Bamo Nouri and Inderjeet Parmar

Israel and the US have maintained a close alliance for decades. Their recent joint air campaign in Iran has once again underscored the depth of this partnership. Yet while the strength of their relationship is widely acknowledged, the reasons behind it remain contested.

At the centre of this debate lies the question of whether US support for Israel is driven primarily by domestic political forces, particularly lobbying organisations such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), or whether it reflects broader strategic imperatives within US foreign policy.

Aipac’s historical influence is well documented. It emerged in the 1950s from the American Zionist Committee for Public Affairs and developed into a powerful lobbying organisation. By the 1970s it had become instrumental in securing substantial US military and economic aid, as well as favourable legislative outcomes, for Israel.

US aid to Israel now includes approximately $3.3 billion annually in military financing and an additional $500 million for missile defence. Aipac, which has embedded itself across Democratic and Republican political networks, has played a central role in maintaining this flow of support.

But the claim that Aipac drives US policy, which former US counterterrorism official Joe Kent suggested in March when resigning from the Trump administration in opposition to the Iran war, misreads how power operates in Washington.

As scholars of American power, we argue that the US-Israeli alliance has been driven primarily by Israel’s demonstrated value as a strategic........

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