Over the last few weeks, three versions of the "Israel Lobby" argument have come to the fore...

Hard version:
Zionists have infiltrated and now dominate US foreign policy and are able to manipulate all the organs of the US state (and, by definition, all the states of the "coalition of the willing)to ensure its interests are followed without question (interests that are against those of the US itself).

Softer version:
The US state is neutral, and the Lobby, being the most powerful of all pressure groups, ensures that the US state (and its allies) adopts its point of view and acts accordingly.

Soft version:
The lobby does not have any direct political control, but dominates all the major institutions of civil society, including, but especially, the media and the universities. Amongst its armoury, its most potent weapon is the accusation of antisemitism to be used like a blunderbuss against anyone, anyone, who dares question the policies of Israel.

Whilst the softer version was never that popular, it is the soft version that appears to be gaining ground. This ascendancy is expressed in the argument that as one of our contributors has argued, a "study of lobbying for Israel" is not, of itself, antisemitic.

A debate about the role of lobbying within the US political system in general is no doubt completely legitimate, as is a rational debate about US's support of Israel. A call for a "study of lobbying for Israel", however, is different. It is premised on an antisemitically-infused tautology; a pre-existing belief that such a Lobby (or series of lobbies) not only exists, but that it/they exercise such immense power that a study is necessary in the first place. (And, to argue that, if "it" or "they" are innocent, then they have nothing to hide anyway is an argument that, in an age of decreasing civil liberties and political and social rights, is all too frightening familiar.)

Similar requests have been made in the past whenever policies that appear to support Jewish or "Zionist" interests have been pursued by governments. There were allegations that US Jews were manipulating the rule of law in calling for the recent war crimes trials legislation; that accusation of nazi atrocities was an attempt by US Jews to manipulate the US into entering WWII; that the refusal of appeasement with Hitler was in line with the Jewish plan to bring Europe into a global war; that the holocaust was nothing other than an elaborate scam to ensure the founding of Israel; that the Russian Revolution was a Jewish plot; leading right down to the Jews as the cause of the French Revolution with the Dreyfus Affair occupying a particularly significant place. In each case, (and the use of the term or concept "case" is far from coincidental) accusations are coupled with demands for "the truth".

Interestingly, whenever such accusations appear, those making the allegations, and those leading the calls for an "objective study" into such "undoubted" influence, admit that, well, yes, in the past, such claims were part of an antisemitic agenda; but, this time, well, this time, it's different.

Whilst there are no doubt many more, three such "differences" can be identified in making "this time" different from other times. First, in the past, such thinking needed to imagine the existence of some shadowy cabal, whereas this time, Israel really and actually does exist. But, not only does this "difference" underplay the extent to which people in the past actually did believe and were willing to believe in such a cabal – as they are now - it fails to recognise that "this time" Israel is imagined, not as the political and social nation-state that it is, but as nothing other than the very embodiment of that previous "shadow" replete with supra-natural mystical and occult powers.

A second difference "this time" is that unlike those who peddled such arguments in the past, Mearsheimer and Walt appear not to have an antisemitic bone in their bodies. Again, continuities are visible. By treating antisemitism as a matter of personal opinion and so as equally valid and legitimate as any other, it demands the same rights as all other subjective points of view. As such, those who oppose antisemitism are painted as the enemies of free speech or, "this time", academic freedom. (It denies and masks the "objective" political and social conditions that produce antisemitism as well as its appearance as an "objectively" (if pseudo) political, social cultural and scientific theory.

Finally, "this time", many of those persuaded by "the Lobby" argument are not antisemitic or antisemites. Again, I have no reason to doubt this any more than I doubt the sincerity of those who in the past, whilst bearing no ill will to Jews, nonetheless believed that, "this time", those claiming that the evils of their own time was down to Jewish influence, did, after all, have a point. Similarly, those who begin a statement with, "I have nothing against gays/blacks but..." really do not think of themselves as homophobes or racists.

One could go on. However, the point in all of this is that like the past, the question "this time" remains the same. And, that question is best formulated by Hannah Arendt in her study of the rise of 20th century antisemitism.
If a patent forgery like the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" is believed by so many people that it can become the text of a whole political movement, the task of the historian is no longer to discover a forgery. Certainly it is not to invent explanations that dismiss the chief political and historical fact of the matter: that the forgery is being believed. This fact is more important than the (historically speaking, secondary) circumstance that it is a forgery.

David M Seymour
Lecturer in Law
Lancaster University