Learning About the 'Arab Lobby'

We generally don’t do book reviews at Big Peace. But every once in a while a book comes along that threatens to reset the foreign policy debate and demands coverage. The just released The Arab Lobby fits those specifications because it brings to light a powerful lobbying effort by foreign powers that few have been paying attention to. We hear plenty about the Israel lobby as we should: Israel is a close ally, but at the end of the day Americans should do what is in our national interest first and be beholden to no one. But while the Israel lobby gets heavy attention and often exaggerated coverage, the Arab Lobby has largely been ignored.

What author Mitchell Bard points out in this new book is just how extensive the Arab Lobby has become in the United States. Its not just about securing favors in Washington through former congressmen, although he has plenty to say on that subject. Bard also shows how the Arab Lobby injects its views in high school and college textbooks. Most fascinating is his chapter titled “Jimmy Carter’s Conversation,” which shows the former president’s slide “from Peacemaker to Provocateur.” Bard is not a disinterested observer. He previously worked for the Israeli Lobby group AIPAC. But facts and facts and the book is very well documented.

The Arab Lobby threatens to reset the debate–but it may not do so. Already there are efforts afoot to strangle the book it in its crib. Newsweek in its review called the book “Lightly footnoted and chock-full of offensive innuendo.” Are 600 footnotes insufficient? C’mon Newsweek. I think it’s the thesis you dislike, not the scholarship.