Anti-Israel Lobby in the United States

The phrase “anti-Israel lobby” does not identify a single formally organized U.S. entity in the sources reviewed. It is applied to a range of advocacy groups and activities, but the label is disputed: some sources use it for organizations they view as seeking to delegitimize Israel, while other groups object that such classifications combine opposition to Israel’s existence with criticism of Israeli government policy.[1][2]

Descriptions of U.S. advocacy also vary in how they define a “lobby.” One reference distinguishes organized lobbying and public outreach from indirect influence through voting and public opinion, while also noting that advocacy for Israel includes Christian and other non-Jewish organizations.[3] The Congressional Research Service (CRS) describes the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement as a loose grouping of actors across countries, and says that its boundaries are debated.[4]

Consequently, advocacy against U.S. aid to Israel, criticism of Israeli policies, support for Palestinian rights, anti-Zionism, and opposition to Israel’s existence should not be treated as synonyms. The sources describe organizations with different aims and tactics, and do not establish a unified agenda shared by all groups described as anti-Israel.[1][2]

American Jewish advocacy concerning Israel changed over time. Historian Theodore Sasson describes most such advocacy between 1948 and the 1993 Oslo Accords as directed toward Congress and focused on military, economic, and diplomatic support for Israel. From the 1990s onward, he identifies a shift from relatively consensus-oriented advocacy toward a more partisan and diversified field, with groups addressing both U.S. and Israeli governments and sometimes working with counterparts in Israel.[5]

The expansion of advocacy also brought sharper differences over policy. After the Oslo Accords, the Zionist Organization of America lobbied Congress to attach conditions to assistance for the Palestinian Authority, while Americans for Peace Now and the Israel Policy Forum lobbied in support of the peace pact. The Institute for National Security Studies likewise describes competing right-wing, centrist, and liberal camps, including the Zionist Organization of America’s advocacy for annexation of the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria — and J Street’s support for a Palestinian state alongside Israel.[5][6]

Several groups identified in the sources have pursued policy advocacy in their own organizational forms. The ADL reports that Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) began in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1996, founded by three University of California, Berkeley students, and had full-time staff and an Oakland office by 2003. The ADL says JVP initially accepted differing views on Zionism, had supported a two-state solution, and adopted an explicitly anti-Zionist position by 2019.[7]

According to the ADL, JVP participated in Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaigns and called in 2001 for suspending U.S. military aid to Israel while recalibrating economic aid according to need and congressional supervision. The ADL also reports a later organizational restructuring: members voted in July 2025 to make JVP Action the primary membership organization under the Jewish Voice for Peace name, with the former 501(c)(3) organization becoming JVP Leadership & Culture Lab. The ADL describes the change as allowing expanded engagement in elections and legislation, including candidate endorsements and lobbying.[7]

American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) held its first Palestine Advocacy Days in 2015, an effort the ADL says combined advocacy training with meetings with members of Congress. The ADL reports that AMP established the 501(c)(4) affiliate Americans for Justice in Palestine Action in 2021 to take over those events and broaden lobbying activity.[8] In 2016, the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation planned a Capitol Hill lobby day as part of a three-day conference in Arlington, Virginia, titled “Which Side Are You On? Taking a Stand for Palestinian Rights.” The Foundation for Defense of Democracies reported uncertainty over whether congressional meetings had been confirmed, and said a group-sponsored briefing had been canceled and a planned September briefing had not secured congressional support.[9]

The U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR), formerly the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, is described by NGO Monitor as a coalition founded in 2001 and composed of hundreds of groups. NGO Monitor reports that it lobbies Congress, organizes boycotts and divestment campaigns targeting companies including HP, G4S, Ben & Jerry’s, and Airbnb, and regularly advocates ending U.S. military and financial aid to Israel. These descriptions and the characterization of the coalition’s network are NGO Monitor’s.[10]

The BDS movement became a prominent focus of U.S. advocacy campaigns. The CRS traces its public call to July 2005, when Palestinian civil-society groups sought international support for nonviolent boycotts, divestment, and sanctions intended to change Israeli policies. The call set out three objectives: ending Israel’s occupation and colonization of Arab lands and dismantling the Wall; full equality for Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel; and respect for Palestinian refugees’ right to return to their homes and properties.[4]

The 2005 call asked international civil-society organizations and individuals to impose boycotts and divestment initiatives and press their governments for embargoes and sanctions. It also appealed to “people of conscience all over the world” to support “broad boycotts.”[4] In the United States, campaigns have included calls to end financial or military aid to Israel and efforts to press universities, businesses, or other institutions to divest. My Jewish Learning describes U.S. BDS activity as especially visible on university campuses, including divestment campaigns.[11]

Other activities have sought to reach public audiences outside legislative settings. An ADL report said it had identified more than 20 major outdoor advertising campaigns since 2012, reaching more than 65 cities. The campaigns it reviewed included messages calling for an end to U.S. financial or military aid to Israel, with examples sponsored by AMP and the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation; the ADL’s assessment of the messages as misleading or anti-Israel is its own characterization.[12]

Campus organizing also featured in advocacy and public debate. In written testimony to Congress in July 2024, ADL Senior Vice President Oren Segal described Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) as a leading campus organizer of BDS campaigns and estimated that it had about 275 chapters, mostly in the Northeast, Midwest, and California, with some in Canada. Segal said chapters affiliated with National SJP generally took cues from the national organization, while individual chapters generally operated autonomously.[13]

Segal’s testimony also attributed a role in organizing university encampments and demonstrations in spring and summer 2024 to SJP chapters. It quoted National SJP’s April 20 call to “join the Popular University” and “force the administration to divest,” and an April 22 statement urging students to “seize control of our institutions, campus by campus.” The testimony reported that ADL analysts reviewed statements from organizers of more than 130 encampments between mid-April and early May 2024; it said more than two-thirds included demands that would directly disrupt Jewish students’ and faculty members’ lives and studies. These are claims and analysis presented in ADL testimony, rather than an independent assessment of each protest or chapter.[13]

Some campaigns have involved institutions other than Congress or universities. The Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs reports that JVP lobbied at the June 2014 Presbyterian Church (USA) General Assembly for a divestment resolution concerning Caterpillar, Motorola, and Hewlett-Packard, and that CODEPINK runs campaigns calling for an end to U.S. military aid to Israel. These examples illustrate different forms of advocacy; they do not establish that the groups constitute a single coordinated lobbying organization.[14]

BDS-related activity has prompted organized countermeasures and legislative debate. The CRS reports that Israel’s response in the United States has included public diplomacy, outreach to Jewish-diaspora allies, and digital initiatives to gather information about and counter activist groups, including on campuses and social media. It reported that Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs had allocated about $100 million to oppose BDS-related activity since 2016.[4]

U.S. lawmakers have also addressed boycotts and Israel-related economic measures. A 2015 report described South Carolina as the first U.S. state to adopt legislation intended to deter boycotts of Israel, with similar measures advancing elsewhere. The report also discussed a proposed federal measure concerning companies that refused to do business with Israeli settlements in the West Bank.[15] The CRS notes that whether settlement-focused measures count as BDS is disputed: some groups oppose boycotts of companies inside Israel while backing measures targeting settlements, whereas Israel’s government and many leading Israeli political figures draw little or no distinction between the categories.[4]

The legal debate includes questions about First Amendment protections. The CRS records disagreement over whether laws restricting BDS activity or settlement-related differentiation impermissibly restrict protected speech. In July 2019, the House passed H.Res. 246 by 398–17, with five members voting present. The resolution opposed the global BDS movement and other efforts targeting Israel, urged a return to direct negotiations, supported Israel existing alongside a democratic Palestinian state, and affirmed citizens’ free-speech rights, including the right to protest or criticize government policies.[4][16]

The CRS’s December 2019 update said BDS and differentiation measures had not significantly affected Israel’s economy or international relations, while noting some investment withdrawals and contract cancellations, often linked to settlement concerns. It recounts that SodaStream closed its West Bank factory in 2015 and moved operations inside Israel; the company’s CEO said BDS had only a “marginal” effect. The report said 500–600 Palestinian employees were reportedly laid off because they could not obtain permits to work at the new location, and that 74 received permits in May 2017. It records disagreement over whether the case demonstrates economic measures harming Palestinian workers or whether settlement and movement restrictions constrained employment and business prospects.[4]

A central dispute is what the label “anti-Israel” is meant to describe. In reporting on an ADL list of U.S. groups, the ADL said its criteria included organizing or endorsing Israel boycotts, taking part in rallies, and pursuing policy initiatives or lobbying against Israel. J Street and the New Israel Fund objected that the list grouped organizations opposing Israel’s existence with groups sharply critical of Israeli government policy. They said they opposed BDS and cautioned against equating vigorous policy criticism with antisemitism.[1]

The ADL’s list, as reported by The Jerusalem Post, named JVP, SJP, Neturei Karta, ANSWER, AMP, CODEPINK, Friends of Sabeel-North America, If Americans Knew/Council for the National Interest, the Muslim Public Affairs Council, and the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation. The ADL described those groups as seeking to delegitimize Israel; that is the organization’s classification, not a neutral or uncontested category.[2]

Disagreement also concerns the meaning and aims of BDS. The CRS notes that the movement’s website describes Zionism in terms of settler colonialism, and that observers generally characterize BDS as anti-Zionist and as seeking to delegitimize Israel’s specifically Jewish character. It also records the movement’s self-description as inclusive and anti-racist and its statement that it does not call for either a one-state or a two-state solution.[4] My Jewish Learning presents supporters’ characterization of BDS as nonviolent pressure for Palestinian rights alongside critics’ arguments that its aims or treatment of Israel can be discriminatory or antisemitic.[11]

The broader idea of a powerful lobby controlling U.S. policy is also disputed. The ADL argues that U.S. policy toward Israel involves multiple actors and considerations, and cannot be attributed solely to a “powerful Jewish lobby.” It notes both advocacy for Palestinian interests and divergent policy positions among American Jewish organizations, and warns that claims of Jewish control over policymakers can delegitimize pro-Israel activists and echo antisemitic conspiracy theories.[17]

A separate debate over the breadth and influence implied by “Israel lobby” was illustrated by a 2006 panel discussion of John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt’s argument. They defined the lobby as a “loose coalition of individuals and organizations” seeking to steer U.S. foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction. Former ambassador Martin Indyk objected that the broad formulation suggested a cabal and argued that AIPAC could instead be discussed as a specific pro-Israel lobby; Mearsheimer defended the argument, while other panelists challenged its evidence and account of the lobby’s influence.[18]

Some opposition to pro-Israel lobbying has taken the form of electoral groups and coalitions. A 2024 report described Reject AIPAC, a coalition of 20 progressive organizations, including Muslim and Jewish groups, formed to oppose AIPAC efforts targeting members of Congress who had criticized the Gaza war. The report identified Justice Democrats as one of the coalition’s leading organizations. Reject AIPAC said it planned a seven-figure defense campaign promoting pro-Palestinian candidates, calls for a Gaza ceasefire, and conditions on U.S. aid to Israel; it also said supported candidates should refuse AIPAC financial support. AIPAC responded that support for the Jewish state was consistent with progressive values.[19]

A 2026 report described three political action committees seeking to counter AIPAC’s electoral influence and support pro-Palestinian candidates: the Peace, Accountability and Leadership PAC (PAL PAC), American Priorities, and Citizens Against AIPAC Corruption PAC. The article said PAL PAC had endorsed nine congressional candidates at the time of reporting, American Priorities had been founded in January and was led by strategist Hannah Fertig, and Citizens Against AIPAC Corruption PAC had been founded in 2024.[20]

The same report said Citizens Against AIPAC Corruption PAC’s stated commitments included support for United Nations recognition of a Palestinian state and opposition to policies it said conflated criticism of Israel’s government with antisemitism. Its website described its goal as ending what it called the Israel lobby’s “stranglehold on American Democracy.” A United Democracy Project spokesperson characterized the PACs’ activity as an anti-Israel agenda, a judgment disputed by the groups and their supporters.[20]

Another 2026 report described Anti-Zionist America PAC as distinct from progressive pro-Palestinian PACs that had emerged as counterweights to AIPAC. Founder Michael Rectenwald said its aim was to “de-Zionize” the U.S. government and end military aid to Israel, while stating that it concerned U.S. policy and did not seek to say Israel should not exist. The report said the PAC’s endorsement criteria included voting against aid to Israel and refusing money from pro-Israel lobbying groups.[21]