Israel’s foreign influence is the most unrelenting in US history
There were a handful of times when external powers
tried to steer us, but there is no comparing the decades-long grip of the Likud
Party on Washington
Sep 01, 2025
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/israel-lobby-us/
In his farewell address to the nation, George Washington included a
special pleading:
"Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence
(I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free people
ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign
influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government."
It is said that Israel’s influence over American
military and foreign affairs is unique — that no small state in modern times
has exerted such control over the affairs of a great power. This is a troubling
claim. But is it true?
For sure, foreign powers historically have attempted
to influence American politics, to steer, or even control our actions in the
world. But their interventions never came close to matching Israel’s sustained
sway over Washington’s power centers. This intricate grip has now lasted
generations and has prevented the U.S., time and again, from acting in its own
security interests in domestic as well as foreign affairs.
A comparative analysis would be useful in order to
fully grasp the gravity of the situation. Let’s look at four instances in which
foreign powers tried to intervene in U.S. politics. How aggressive were they?
How much did they threaten American security? Was U.S. sovereignty ultimately
damaged?
Only then can we fully take the measure of Israeli
influence operations today.
France tries to manipulate its weaker client
Bourbon France was a decisive factor in securing
American independence in 1783. Ten years later, France was torn by revolution
and invaded by European great power monarchies. In desperation, France tried to
suborn its former client, the United States. “Citizen” Edmond-Charles Genêt was sent to petition President Washington for
help; instead, he lured Americans into a privateer scheme to raid British and
Spanish shipping.
Washington had just declared neutrality in France’s
European war. This was a naked bid to drag America into war. Washington quickly
quashed Genet; yet the new United States continued to benefit from its
fraternal relationship with France. There was the Louisiana Purchase, and then,
in 1812, Madison took the U.S. to war with Britain in the belief that Napoleon was about to defeat America’s old
nemesis. Hence, American strategy remained under the long, yet mutually
beneficial, shadow of its old French patron — and then, after just a generation
or so, it was gone.
Britain, France use Confederate States for their own
ends
In the American Civil War, Britain made
war on the U.S.
through its proxy Alt-America, the Confederate States of America. The million
rifles it delivered to the Confederates kept the Rebel cause going. Plus, Royal
Navy ironclads — massed for several years in Bermuda — deeply degraded the Union
blockade. Britain’s strategic goal was a bit like U.S. aims against Russia in the Ukrainian war: to cut off at the knees a
threatening great power competitor. This was a double
manipulation:
arming the South, while also forcing the North to accept their proxy subversion
— given that armed resistance would push the federal state into a world war
with Britain and France. France tagged along only as Britain’s sidekick, taking
advantage of the Civil War to invade Mexico. Yet in the event, England’s
opportunity evaporated quickly: By 1864, a losing Southern cause forced Britain
and France to “cut bait.”
A desperate Britain manipulates the new world power
After the outbreak of world war in 1914, the Allies
found themselves totally dependent on U.S. production of war materials. Their
war effort depended on the multiple millions of American-made artillery shells,
rifles, and explosives that issued forth from the might of U.S. industry.
Britain’s ruling class desperately
sought to bring
America directly into the war. To that end, they brought to bear every dark art
in His Majesty’s Grey Zone arsenal: over-the-top propaganda, sensational intel
leaks, and, just possibly, a very grim false flag operation. A triumphant British intel op — the Zimmerman
Telegram — helped tip the scales. The U.S. was led by the hand, and not so
gently, into World War I.
Britain’s — and Winston Churchill’s — efforts to
corral the U.S. into a second world war were even more strenuously
devious than those
before 1917. Yet, with the full and enthusiastic support of FDR, they can
hardly be called manipulation.
A beleaguered USSR manipulates world power
Stalin’s Soviet Union — industrially backward and
internationally isolated — found a sympathetic helpmate in the “progressive”
Roosevelt administration after 1933. However, when Soviet archives were briefly
cracked open after 1991 we could see how deeply the U.S. government was
interpenetrated by hundreds of Red-American
agents at that
time, many at the highest levels of influence and counsel. Moreover, the U.S.
gave away the store: 1) It basically forgave the entire Russian war debt
(accrued during WWI), which was 150% of U.S. GDP (subsident as it was in the
midst of Depression); 2) it gave the USSR access to U.S. aviation technology,
the world’s best; and; 3) it encouraged America’s preeminent corporations to
create and run a new world of Soviet manufacturing, making Stalin’s dreams of
world-class industrialization come true. Not to mention that the Soviets also
managed to steal both the A-Bomb and its delivery system, the B-29. Overall, a masterclass in strategic manipulation!
In sum, these all share broad characteristics:
Earlier campaigns were substantively non-ideological,
“realist” and opportunistic in nature. Genet covered his schemes in a sheen of
revolutionary fraternité, just as Stalin pushed democratic brotherhood in the
fight against fascism. Yet dreams of eventual world revolution still had U.S.
aid as their single-minded goal. The French Republic, Soviet Union, and British
Empire (after 1914) desperately needed the U.S. on their side for resources and
money. In sharp contrast, Britain and France in the Civil War were simply
flint-eyed opportunists. To bring America to its knees, in the steely slang of
great power politics, was in Britain’s strategic interest.
These earlier influence operations were focused on the
immediate situation. Leverage
over American politics was not meant to be permanent. Rather, political
influence was designed to achieve short-term relief in the midst of crisis: For
a beleaguered French republic, and even more so for an isolated, bankrupt, and
industrially backward Soviet Union. Getting the U.S. in the war (after 1914)
was Britain’s existential requirement.
In these cases, moreover, all influence was temporary. In fact, after 1865, 1918, and 1945, aggressive
attempts to leverage America led to political backlash and blowback; i.e.,
the Alabama Claims, the renunciation of the League of Nations, and both
the Red Scare and Cold War.
Were they cunning, manipulative, damaging on a number
of levels? Yes. Yet all these cases of aggressive foreign influence pale in
comparison to Israel’s strategic control operations over the last 80 years.
The Israeli operation is driven by ideology, and
shares nothing with the boilerplate mantras of Genet or Stalin. The Israeli
“operation” in Gaza is infused with messianic
goals and
objectives that span decades. Moreover, its softest targets in American
politics (Evangelical conservatives) are themselves defined by messianic goals
and an apocalyptic vision. The prize is Greater Israel, and nothing less can be accepted. It is what drives
the most zealous among the Israeli right — and the Likud as a whole — and which
has come as well to animate its Republican supporters, some of the most
powerful people in Washington today, including House Speaker
Mike Johnson, Ambassador
Mike Huckabee,
even Secretary of
Defense Pete Hegseth.
How did we get to this place?
Three powerful messianic American constituencies have
taken the place of the old Washington realpolitik era, which ended in the first
Bush administration. First, there was the rise of messianic (secular)
neoconservatism, represented by the likes of Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz.
They saw Israel as a powerful
American interest in
the larger fulfillment of America’s
world mission. Then
there was the emergence of a “Christian Zionist” bloc, which occupies a place
of central salience in the Trump administration. Finally, the highly organized and well-funded Israel lobby has never had a more dominant hold on the
executive and legislative branches of the United States government.
Together, they have become the mighty engine driving
support for the “Greater Israel” vision and Israel’s government, which has been
dominated by the right-wing Likud Party for nearly 50 years.
Thus, unlike earlier foreign influence operations in
the American experience, there is no short-term situation. Israel is committed
to its long march and grimly determined to pull America along with it. Its
forever war with Islam and what it calls “terrorism” point to a protracted,
neo-Punic struggle. Indeed, Israel is steeled for
centuries of war. This contains within itself far-reaching and dangerous
implications.
Yet all foreign influence operations — highlighted by
historical cases — are ultimately dependent on the submissive good will of
those “under the influence.” Americans had real sympathy for revolutionary
France. Confederate leaders truly believed that the British ruling class, or at
least King Cotton, was their friend. Presidents Woodrow Wilson and
Franklin D. Roosevelt were rooting for the Allies, not the Central Powers.
FDR’s regime was full of “fellow travellers” eager to make common cause with
Reds against Fascists.
In contrast, Israel’s obliteration of Gaza — a war
of “conquest, expulsion, and
settlement” —
is increasingly decried by Americans, including a majority of
American Jews. Yet
the response of Israeli and American “Greater Israel” boosters is to create
legal avenues to suppress constitutionally protected speech, particularly
criticism of the Israeli government, as antisemitic. Such a strategy now demands law
enforcement oversight of
American freedoms: in other words, the subjugation of American identity itself.
Hence, this influence campaign by a foreign power is
unprecedented in its scope and success and threatens the very sovereignty of
the nation more than at any time in America’s history.
