The Role of the Israeli Lobbies in the US Foreign Policy: From Myth to Reality

The US-Israeli relationship is regarded as one of the strongest relations between two states in the contemporary world. For a number of cultural, strategic, and political reasons, the US strongly supports the Zionist regime. On the other hand, the role of the strong, influential Israeli lobby in the US has yet been another significant factor for the close relations between the two countries within the past decades. The Israeli lobby resorts to an array of methods- from sponsoring Congress and Presidential candidates and media-specific propaganda to exerting influence on scientific and research circles, to direct not only the activities of US-led policy-making entities, but also the US public opinion towards supporting the Zionist regime. However, there is an ongoing debate among political researchers concerning the main reason for US support of Israel. The question is whether this support is mainly due to the strategic role played by Israel in the Middle East for promoting America's interests, or brought about by the influence of and the pressure exerted by the Zionist lobby in the US. While providing an overall review of existing viewpoints in this regards, this article concludes that the close USIsraeli relations is yielded by both of the above-mentioned factors and not one of them alone.