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My partner and I affirm [the topic, Resolved: In the United States, organized political lobbying does more harm than
good.]

To clarify, we define:

Organized political lobbying as, “[groups that] to conduct activities aimed at influencing public officials and esp. members of
1
a legislative body on legislation” from Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of Law .

Our thesis is that political lobbying by pro-Israeli interest groups in the US does more harm than good. We offer three
contentions:

1. The Israel lobby exerts an undue influence on the US government.

2. A pro-Israel policy is detrimental to US national safety.
3. Israel has been untrustworthy as an ally.

First, the Israel lobby exerts an undue influence on US government. John Mearshimer2, a professor of political science
at the University of Chicago, writes in a 2007 book:

AIPAC’s [or the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s, who call themselves “America’s Pro-
Israel Lobby has a strong] ability to influence elections helps ensure that Israel gets generous aid each year and makes it dangerous for senators or representatives to utter even mild criticisms
of Israel’s conduct. But its influence on Capitol Hill goes even farther. Lobbying groups of all types exercise influence not merely by direct persuasion and by using campaign contributions

to gain access, but also by providing a “legislative subsidy” to sympathetic lawmakers and supplying overworked staffs with direct

assistance in analyzing issues, framing legislation, and offering talking points and speeches to give to constituents. Not only does
every member of Congress receive AIPAC’s biweekly newsletter Near East Report, its personnel are also available to help staffers when issues affecting Israel arise. In other words, AIPAC

inserts itself directly into the legislative and policy-making process with considerable frequency, as we explore in
more detail in Part II.

And the Israel lobby has a direct influence on the executive branch, Professor Mearshimer continues:

Yet the Bush administration was unable to persuade Jerusalem to change its policies, and Washington
instead ended up backing Israel’s hard-line approach toward the Palestinians. Over time, Bush and his lieutenants also adopted
Israel’s justifications for this approach, and US and Israeli rhetoric became similar. A Washington Post headline in February 2003 summarized the

situation: “Bush and Sharon Nearly Identical on Mideast Policy.” The lobby’s influence was one of the
central reasons for this shift.

This undue influence on the legislative and executive branches materialized in a scandal involving AIPAC and the
Clinton administration, Professor Mearshimer elaborates:
But there is an even more obvious way to shape an administration’s policy: the lobby’s goals are served when individuals who share its perspective occupy important positions in the executive branch. In a notorious
incident in 1992, for example, the New York businessman Haim Katz, calling as the potential donor to pro-Israel candidates, secretly taped a phone call with AIPAC President David Steiner. In addition to describing how

AIPAC [President] had helped direct campaign contributions to friendly politicians,[David] Steiner told Katz that he had met personally to “cut a
deal” with Secretary of States James Baker for $3 billion in foreign [military] aid to Israel, [a $10 billion
loan,] plus “a billion dollars in other goodies that people don’t even know about.” More to the point, he told [a
businessman] Katz that “we have a dozen people in [Clinton’s] campaign, in the headquarters….and
they’re all going to get big jobs.”

1
"lobbying." Def. 1a. Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law. 7th ed. 2003.
2
Mearsheimer, John J., and Stephen M. Walt. The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007. Print.

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Israel is already a major military and economic power in the Middle East that has no need for foreign aid or military
equipment. Israeli lobbying has directed money that could have been used domestically or for more needy foreign aid
issues, and the influence of the Israel lobby is far wider and reaching since pro-Israel politicians hold jobs in the
executive and legislative branches.

Our second contention is that a pro-Israel foreign policy has been inciting terrorism against the US, including the 9/11
attacks. Professor Mearshimer writes:
More important, claiming that Israel and the United States are united by a shared terrorist threat has the causal relationship backward. The United States did not form an alliance with Israel because it suddenly realized that

, the United States has a terrorism problem in good part

it faced a serious danger from “global terrorism” and urgently needed Israel’s help to defeat it. In fact

because it has long been so supportive of Israel. It is hardly headline news to observe that US backing for Israel is unpopular elsewhere in the Middle East—that has
been true for several decades—but many people may not realize how much America’s one-sided policies have cost it over the years. Not only

have these policies helped inspire al Qaeda, but they have also facilitated its recruitment efforts and contributed to

growing anti-Americanism throughout the region.

The 9/11 Commission confirmed that bin Laden and other key al Qaeda members were motivated both
by Israel’s behavior toward the Palestinians and by US support for Israel. A background study by the commission’s staff notes that bin
Laden tried to accelerate the date of the attack in the fall of 2000, after Israeli opposition party leader Ariel Sharon’s provocative visit (accompanied by hundreds of Israeli riot police) to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the
site of al-Aqsa Mosque, one of the three holiest sites in Islam. According to the staff statement, “although bin Laden recognized that [Mohamed] Atta and the other pilots had only just arrived in the United States to begin

, the al Qaeda leader wanted to punish the United States for supporting Israel.”
their flight training The following year, “when bin
Laden learned from the media that Sharon would be visiting the White House in June or July 2001, he attempted once more to accelerate the operation.” In addition to informing the timing of the 9/1 attacks, bin Laden’s
anger at the United States for backing Israel had implications for his preferred choice of targets. In the first meeting between Atta, the mission leader and bin Laden in late 1999, the initial plans called for hitting the US
Capitol because it was “the perceived source of US policy in support of Israel.” In short, bin Laden and his deputies clearly see the issue of Palestine as central to their agenda.

The 9/11 Commission also notes that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed—whom it described as “the principal architect of
the 9/11 attacks”—was primarily motivated by the Palestinian issue. In the commission’s words, “by his own account, KSM’s animus toward
the United States stemmed not from his experiences there as a student, but rather from his violent disagreement with US foreign policy favoring Israel.” It is hard to imagine more compelling evidence of the role that US
support for Israel played in inspiring the 9/11 attacks.

Our major terrorist threat, al-Qaeda, has stated it has been only our pro-Israel policies that have gave reason for them
to attack the US. Without 9/11, we wouldn’t be in the middle of an escalated conflict against fundamentalists in Iraq
and Afghanistan, in addition to dealing with domestic threats.

And finally, our third contention is that Israel has been untrustworthy, helping our enemies and potential threats.

, Israel looks first and foremost to its own

A final reason to question Israel’s strategic value is that it sometimes does not act like a loyal ally. Like most states

interests, and it has been willing to do things contrary to American interests when it believed (rightly or wrongly) that doing so would
advance its own national goals. In the notorious “Lavon affair” in 1954, for example, Israeli agents tried to bomb several US

government offices in Egypt, in a bungled attempt to sow discord between Washington and Cairo. Israel sold
military supplies to Iran while US diplomats were being held hostage there in 1979-80, and it was one of Iran’s main military suppliers during the Iran-Iraq War, even though the United States was worried about Iran
and tacitly backing Iraq. Israel later purchased $36 million worth of Iranian oil in 1989 in an attempt to obtain the release of Israeli hostages in Lebanon. All of these acts made sense from Israel’s point of view, but they

Israel has transferred American technology

were contrary to American policy and harmful to overall US interests. In addition to selling weapons to America’s enemies,

to third countries, including potential US adversaries like China, actions that violated US laws and threatened
American interests. [Sold drones to China in 2004]

By giving Israel military aid, our technology is at risk of being transferred to potential threats like China and any
other nation Israel wishes to trade with. All the while, we can’t retaliate since the pro-Israel lobby has such a
stronghold on our political process.

Since the Israel lobby exerts a coercive influence on US politics, created the rationale behind terrorist attacks on the
US, and proved itself to be a military threat to the US, political lobbying does more harm than good, and you affirm.

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Conversation text3:

HK: Let me tell you, I was planning, I was planning to, to . . . Inouye, by the way, is in real trouble? He's been
there forever. . .

DS: Yeah! Well, we might lose him. There's been such a sea change, such trouble this year, I can't believe all
our friends that are in trouble. Because there's an anti-incumbency mood, and foreign aid has not been
popular. You know what I got for, I met with [U.S. Secretary of State] Jim Baker and I cut a deal with him. I
got, besides the $3 billion, you know they're looking for the Jewish votes, and I'll tell him whatever he wants
to hear. . .

HK: Right.

DS: Besides the $10 billion in loan guarantees which was a fabulous thing, $3 billion in foreign, in military
aid, and I got almost a billion dollars in other goodies that people don't even know about.

HK: Such as?

DS: $700 million in military draw-down, from equipment that the United States Army's going to give to Israel;
$200 million the U.S. government is going to preposition materials in Israel, which Israel can draw upon; put
them in the global warning protection system; so when if there's a missile fired, they'll get the same advanced
notification that the U.S., is notified, joint military exercises—I've got a whole shopping list of things.

HK: So this is from Baker?

DS: From Baker and from the Pentagon.

3
Federal Bureau of Investigation and Haim Katz. "Unexpurgated AIPAC Tape." Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. Jan 1992. Web.

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