The Arab lobby has operated for decades beyond public scrutiny, guiding American policy in directions counter to the views of the public, and to the nation’s detriment. Mitchell Bard’s bold new book THE ARAB LOBBY: The Invisible Alliance That Undermines America’s Interests in the Middle East pulls back the veil on the lobby’s activities and debunks the myth that an Israeli lobby controls U.S. policy.
Documenting 70 years of complicity at the highest levels of government and corporate America, *THE ARAB LOBBY* shows us the malevolent forces at work and their choke-hold on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, as well as domestic policy, education and national security. The book challenges us to shake off long-standing, toxic alliances and cement ties with countries that share our values and interests, fighting radical forces that threaten us, and ultimately achieving energy security.
Consider these surprising facts from *THE ARAB LOBBY*:
- Saudi Arabia has recruited more than two dozen U.S. firms as foreign agents in the last decade, and spent nearly $100 million on American lobbyists, consultants and public relations firms.
- The Saudis have an estimated $800 billion - $1 trillion invested in the United States, which they use for leverage to influence American policy.
- The United States has sold Saudi Arabia more than $100 billion worth of weapons, many of which they cannot use or maintain, and none of which obviates the need for America to defend the kingdom.
- The Saudis and other Arab states have invested more than $300 million in U.S. colleges and additional resources to influence K-12 education.
- Today, there are 125 Middle East studies programs at American universities. The U.S. Department of Education provides funding for 14 Middle East centers and grants nearly 100 student fellowships in these programs annually (at a cost of $4 million per year).
- There are approximately 1.2 million Arabs in the United States. About half of the Arab population is concentrated in five states - California, Florida, Michigan, New Jersey, and New York - that are all key to the Electoral College.
“Under Saudi leadership, The Arab Lobby works in the staterooms and boardrooms of Washington, and their activities are not out in the open for all to see,” explains Mitchell Bard. “They have no grassroots support, and the lobby has operated for far too long without scrutiny. Now is the time to wake up and break the nefarious ties that have encouraged global terrorism to spread like wildfire and made peace in the Middle East impossible.”
This is the first book to challenge the idea that an all-powerful Israeli lobby controls U.S. Middle East policy and demonstrate that a countervailing Arab lobby exists and is actually more powerful. It is the story of the invisible alliance of State Department Arabists, defense contractors, former government officials, corporations with business interests in the Middle East, non-governmental organizations, academics, non-evangelical Christians and foreign leaders and diplomats working to undermine U.S.-Israel ties while supporting regimes whose values and interests are inconsistent with those of America. The Arab lobby has argued the U.S. must capitulate to Arab demands or relations with Middle East nations would suffer. Too often this has led Americans to support autocratic governments that abuse human rights and act contrary to American values. Officials have rarely been willing to call the lobby’s bluff and to use American influence to change Arab policies. Meanwhile, elements of the Arab lobby have acted to subvert U.S. national security.
Mitchell Bard, Ph.D., is one of the leading authorities on U.S. - Middle East policy. He is the Executive Director of the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise and director of the Jewish Virtual Library (www.JewishVirtualLibrary.org) the world’s most comprehensive online encyclopedia of Jewish history and culture. He has written or edited 22 books, including 48 *Hours of Kristallnacht: Night of Destruction/Dawn of the Holocaust* (Globe Pequot 2008), *Will Israel Survive?* (Palgrave 2007), and *The Water’s Edge and Beyond: Defining the Limits to Domestic Influence on U.S. Middle East Policy * (Transaction, 1991). For more on him and his books, visit: http://www.mitchellbard.com/.
