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Radio War Nerd EP #628 — The Israel Lobby, feat. Eli Clifton and Ian Lustick (Patreon)

Published:
2026-08-07 00:51:34
Imported:
2026-08
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Guests: Eli Clifton and Ian LustickRecorded: August 5, 2026

The Israel Lobby has long been the unmentionable force in Washington that has had a stranglehold over US politics and policy, leaving a trail of destroyed presidencies, and destroyed careers of Israel's critics. Ames talks to Eli Clifton and Ian Lustick, authors of a new book detailing the Israel Lobby's malign power, its hidden history, its methods and means, and how it has weaponized the Holocaust and fake antisemitism to silence critics and advance Israel's interests over the interests of America and American Jews.

Buy Eli and Ian's book Israel's Lobby: America in the Grip of a Foreign Power, due out August 11Follow Eli on Twitter and at The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft

Total time: 1:17:22Direct link to this episode's mp3 here

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John's new essay collection, To The Crows, is now for sale! We'll be making the ebook version available to subscribers.

Subscribe to Radio War Nerd at patreon.com/radiowarnerd

Sound production by Telescope Audio

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Comments

Martin

I’m locked in

HarshMalarkey

Israel is the size of New Jersey.

Ander Pierce

It's wild to me that foreign meddling this noxious has been permitted as long as it has.

Ander Pierce

The genocide is obviously infinitely worse than the meddling, but I (unfortunately) expect apathy towards slaughter in the middle east from my countrymen. I don't expect fellow US citizens to be complacent with regards to foreign meddling and constant $$ leaching. Increasingly there seems to be frustration with this, but it has taken way longer than I expected.

Sneed

You have to remember that american protestants worship jewish people and israel

Sneed

"democritizing israel" just sounds like a backdoor win for jewish supremecists

Nobody

Wow, the Citizens United v FEC thing hit hard - carefully planned consequences take time recognize I guess. Still, that's an amazing accomplishment that I didn't see in plain sight. Whatever.

Richard Fitzgerald

in 2017 oregon’s senator ron wyden introduced a bill that would have made it a crime for an american citizen to advocate for boycot/divest/sanction of israel. last year his security staff assaulted people speaking out against israel’s genocide at a campaign event.

J P 3

If George H.W. Bush was alive, I suspect he would disagree with this assessment. Historically, some mainline protestants were pretty exclusionary towards Jews, Catholics, Mormons, etc. Some of Calvinists were early proponents of Zionism, but I would tend to associate the real hardcore base for Zionism today with Baptists and Pentecostal Christians, not mainline Protestantism. As with so many things it is hard to generalize, once you get into the particulars.

Sex With Ted Cruz

I remember reading Mearsheimer and Walts Israel Lobby book back in 2010 and the insane smear campaign leveled against them and how coming out against the lobby then could be a career ender. Now it's safe and we are getting a deluge of these. Mearsheimer has got the biggest balls of any analyst in the game. Edit: does anyone know if this book adds anything that wasn’t already made clear in Mearsheimers book?

Sex With Ted Cruz

They key is having such pathetic politicians greedy enough to say "yeah sure I will punch a palestinian baby for a campaign donation of 500$" and big enough pussies to suck the big yahus dick for their career. They wouldn't have succeeded if the US elite was not the biggest littlest bitches in the history of pussy ass bitches.

J P 3

One major part of the Israel lobby story that I haven't heard discussed in detail are relationships of non-Jewish Zionists like Rupert Murdoch and Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner. Murdoch in particular has had a massive influence in the anglo-sphere shaping public opinion for at least a couple generations. These relationships aren't just about Israel per se, they have very much been about advancing a right-wing policy agenda globally. That might have been less true at one time, when Israel's survival was predicated on cultivating good relationships with center-left governments in places like the UK and the U.S., however, it is hard to tell a story about the neo-liberal era in particular, beginning in the 1970s, without including the role that Israel and its lobbies have played in a kind of mutual support program with right-wing groups and governments around the globe. As far as it relates to the U.S., I think a major problem that the Israel lobby is encountering now is that it has been too successful. Right-wing nationalists in the U.S. want to dominate the globe, they do not want to be dominated or even "equal partners" with a foreign government. At best the relationship with Israel only works to the extent that Israel is willing to accept its role as a junior partner. However, nationalism and national pride, are what they are.

Hans Anders

It’s true. Mearsheimer was huge in international relations back then. But the book almost meant he went the way of Finkelstein. I’ll always respect both of them for their courage

Alex (edited)

Comment edits

2026-09-07 15:00 on this topic - would you guys be open to having Aaron Good on?
2026-08-07 11:14

EJK

The Quincy Institute?? WARNING! WARNING! ⚠️⚠️ (Guess even neo-lib normies have had it with the genocide gangster state. . .)

Demented Avenger

I’m about 25 minutes in and maybe this gets answered later, but I’ve been dying to know this for ages. I’m looking at this from a Marxist perspective, and what I want to know is: * What is the origin of the Israel lobby? Yes, I’ve heard the Blowback miniseries, but there’s just a little on the origin of AIPAC as a PR team. * What does the lobby represent? Not just Jewish Americans here or even Evangelicals; both groups are starting to break here. But what interests are represented? Someone is making money in the US over this. Are we talking about defense contractors making money over the loot mandated to Israel (and Egypt) by the Camp David Accords? Or is there something more? Yes, I’ve read the original Mearshimer and Walt essay. It shows its influence, but in it the Lobby comes across in it as coming from Mars.

Sex With Ted Cruz

I love Finkelstein so much. He is a granite cliff of moral consistency. He has never retreated a single inch, never forgave, never equivocated. Didn't matter that they tore apart his career and denied him tenure.

Kiel Cone

No Mearshimer is a crank and he didn’t do a single interview for that book ie it’s been debunked to death. Only the most deranged Bircher or Jan 6 pdf should believe Israel made the US invade Iraq and literally nobody else. Bircher rightwing nationalist hogwash.

Kiel Cone

He’s a freeak who thinks the Jews control the world and HW Bush did nothing wrong

Kiel Cone

75% of that aid goes to US military contractors (the same one NATO memebers are forced to buy from). You should be more concerned with auditing the pentagon since they leech more money every year than we’ve given to Israel for its entire existence

Kiel Cone

American Protestants are why we’re in the Middle East. You have to be a Jan 6 pdf to think America doesn’t invade mid east countries for Petro-dollars, strategic geography and weapon sales. Christian Conservatices own all the military contractors and oil companies and somehow you freeaks don’t think you’re the culprit for intervention.

Sex With Ted Cruz

All you have to say is “I didn’t read the book”. Because what they said is “it was the lobby and the Neo cons together that pushed for the war. Each one required the other to ultimately make it happen.” As in without both the Neo cons AND the lobby’s work, the war probably wouldn’t have happened. Have a look at the receipts yourself: https://youtu.be/zeloY3bVBtc?is=uzcEIjI8caQED1CQ

Sex With Ted Cruz

GDF did an excellent yt series on this, this one is the first overall origin story. Can’t recommend enough: https://youtu.be/zeloY3bVBtc?is=uzcEIjI8caQED1CQ and it’s not a typical annoying YouTuber talking at the camera but the whole video is him going through and highlighting all of the exact quotes and historical material

Ander Pierce

Take it down a notch, I'm not a protestant and even if I was I wouldn't be any more or less culpable for us intervention the middle east than you are (assuming you're also a US citizen)

DominusCaveaVulpes

Wellllll . . . bourgeois liberalism. What else can you expect?

DominusCaveaVulpes

"But what interests are represented? Someone is making money in the US over this." Theory can grip also the minds of various members of the bourgeoisie and so become the equivalent of a material force as well. It doesn't have to involve (directly or indirectly) turning the screws further on the working class to make more money for the capitalists.

Kiel Cone

That book didn’t have a single interview. Mearshimer will always be seen as a crank and only respected by Jan 6 fascists.

Kiel Cone

Israel didn’t make the US invade the Middle East. You Christian Conservatives own all the military contractors and oil companies that make all the money from these wars but somehow Israel made the Petro-dollar regime invade all these countries that didn’t trade their oil in petro D until we invaded lol

Kiel Cone

That video has been debunked to death https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=z-LxT7UDF6I&pp=ygUQYmFkZW1wYW5hZGEgaXJhcQ%3D%3D&ra=m Also only 5 of those 29 neocons were Jews. Turns out most of the chickenhawks got integrated into the Republican Party when they absorbed the racist south. Not to mention that the Iraq war wasn’t beneficial to Israel bc it wasn’t for them. They wanted us to invade Iran and we told them to fug off bc in a war for OIL you don’t invade the country that can block off access to the country whose demand is making the price go up for the first time in a decade (China).

Kiel Cone

Keep pretending the Irish haven’t been a million times more racist than American Jews. The only time you ppl can stop chimping out at minorities is when you’re in native Ireland where you’re the only ones who can be oppressed.

delle_chiaie

do you only like interview books

Demented Avenger

Yeah, I got two minutes in and realized that this was not the origin of the Israel Lobby and what its material interests were

Alex

try Aaron good - his patreon is American Exception

Demented Avenger

Alright, Nahm Coleman. My late father had two stints in the Minnesota Attorney General's Office, once in the mid-70s, once in the mid-80s, something like late 1973 to late 1978 and mid 1984 to early 1987. In this, he made the acquaintance of Norm Coleman, and got to see him at different phases of his career. Coleman had a picture of him onstage behind a microphone, fiddling with it, and walking onto the stage is none other than Jerry Rubin! (Slim chance it was Bill Kunstler; the ashes next to my television aren't taking questions for clarification.) In the 1970s, Nahm would introduce the picture with something like, "Yeah, man, you want wild? When Jerry Rubin came to Hofstra, I got to introduce him!" My father gets a couple of different jobs, we move around Minnesota a bit, but in the mid-1980s he's back at the AG again. Nahm had underwent something of a political evolution, and he'd introduce it with something like, "Well, when I was young, I was really wild. At Hofstra, I introduced Jerry Rubin!" However, my father noted that, in the picture, Coleman is *not* leading a crowd or speaking or anything like introducing someone, but instead fixing a microphone. He always said Nahm was a nice guy, but utterly fake, and this was his illustrating tale.

Adam Murphy

The US wasn’t forced to invade Iraq bc of Israel. As a result of the Iraq war Kurds gained control of some Iraq natural resources and sold those resources to Israel at a discount. Israel pressured to the US to take out Saddam and benefited from the subsequent chaos. That isn’t forcing the US to do something, which is an unprovable statement.

Sex With Ted Cruz

Lmao I knew you were gonna share Bad Empanada Jesus Christ. I haz been deBOONked

Kiel Cone

Israel didn’t benefit from the Iraq war. Quite the opposite since it united the Shia population and got rid of a land buffer that stopped Iran from assisting its allies. Ariel Sharon even told the US not to invade Iraq after 9/11. Nobody at the top of the Bush administration even disputed invading Iraq after 9/11. This wasn’t an idea Israel planted into the Bush administration. Israel wasnt the cause of the Iraq war 2. Only age of consent activist libertarians believe that crap.

Kiel Cone

yes I like books with substantiated sources and evidence for its claims.

Kiel Cone

Mark didn't read Karen Hao's book on AI

Mike Bess

Uh… did Eli refer to Mark as Matt? He knows he’s not on Chapo, right?

RT

Yeah silence! kielcone. he speaks the truth

MirrorOooMirror

So good! Another great example of objectivity examining Israel from Jewish voices. I believe any potential path to a “peace-ish?” solution has to include a strong Jewish voice, particularly a strong Jewish American voice. I don’t know how accurate such things are, but from what I’ve seen estimates show over an 80% American Jewish approval of Israel, still. I think that number has to get much lower to make any lasting headway. If not, anti-zionism will continue to be conflated with antisemitism, and our collective march toward a panopticon of techo-fascism continues.

Turdferg24

Who cares if it’s “dangerous” for Jews?

Michael Salmon

Don’t know where else to post this, but with John having been through Asia, I wonder if there could be an episode on the Iran war’s economic effects on the countries there, specifically on the Japanese economy. Seems like there is something cooking there

Terry Dunk

I'm sympathetic to Good's position on a number of things but but he's not an original or coherent thinker and is basically a conservative, not that that disqualifies him from being a good guest but I also don't really think he has much to say either. He's just a flame carrier for PDS which is noble enough in its own right but not enough to warrant reading or taking seriously as an analyst

Terry Dunk

Well all three people talking are Jews so, they do. . Wouldn't blame any others for not caring particularly much one way or the other.

Rick from the sandhills

Mearsheimer does not characterize the lobby (or neocons) as just Jews or even necessarily majority Jewish iirc. Mearsheimer is a nationalist weirdo like most "realists" but he's not some kind of "bircherite". Iirc he does a lot of lectures in China. He does appear on some really sketchy podcasts though.

Rick from the sandhills

It's not really foreign meddling. The lobby is funded by Americans. These Americans just happen to be slavishly loyal to a foreign country. Israel on its own could never afford to buy that kind of influence in Washington.