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Table of Contents
About The Book
The greatest story in geopolitics and in American domestic affairs is how the far-right government of a small Middle Eastern country came to hold a controlling interest in United States foreign policy. Israel’s lobby is now in a position to police the speech of American politicians, college students and journalists, and coerce and persuade the White House to back unpopular, costly, and ultimately national security-threatening policies. From the Biden administration’s unwillingness to bring American leverage to bear an end to genocidal violence that only harmed our national security interests, to the Trump administration’s role in lifting the parole restrictions on a spy who had sold vital government secrets, American subservience to its putative client state, Israel, is a vivid and vexing example of the tail wagging the dog.
Israel’s Lobby combines investigative journalism and political science to tie together the stories of American and Israeli oligarchs capturing the policymaking process in successive presidential administrations and the geopolitical, national security and domestic consequences of American foreign policy effectively sold to the highest bidder. Eli Clifton and Ian Lustick explain how shifts in global politics, Israel’s lurch to the extreme right, and the evisceration of American campaign finance laws make the influence of Israel’s lobby more costly and more dangerous today than it ever was before, why the lobby launched an antisemitism witch hunt to suppress opponents rather than attempt to defend Israel's policies, and how the Lobby not only distorts American policy but helps make Israel a “crazy” state.
Israel’s Lobby follows the money and lifts the veil on a seemingly unassailable feature of American politics, importantly detailing how we can unite around traditional American values and the importance of substantive debate to resist Israel-first vigilantism.
Product Details
- Publisher: Atria/One Signal Publishers (August 11, 2026)
- Length: 304 pages
- ISBN13: 9781668210864
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Raves and Reviews
“This alarming exposé from journalist Clifton and political scientist Lustick spotlights the significant influence of the pro-Israel lobby on American foreign and domestic policy.… Clifton and Lustick trenchantly warn that the U.S. is risking its own standing to “serve the ambitions of what has become a rogue state.” It’s a serious wake-up call.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A politically charged history of a ‘special relationship’ [between the US and Israel]. A closely reasoned argument in favor of a more balanced U.S. approach to Middle East affairs.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Eli Clifton and Ian Lustick have done a great job explaining to Americans what it really means to be America First. Our Founders understood that concept.”
—Rep (ret.) Ron Paul, author of The Revolution
"Many Americans have struggled to understand why President Donald Trump launched a massive attack on Iran shortly after a presentation by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the White House Situation Room urged him to do so. Eli Clifton and Ian Lustick's probing and provocative book, Israel's Lobby, provides needed context for this major development, tracing and illuminating the sources of Israel's unprecedented influence on modern U.S. policies."
—Rogers M. Smith, Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Emeritus Professor of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania and author of Civic Ideals
“For decades, Israel's Lobby was the third rail of American political life: touch it and your career ends. Clifton and Lustick touch it anyway, and what they expose is more alarming than even its critics imagined. The Lobby they document is bigger than the NRA, more disciplined than almost any domestic interest group, and operating in direct contradiction to what the American public wants. It has redirected hundreds of billions in military aid, dragged the United States into wars it never should have fought, intimidated politicians on both sides of the aisle into voting against their constituents, and silenced universities, newsrooms, and Hollywood. It now wields antisemitism as a legal and political weapon, criminalizing the very criticism that American democracy requires. As an Israeli and as a Jew, I will say what this Lobby cannot afford to hear: it does not serve America, and it does not serve Israel. It serves its own power, at everyone's expense. This book is the honest reckoning that Washington has refused to have for decades. Read it, wake up and act.”
—Former Speaker of the Knesset and author Avraham Burg
"Long before we were allowed to say so, we all knew that America was in the grip of a foreign power. Clifton and Lustick shed surprising new light on this most toxic of relationships -- and show that it's even worse than we thought."
—Benjamin Moser, Pulitzer prize-winning author of Sontag and author of Anti-Zionism
“The sage authors of Israel's Lobby bring decades of receipts from investigative journalism and political science to shed light on a phenomenon increasingly central to the American experience, touching free speech rights, plutocratic occupation of Congress, and wars and genocides abroad. It is a must-read.”
—Juan Cole, Distinguished Professor, University of Michigan, founding editor of Informed Comment, and author of Engaging the Muslim World
“The political influence of the ‘Israel lobby’ has long been the main reason the United States gives Israel generous and unconditional support, but the lobby's strategy and tools have evolved as Israel’s actions cost it the public support it once enjoyed. In this major new study, Eli Clifton and Ian Lustick bring the story up to date and explain why the lobby remains so influential today. Anyone who wants to know why U.S. Middle East policy remains dysfunctional should start by reading this book.”
—Stephen M. Walt, Belfer Professor of International Affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and co-author of The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy
“Israel’s Lobby is a truly important book. It offers first-rate analysis of how that incredibly powerful lobby gets US policymakers to support Israel no matter what. Clifton and Lustick also show that the lobby’s success is bad for the United States, bad for Israel, and bad for Jews all around the world. One cannot help but think after reading this book that the world would be a better place if there was no Israel lobby.”
—John J. Mearsheimer, R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago and co-author of The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy
Resources and Downloads
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Book Cover Image (jpg): Israel's Lobby
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Author Photo (jpg): Eli Clifton Courtesy of the Quincy Institute(0.1 MB)
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Author Photo (jpg): Ian Lustick Terri Lustick(0.1 MB)
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