Beyond AIPAC: Inside Washington’s Battle for a Balanced Middle East Policy

Since its creation in 1948, Israel has been by far the largest recipient of cumulative aid by the U.S, the total equivalent amounting to 330 billion dollars. Comparatively, the second largest recipient, Egypt, has received 170 billion dollars since 1948. After October 7, the American aid package increased exponentially, with new billion-dollar arms sale agreements. According to a report conducted by Brown University, the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) could not have escalated the military activities in the region or carried out its’ campaign of destruction without U.S. financing and political support. This support has been sent blindly with no further questions, regardless of the growing allegations of gross violations of human rights in the Gaza Strip. How is this possible? 

There are several answers to this complex question. Yet, while living in the U.S., I have come to become aware of the magnitude of lobbying in Washington, putting into question the extent to which these organizations shape U.S. foreign policy and, in turn, the conflict.

Lobbying is deeply integrated into American culture because it has a political system that allows interest groups to have unprecedented power in Congress, the executive branch, and public opinion. K Street, which refers to the lobbyist industry in D.C., has significant control of U.S. policy from behind closed doors. According to the scholar Meirshemier, Israeli lobbying is the most powerful one in foreign policy and pushes forward the interests of the country. This is visible in the length America goes to defend Israeli interests. However, since the war relations have changed, there has been growing public discontent with Israel. 

For a long time, there was a belief that the unquestionable protection of Israel was simultaneously defending national interests. The argument is that the two countries shared common values, and there is a need to defend the only democracy in the Middle East. While this is true, there has also been an underlying force pushing forward the interests, the lobbies. 

Academia has long criticized the leading pro-Israel lobby, American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), essentially warning against a growing influence of a disproportionately empowered minority. Are there other leading organizations still pushing for pro-Israeli interests that align more with the growing narrative of public opinion, particularly the young, urging for the recognition of Palestinian sovereignty and a two-state solution? 

A New Landscape: Between Advocacy and Polarization

In this shifting political environment, new actors have emerged attempting to bridge Washington’s widening ideological divide on Israel-Palestine. Among them is J Street, often described simply as a counterweight to AIPAC. In reality, as Erin Beiner, the director of J Street U, a branch focused on university networking,  explained in our conversation, the organization sees itself less as an antagonist and more as a “new version” of pro-Israel advocacy. One that emphasizes accountability, Palestinian rights, and a two-state solution without requiring American Jews to renounce their cultural or familial ties to Israel.

Yet the organization’s mission extends far beyond campus. J Street is structured as a ‘traditional lobby’, working across the electoral process, public opinion, and campaign financing, deliberately designed to operate where AIPAC has dominated for decades. J Street aims to change the traditional culture on Capitol Hill of a blind, unwavering support for Israel. They do so by investing in and relationship building with the lawmakers, from their first campaigns onwards, as Beiner says, this gives the organization credibility and moral weight.

But this position in the “middle” also carries contradictions. J Street presents itself as an alternative to the unconditional stance of AIPAC, yet analysts note that it still operates firmly within a pro-Israel framework. As one critique argues, J Street represents the left wing of the Israel lobby, remaining “strongly supportive of American support to Israel,” raising questions about the limits of “liberal Zionism.” Researchers have also observed that J Street’s strategy relies on incrementalism, a cautious, step-by-step approach that does challenge AIPAC’s dominance, it stops short of fundamentally rethinking U.S. policy toward Israel. More recently, even when J Street pushed for restrictions on U.S. military aid, critics noted that it “went on offense,” carefully avoiding any proposal to reduce the overall volume of aid to Israel. 

Still, while there are some gaps between critical literature and the dialogue I had with Erin Beiner, one thing is clear: post–October 7, more Americans, especially young people, are engaging with U.S. foreign policy as a domestic responsibility. “Our tax dollars fund this conflict,” she noted, “to be a voter means caring about where that money goes.” This sentiment is a quiet but meaningful departure from the decades-long consensus that treating Israel as politically untouchable was somehow in America’s national interest.

The Need for a Truly Balanced Lobbying Narrative

What the emergence of organizations like J Street reveals is not simply ideological diversification, but a public hunger for alternatives. The dominance of AIPAC and the equally rigid rise of explicitly anti-Israel or abolitionist advocacy have created a binary political battlefield in which policymakers feel pressured to choose sides rather than seek solutions. While J Street still has some progress to make, it tries to disrupt that dynamic, but it cannot by itself resolve the structural imbalance of power that has defined U.S. engagement in the region. Indeed, Washington does not yet have a powerful lobbying pro-Palestinian force advocating for genuine cooperation between Israeli and Palestinian communities, or for foreign policy grounded in human rights rather than identity politics.

This is precisely where the gap lies and where public frustration has grown most visible since the war in Gaza. While the lobbying investment in Congress keeps rising and simultaneously its influence, there is a widening divide between pro-Israel and pro-Palestine blocs, leaving little room for the kind of coalition needed to build a durable peace. Advocacy that speaks with both communities, rather than for one against the other, remains politically fragile and underfunded.

As lobbying continues to shape U.S. policy at an extraordinary scale, the moment calls not for louder competition between existing players, but for an ecosystem capable of holding complexity and accountability. Whether Washington can develop such a legal basis for this, and whether Congress is willing to listen, will determine not only America’s role in this conflict but the possibilities for any future in which Israelis and Palestinians can coexist in security, dignity, and self-determination.