Weigel

“The Arab Lobby”

This book just arrived in our offices; the subtitle, if you can’t see it, is “The Invisible Alliance That Undermines America’s Interests in the Middle East.” HarperCollins (which is part of Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp) included a helpful interview with author Mitchell Bard.

This book was written in part to respond to the growing popularity of conspiracy theorists who believe that Jews somehow control U.S. Middle East policy. The “Israeli lobby” is obsessively scrutinized, mischaracterized, and demonized while ignoring the far more powerful Arab lobby . And right now, the Arab lobby is engaged in an increasingly successful global campaign to delegitimize and ostracize Israel.

Among the blurberati: Daniel Pipes and ADL’s Abe Foxman, who says this:

Mitchell Bard has presented a well-documented, concise, and insightful account of the scope and impact of Arab states’ influence on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East.

Skimming the book now, I see half stories about the power of Saudi lobbyists and half stories about pro-Palestine campaigns, which have a political effectiveness in terms of signing up actual support in Congress comparable to that of NAMBLA advocates.