Transforming America's Israel Lobby : The Limits of Its Power and the Potential for Change

The war in Iraq, the war on terror, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are among the most daunting foreign policy dilemmas of our time, and they are interrelated in a complex web of ideology, myth, and fact. When it comes to who influences American foreign policy on these issues, the Israel lobby-especially the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)-is thought to have an inordinate amount of power. Fans and detractors alike have overstated the extent of its power, according to Dan Fleshler, who puts it in perspective for the first time as only an insider can. Why have American Jews-one of the most liberal communities in the United States-allowed hawks and neo-conservatives to define their global image? How did AIPAC and other right-of-center American Jewish groups convince most of Washington that, on issues related to Israel, they are the only American Jews of any political consequence? What can be done to counteract their influence and to give American diplomats more political leeway to press both Israelis and Palestinians to make the compromises necessary for peace? Fleshler is in a unique position to answer these questions; he does so here with cogent analysis, innovative thinking, and a surprising lack of polemics in such fraught, and usually partisan, territory. An American Jew, he advocates a Middle East policy that will help both Palestinians and Israelis awaken from their shared nightmare.