U.S. Foreign Policy Discourse and the Israel Lobby

The Clinton Administration and the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process

Keith Peter Kiely

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9783319529868
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Public Policy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book seeks to debunk the popular myth of an all-powerful pro-Israel lobby. Here, Kiely demonstrates how discourses surrounding American Identity and US foreign policy towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which has deep roots in American historicity, have constructed an understanding of the conflict which is inherently more susceptible to the Israeli narrative. Kiely argues that the so-called power of what other researchers, such as Mearsheimer and Walt (2006, 2007), call 'The Israel Lobby' are limited by these discourses. It is the author's contention that groups such as The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) serve to amplify and reproduce existing representations within these discourses which align the United States and Israel in terms of cultural, historical and political values while simultaneously reinforcing dominant representations of the Palestinian 'Other'.

Table of contents

• U.S. Foreign Policy Discourse and the Israel Lobby
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Talking About the Pro-Israel Lobby
• 3 Theory and Methodology
• 4 The Ideological Myth: American Exceptionalism, Identity and Difference
• 5 The Clinton Administration’s Foreign Policy Discourse and the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict
• 6 The Power of the Pro-Israel Lobby
• 7 Camp David and Discursive Power in Action
• 8 Conclusion
• Appendix 1
• Appendix 2
• Appendix 3
• Appendix 4
• Appendix 5
• Appendix 6
• Bibliography
• Index