funds would be withheld until in some cases the IH uh uh so-called definition of anti-semitism was implemented on these campuses or in other cases uh they were even more explicit that this was really about uh trying to shut down campus criticism of Israel. Again, these were not university policies. These were simply that the universities were allowing students or faculty to voice these opinions. Uh and the federal government was saying you need to stifle this form of disscent. In other cases, we've seen the federal government tried to deport uh US per legal permanent residents purely because of these individual statements about Israel, a foreign country 6,000 m away. So I think the civil society costs, the domestic political costs and the the cost to our freedoms in the United States are directly under threat by the lobby particularly as it continues to lose these public opinion battles. They are falling back on more and more coercive mechanisms to try to stifle the scent. One of the things that you talked about um in your answers there were was the sort of declining um you know popularity of a of Apac or of the of of um Israel's lobby um in in more recent decades and at the same time you've seen two things though that have sort of empowered it right so one is one is the Supreme 2010 Supreme Court ruling um against Citizens United allowing unlimited funding uh to to to political funding uh from private um individuals and the emergence of this kind of billionaire class with specific political agendas including some of them agendas around Israel. Can you say a bit more about how that has changed things in the last you know 15 years? So, as we've been talking about, this trend of diminishing public support for Israel, uh, really did, you know, start it its steady decline right around 1999 2000 with the the death of the Oslo Accords, uh, and and really in effect really the end of the of the peace process and the possibility for a two-state solution. Now uh uh Steve Walt and John Mirshimer in their book talk about how this is going to you know there's a steady decline here and they anticipated that our democracy would would sort of effectively work in the context that as you have this diminishing power and influence and and and persuasiveness of the lobby that other other factions would rise up other uh organizations that maybe were nominally pro-Israel or that were peace or there were pro peace organizations would step up pushing for more balanced US policies. But what happened is three years after they published their book, uh this the the Citizens United and Speech Now court decisions came through which effectively opened the floodgates to our campaign finance system for the extremely wealthy. What it allowed was for uh individuals as well as corporations to give effective to give unlimited sums of money into these so-called independent expenditures which are uh expenditures that are cannot be coordinated directly with a campaign or a candidate but can be uh effective in boosting a candidate for instance running positive ads about them or attacking their opponent. Uh and so you see this and this and this unleashes hundreds of millions of dollars in in each election cycle. Now, uh, stunning sums of money come into our elections. And from the very get-go, the first post Citizens United election, the biggest spender was Sheldon add, a billionaire in the United States who is explicitly pro- Israel. And what was so interesting at the time is that he actually was really concerned, it seemed, that he would be misunderstood as to why he was spending enormous sums of money at that point to prop up the primary campaign of N. Gingrich and then in the general election trying to get Mitt Romney elected president. uh and he was out his adviserss were out there uh as were the candidates he was he was supporting saying this is about Israel this is about a foreign country that's why I am spending uh sums of money that nobody has seen in American uh elections uh until that date so it was very explicit at that time and as we show in the book nine billionaires have given uh uh over $1.7 billion now into our campaign system since 2012 and these nine billionaires as we go through are very explicit either through their public statements business or through through their philanthropy that they prioritize advancing Israel's interests in electing pro-Israel candidates uh not just for president but in all of the elections down down the ticket for the for the house for the senate for governors uh it's it's expansive where their monies go to and again they're very clear about what motivates it >> and I wanted to ask about the media um in in the US so you know the the media in Britain especially since um oto October 7th, 2023. You know, it's been like it's it's it's been so incredibly craven about reporting uh what is happening in Gaza and very rarely, you know, very often admitting to say who has done something to the Palestinians. Palestinians in Gaza, you know, die in explosions or die, you know, die in missile assaults, but it's never really said who is launching those missiles, who is causing those explo explosions, who is causing that star starvation. Um I imagine that that's been very much the case in the media in the US as well. And of course we've seen you know a kind of I don't know there's there's there are figures connected to Apac in all all parts of the US media. You know you have um Barry Weiss who's just taken over CBS whose father I believe is connected to Apac. You have Wolf Blitzer at CNN who used to work for Apac. You have uh you know Larry Ellison who is not uh himself I don't think associated with Apac but is certainly known to be a massive billionaire uh donor of of of pro-Israeli projects who's who owns American Tik Tok now um does any of this come under any scrutiny and and what are its impacts in in the US? You're absolutely right to notice the the differences. Not all not many Americans can see it. Uh because uh but it's true the American media has been unbelievably slanted in its coverage of the events in Gaza since uh not October 7th, even since October 6th, but certainly October 8th. You mentioned one way when Israelis are killed it's very the attention is on they were killed by Hamas terrorists who attacked them when Palestinians are killed an explosion occurred and some and Palestinians died who was responsible for this the active voice and the identification of the perpetrator is omitted and the reader follows the story but doesn't realize that if it had been a story about Israeli casualties would have been completely different. Another example, when Palestinian casualty figures were talked about, 20,000, 30,000, 40,000, 50,000 Palestinians dead, it was reported that uh this is Hamas. These are Hamas uh figures and they do not distinguish between civilian and military casualties. When Israel refers to casualties, it first of all never talks about Palestinian casualties. But when it refers to its own casualties, 1,200 people killed murdered on October 7th. They do not distinguish between the 368 of those casualties who were military and security personnel and civilian. They just But the press never reports the Israeli casualties as reported without distinguishing between military and civilian casualties. I could go on and on about the way that the press coverage, not just uh that it's substantively slanted, but even the vocabulary. We we report in the book, the New York Times itself ordered its journalists not to use words which like slaughter or massacre, which they commonly to talk about Palestinian casualties, which they commonly use to talk about Israeli casualties. So one of the problems that our bush book is designed to combat is the uh curtain of uh misinformation or distorted information that the media provides. I can say that the only way to see that the media in Britain and the United States are have some value in communicating what's going on is to look at the Israeli media because the Israeli media has zero virtually nothing about Palestinian suffering in Gaza or hardly any in the West Bank. It's as if the uh Israeli public 95% of it operates in a kind of solopscistic trance that does not that that believes as it was put by Melanie Phillips, a popular right-wing commentator. She put it this way recently. Is it possible that that the entire world is wrong and [clears throat] we alone are right? To which she said the answer is yes. And that is the mindset that overwhelming majority of Israelis have been socialized into because it's the truth about what has been happening is so shocking and the extremity of their own government's behavior is very hard for them to absorb in moments of siege and suffering which they have been uh experiencing. You know, I was just on sticking with the media. Is there anything to say about like I don't know the struct the structural ways that um a the Israel lobby in general has sort of worked it way into the the the wheels of power in media. >> Well, I think that when you look at where do they see the greatest problems uh emerging for them, uh one of the things they consistently point to, and this goes all the way to, you know, Benjamin Netanyahu himself saying it is, uh social media. um and that they are very much turning to, you know, tech oligarchs, plureaucrats as it were, to uh curtail the problems that Israel is facing because of social media. Now, I would just take a step back and say, I don't know if it's the social media that's the problem so much as the facts. Uh because you have people like political commentators Van Jones uh being dragged for going out there and saying, you know, oh, when I open up TikTok, it's dead Gaza baby, dead Gaza baby, dead Gaza baby, diddy, dead Gaza baby, dead Gaza baby. and he blames the tech platforms and the algorithms for that was the point he was trying to make. Um, now of course the obvious rebuttal to that is maybe it's the dead babies that are the problem here. uh it's not the platform that is delivering this to people, but the platforms have at least over the course of the Gaza war and probably predating that as well been a way that uh people have accessed information about Israel's actions in ways that the mainstream media has in the many ways that Ian just just laid out here sort of tried to downplay or sometimes just not covered at all. And that's been a very vivid thing particularly when you have these massive civilian casualties going on. And I think that that the Israel's lobby and again Netanyahu himself is very explicit that the solution here is to fix these algorithms and to fix these social media platforms themselves. And when he spoke to a group of of social media influencers here at the in New York uh during the UN General Assembly last September, I believe he spoke very explicitly saying, you know, it's that, you know, we're looking forward to the sale of Tik Tok and, you know, and that we have we have Elon Musk on our side, referring to X. Um, and very much it's very clear that he's gonna lean on the Ellison. he's going to lean on Elon Musk uh to try to curtail the images and the messages that are allowed on these platforms that have been frankly mobilizing a lot of people in this country and playing a role in that down in dramatically accelerated uh decline in public support for Israel. Now, I don't think it's going to work. I don't think you're going to stifle it by by somehow tweaking an algorithm on these platforms. uh but it doesn't change the fact that this is where they're focusing now and it's very much about controlling the narrative, controlling the images that people can access and controlling uh the the the platforms themselves. I'd like to add one more thing because we cited in the book. There's a wonderful book that came out from Britain by Adam Johnson called How to Sell a Genocide that has a remarkable content analysis of press coverage in the United States and in Britain of uh events in Israel and Palestine. I recommend it very highly. just on this issue of the media and what can and can't be be said um and the way that social media has informed people uh to a far greater extent than mainstream media has done. And I wrote an article in October last year about how it'll be an inevitable consequence of Western liberal democracies sustaining their defense, their support for Israel um amongst populations which have seen, you know, the one one of the worst masses of war crimes at the very least, you know, let alone the question of the the war crime the greater crime of of of genocide unfolding on their screens dayto-day. and the contradiction between the sort of the supposed values of these liberal democracies and what populations see their country supporting in in in in in Israel and Palestine um is going to create sort of boiling points or points of of conflict where governments will have to decide that actually the liberal values will have to go if we're going to if we're going to stick to our our support for Israel. Now, I know you're not neither of you are are experts on the UK, although I'm sure you're both incredibly knowledgeable, but I wanted to ask you about what you thought of some of the effects here of that kind of tension and whether you think that there is an Israel lobby here. I mean, we don't have anything like the campaign funding sort of structures that you have in the US. Um, so it would presumably have to take a different form if there were. I don't shock easily in this area, but I have been shocked at how extreme uh the lo the lobby that does exist in Britain and the influence operations that Israel is conducting through its supporters and perhaps directly in Britain have resulted in the mobilization of the ferocious power of the state against simple dissident uh as terrorists. This is something which we have not yet seen in the United States. the state mobilized against American citizens treated as terrorists because they criticize Israel or protest treatment of Palestinians. But we do see it in Britain. And uh why and what what I'm afraid of frankly is that that is partly what the future could be in the United States if there is not the response that we are starting to see uh in defense not only of American national interests abroad but of freedoms at home threatened by the lobby's conflation of criticism of Israel with anti-semitism. Also, it can in the endanger Jews. I'm Jewish. So was Eli. We are very aware that the witch hunt we describe in the book and we call it an anti-semitism witch hunt which is going on in Britain as well uh is not like the 17th century 18th century witch hunts because there actually are witches. There are some quite a few anti-semites and when you treat Israel as the collective Jew, which is how the lobby treats it, then whatever Israel does seems to be what Jews do and that helps the anti-semites spread their influence and make sense of their otherwise wacky conspiracy theories that figure the Jews is responsible for all kinds of terrible things in the world. So from our point of view, we are fighting the real fight against anti-semitism as well as trying to express our solidarity and the solidarity of of of ethically oriented Jews toward Palestinian suffering. >> Uh I I would just add that uh I think it's first of all important to I know as basic as this is, but to answer your your your question, is there an Israel lobby in in the UK? There there absolutely is. There's BCOM, the British Israel Communications and Research Center. Uh there's been an excellent documentary that I believe aired on Al Jazzer uh that detailed the activities of Israel's lobby inside the UK. Uh and in particular the efforts to smear uh politicians and activists uh obviously BCOM has very good relations both in the Labor and the Conservative Party. that is uh something that that Israel's lobby the United States seeks to pursue as well is that they don't operate just uh in one party or avoiding partisan lines. Uh and I think very much the United Kingdom has uh has has has an active Israel lobby. And again the what's so scary is to watch how they can function in countries where actually the price of influence is much lower. And in the United States, the cost of influencing elections, that marketplace has become so big that it requires enormous sums of money, which the lobby is rather uniquely qualified and capable of bringing to bear. But in a country like the UK or elsewhere where the cost of influence influencing elections and influencing politicians is less, they are certainly going to take advantage of that of that opportunity. uh and in the marketplace of ideas and especially in countries where uh civil liberties are not as extensively pro protected as they are in the United States. The lobby will find that to be a particularly easy and useful uh environment to operate in. So I think there absolutely is is the Israel lobby in the UK. Uh and it's something to watch very closely. Anybody who denies that there is one is clearly a part of it andor trying to uh really uh conceal what's going on. Again, just go look at what BCOM says they are about. Look at what their mission statement is. That's as much as one should need. Uh, and the argument that I I know used to be popular in the United States that this this lobby doesn't exist. It simply just doesn't pass the smell test. When you go and look at do these organizations exist and what do they say that they're doing? Uh we in the book as as you know uh show how insiders in the lobby sometimes break uh forget that the mic is on and talk very very frankly with a kind of braggadocio about just how much influence the lobby has and how many politicians are under their thumb uh with relatively crude language which I won't use on air that that reflects the inside beliefs of those who governor lobby and how they raise money. That is, they raise money by telling donors just how much influence these organizations have over American politics over who will be appointed to key posts in the State Department and elsewhere. These are quotations we have in the book. >> Yeah, there's and those are like absolutely fascinating quotations as well and there's many of them. Um just sticking on the UK for for one more minute just is is that you know one of the ways I think the Israel lobby operates really effectively here is via the integration of the military infrastructure of the two countries. So as you know Palestine Action, a group that was prescribed as a terrorist organization, many in this country think ridiculously because all because you know primarily what they were doing was property damage. Um have you know their their express aim was that they wanted Elbit out of this country. Um and one of the most striking examples in which I think that integration or the role of the lobby there um has affected things here is that you know in April 2024 three British citizens were killed in Gaza as part of the world central kitchen convoy which was you know I'm sure you remember a determined um threepart strike on three vehicles when one car was blown up the survivors ran to the other car that was then blown up the survivors of that ran to the other car until all but One person I believe was killed and three of those people who were killed were British citizens. Two of them veterans, former servicemen and according to Heret's um you know Israeli intelligence sources at the time had said that the the the means by which those those those weapons were were delivered was an Elbit 450 drone. We have not heard anything about how that happened, why it happened. One of the family members has been calling for the British military to release surveillance records that it has because we've been flying surveillance planes over Gaza throughout the the the the the relentless assault by Israel on the enclave. Um you know is that integration of like defense industries weapon making is that is that part of how the lobby functions in in in this country? >> Absolutely. And I would extend it also into the tech sector. You know, when you look at the cross-pollination between the Israeli uh defense tech space and the American VC companies and defense tech as well, uh you very often see that Israel is a place where these technologies are developed. It's also a place where these technologies can be tested on human beings and that's something that uh you don't really find that many opportunities and it's an opportunity if you are one of these companies uh in order to battle test your your your be it an AI system or a drone uh or what have you uh and to do so knowing that you will face uh very very little political pressure or repercussions uh if and when those tools are used to kill civilians. I'm going to ask you one last one last question that takes us back back to the top where I talked about these recent DSA victories. You know, so we've seen people on the left calling out Apac, drawing attention to Apac funding for their other Democratic opponents in in in in primaries, but we're also seeing on the right in the sort of online right people like Tucker Carlson and Megan Kelly and Candace Owens speaking endlessly about the role of Apac in subverting uh the American state and subverting the national interest. Um, do you think that we're seeing actually a an important shift happening here or is it is it potentially temporary? >> My own view is that this is not going to reverse. Uh, that on both sides of the political spectrum, the extremity of Israeli behavior will not be able to be suppressed and ignored. Now, there's an election in Israel in October and Netanyahu may very well not be the next prime minister. the government that arises will present itself as an important change, but on this issue it really will not. On the Palestinian issue, it will not be an important change. there'll be some some changes in style and but I don't believe that that will actually change Israel enough so that either the right-wing or the left-wing mobilization that looks at Israel more and more as another country not as a 51st state that this will continue. Uh it does not mean that American policy will change as fast. Just as the NRA had lost public opinion long ago, it cannot win arguments about why assault rifles should be uh freely available. So it but it still prevents laws from being passed that control those assault rifles because it holds the political class by the throat with the political influence and money. That is a technique that the Israel lobby is moving is forced to move more and more toward in addition to intimidating debate pushing talk about Israel into the routine routine bureaucratized context of the Pentagon and the intelligence community away from public uh examination. So, one might think that the future of Apac right now is the NRA today. Uh how long will it take to change American policy on guns? Well, it lags behind public opinion, but public opinion is crucial and it will be also on this issue in the future. >> Eli, any more optimistic take on that? >> It's very clear where public opinion has gone. Uh but there is still a really big delta between public opinion and policy and we are not yet seeing a change in policy. I think the best explanation for that or one of the best explanations for it is the enormous sums of money that are being poured into our elections by the pro-Israel lobby. Uh and in doing so, they are showing that the cost of in a very literal measurable sense of maintaining the status quo is going up in every single election cycle. And all I can say is I don't know where that breaking point is, but there's got to be a number where it just becomes intractable. And remember these this these these expenditures do not guarantee that they win in every single election. They win in some, they lose in others. Simply being in the game is costing them more and more money in this midterm election. Uh they've already raised over $160 million. They've spent about 150 of it. We're still in the primaries. Through the general election, it's entirely possible they will spend a quarter of a billion dollar. What that means for the next election cycle, a presidential election cycle, I think is open to to pure speculation, but it's going to be even more than that. >> That was Eli Clifton and Ian Lustik speaking to me on Friday about their new book, Israel's Lobby. Now, I can't really recommend it enough. It's a truly thorough and fascinating read.