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Friends of Israel: The Backlash Against Palestine Solidarity
Is there such a thing as “the Israel lobby,” and how powerful is it really?
Friends of Israel provides a forensically researched account of the activities of Israel’s advocates in Britain, showing how they contribute to maintaining Israeli apartheid. The book traces the history and changing fortunes of key actors within the British Zionist movement in the context of the Israeli government’s contemporary efforts to repress a rising tide of solidarity with Palestinians expressed through the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Offering a nuanced and politically relevant account of pro-Israel actors’ strategies, tactics, and varying levels of success in key arenas of society, it draws parallels with the similar anti-boycott campaign waged by supporters of the erstwhile apartheid regime in South Africa.
By demystifying the actors involved in the Zionist movement, the book provides an anti-racist analysis of the pro-Israel lobby which robustly rebuffs anti-Semitic conspiracies. Sensitively and accessibly written, it emphasises the complicity of British actors - both those in government and in civil society. Drawing on a range of sources including interviews with leading pro-Israel activists and Palestinian rights activists, documents obtained through Freedom of Information requests and archival material, Friends of Israel is a much-needed contribution to Israel/Palestine-related scholarship and a useful resource for the Palestine solidarity movement.
Friends of Israel provides a forensically researched account of the activities of Israel’s advocates in Britain, showing how they contribute to maintaining Israeli apartheid. The book traces the history and changing fortunes of key actors within the British Zionist movement in the context of the Israeli government’s contemporary efforts to repress a rising tide of solidarity with Palestinians expressed through the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Offering a nuanced and politically relevant account of pro-Israel actors’ strategies, tactics, and varying levels of success in key arenas of society, it draws parallels with the similar anti-boycott campaign waged by supporters of the erstwhile apartheid regime in South Africa.
By demystifying the actors involved in the Zionist movement, the book provides an anti-racist analysis of the pro-Israel lobby which robustly rebuffs anti-Semitic conspiracies. Sensitively and accessibly written, it emphasises the complicity of British actors - both those in government and in civil society. Drawing on a range of sources including interviews with leading pro-Israel activists and Palestinian rights activists, documents obtained through Freedom of Information requests and archival material, Friends of Israel is a much-needed contribution to Israel/Palestine-related scholarship and a useful resource for the Palestine solidarity movement.
304 pages, Paperback
First published April 18, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 22, 2023
Aked's book is extraordinarily well researched, and presents reasonable arguments and conclusions on that basis. Great care is taken at every step to ensure an anti-racist position on all issues relating to this contentious subject. Very very worth reading to understand the British press and modern public diplomacy better, let alone the Zionist movement in the UK.
May 31, 2024
Very informative. Will be doing an article about it.
April 28, 2024
Overall an excellent resource for anyone who want or needs to know the lay of the land as far as the Zionist movement is concerned.
The Zionist Movement pre-existed the state of Israel and still exists today, it is a transnational network of groups and individuals defined not by their ethno-religious identity but by their political activities in support of a specific nation-state i.e., Israel and the nationalist ideology of Zionism underpinning that state’s apartheid practices toward Palestinians.
The Movement self-referentially uses the term “Zionist Movement” (see for example ‘Herzl Creates the Zionist Movement’ https://archive.jewishagency.org/herz...)
The book covers the history of the the Zionist Movement and its global structure and sets out developments in the UK and US following the founding of the Zionist entity; and gives a very clear understanding of its preferred modes of operating clandestinely. As Gilad Erdan, currently Israel's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, has said explicitly: 'Opacity is critical to the Israeli government's anti-BDS strategy'; and as former director of AIPAC once observed: 'A lobby is like a night flower: it thrives in the dark and and dies in the sun.'
The Movement is analysed via the following key concepts:
1. Social Movements from above - defined as, "'the collective agency of dominant groups' seeking to defend or enhance dominant power structures, while a social movement from below is 'organised by subaltern groups' to disrupt power structures"
2. State-private networks - this describes connections between the state and dominant pros -state groups in society; such state-private networks reflect shared and mutual state-private elite interests.
3. New public diplomacy theory - this helps governments defend and maintain power and whilst traditional diplomacy involves the cultivation of relationships between official representatives of two sates , public diplomacy targets the general public in foreign societies. 'New' public diplomacy which gained prominence soon after 2000 differs, in turn, partly because it increasingly involves non-state actors in the targeting of foreign publics, the key reason new public diplomacy theorists advocate the use of non-governmental actors is that he general public today often deeply sceptical of state power.
4. Manufactured Civil society - this term refers to groups that are formed and funded, at least initially, by some type of state initiative. By dint of being orchestrated by government in this was manufactured civil society organisations represent the antithesis of that independent organic self-organisation with is the very crux of grassroots initiatives.
The author made extensive use of Freedom of Information requests in order to access and gather as much information as possible on activities and conversations taking place behind closed doors.
At times the book extends too much goodwill to the Zionist Movement and interprets their actions in a positive light that looks very naïve in light of the post-October-7 open statements of genocidal intent by Israeli politicians at the highest level; and admissions by Netanyahu and others that they have never wanted a Palestinian state. In similar vein, the author is, at times, a little too apologetic and the repetitive reminders/warnings to not interpret the Zionist movements scandalous manoeuvrings in an antisemitic fashion are especially grating given the ongoing genocide and weaponization of antisemitism the purpose of which is to engender precisely this kind of pussy-footing about the subject.
Overall a I give this book a strong recommendation - I would dock half a star for the above reservations if pushed to criticise the book.
The Zionist Movement pre-existed the state of Israel and still exists today, it is a transnational network of groups and individuals defined not by their ethno-religious identity but by their political activities in support of a specific nation-state i.e., Israel and the nationalist ideology of Zionism underpinning that state’s apartheid practices toward Palestinians.
The Movement self-referentially uses the term “Zionist Movement” (see for example ‘Herzl Creates the Zionist Movement’ https://archive.jewishagency.org/herz...)
The book covers the history of the the Zionist Movement and its global structure and sets out developments in the UK and US following the founding of the Zionist entity; and gives a very clear understanding of its preferred modes of operating clandestinely. As Gilad Erdan, currently Israel's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, has said explicitly: 'Opacity is critical to the Israeli government's anti-BDS strategy'; and as former director of AIPAC once observed: 'A lobby is like a night flower: it thrives in the dark and and dies in the sun.'
The Movement is analysed via the following key concepts:
1. Social Movements from above - defined as, "'the collective agency of dominant groups' seeking to defend or enhance dominant power structures, while a social movement from below is 'organised by subaltern groups' to disrupt power structures"
2. State-private networks - this describes connections between the state and dominant pros -state groups in society; such state-private networks reflect shared and mutual state-private elite interests.
3. New public diplomacy theory - this helps governments defend and maintain power and whilst traditional diplomacy involves the cultivation of relationships between official representatives of two sates , public diplomacy targets the general public in foreign societies. 'New' public diplomacy which gained prominence soon after 2000 differs, in turn, partly because it increasingly involves non-state actors in the targeting of foreign publics, the key reason new public diplomacy theorists advocate the use of non-governmental actors is that he general public today often deeply sceptical of state power.
4. Manufactured Civil society - this term refers to groups that are formed and funded, at least initially, by some type of state initiative. By dint of being orchestrated by government in this was manufactured civil society organisations represent the antithesis of that independent organic self-organisation with is the very crux of grassroots initiatives.
The author made extensive use of Freedom of Information requests in order to access and gather as much information as possible on activities and conversations taking place behind closed doors.
At times the book extends too much goodwill to the Zionist Movement and interprets their actions in a positive light that looks very naïve in light of the post-October-7 open statements of genocidal intent by Israeli politicians at the highest level; and admissions by Netanyahu and others that they have never wanted a Palestinian state. In similar vein, the author is, at times, a little too apologetic and the repetitive reminders/warnings to not interpret the Zionist movements scandalous manoeuvrings in an antisemitic fashion are especially grating given the ongoing genocide and weaponization of antisemitism the purpose of which is to engender precisely this kind of pussy-footing about the subject.
Overall a I give this book a strong recommendation - I would dock half a star for the above reservations if pushed to criticise the book.
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December 11, 2025I really appreciated this book because it highlighted the specific ways that other countries are complicit in Israel’s targeted genocide of Palestinians and the apartheid/occupation as a result.
A few quotations:
Christian Zionism deserves special mention in this regard, 4 and indeed, some of the most important supporters of Israel discussed in this book–including Arthur Balfour, Orde Wingate, Terence Prittie, Luke Akehurst, Nigel Goodrich, Sajid Javid, Michael Gove, Priti Patel and Joan Ryan–are non-Jewish Zionists. More importantly, the idea that a ‘Jewish lobby’ is behind support for Israel is an anti-Semitic trope which erroneously ‘reduces political activity to ethnicity’ and reinforces the idea that there is only one ‘Jewish political position’ 5 when in reality, in the words of scholar and activist Joel Kovel, ‘there is no one way of being Jewish’. This, then, is definitively not a book about a ‘Jewish lobby’. Rather, it is a book about the Israel lobby: a group of organisations and individuals defined not by their ethno-religious identity but by their political activities in support of a specific nation-state (Israel), and the nationalist ideology (Zionism) underpinning that state’s apartheid practices towards Palestinians. Since Israel defines itself as a ‘Jewish state’ and is the embodiment of a Jewish nationalist movement, many of the people who feature in this book are indeed Jewish, but their activities are never represented as a function of their ethno-religious identity. Instead, what brings them into the purview of this study is their ideological commitment to, and organised political activity in support of, Israeli apartheid and some brand of political Zionism.
Again, this should not be misinterpreted as a faux anti-elitist narrative in fact alluding to Jewish people (constructed as ‘the establishment’ as if working-class Jewish communities somehow didn’t exist). Rather, the dominant power structure in question is the Israeli state’s apartheid system imposed on Palestinians. The BDS movement comes ‘from below’ because it seeks to act in solidarity with the oppressed Palestinian people to dismantle this apartheid system. It is also a largely grassroots initiative. The Zionist movement comes ‘from above’, even though it has non-elite as well as elite elements, because it defends the dominant oppressive structure of Israeli apartheid.
A few quotations:
Christian Zionism deserves special mention in this regard, 4 and indeed, some of the most important supporters of Israel discussed in this book–including Arthur Balfour, Orde Wingate, Terence Prittie, Luke Akehurst, Nigel Goodrich, Sajid Javid, Michael Gove, Priti Patel and Joan Ryan–are non-Jewish Zionists. More importantly, the idea that a ‘Jewish lobby’ is behind support for Israel is an anti-Semitic trope which erroneously ‘reduces political activity to ethnicity’ and reinforces the idea that there is only one ‘Jewish political position’ 5 when in reality, in the words of scholar and activist Joel Kovel, ‘there is no one way of being Jewish’. This, then, is definitively not a book about a ‘Jewish lobby’. Rather, it is a book about the Israel lobby: a group of organisations and individuals defined not by their ethno-religious identity but by their political activities in support of a specific nation-state (Israel), and the nationalist ideology (Zionism) underpinning that state’s apartheid practices towards Palestinians. Since Israel defines itself as a ‘Jewish state’ and is the embodiment of a Jewish nationalist movement, many of the people who feature in this book are indeed Jewish, but their activities are never represented as a function of their ethno-religious identity. Instead, what brings them into the purview of this study is their ideological commitment to, and organised political activity in support of, Israeli apartheid and some brand of political Zionism.
Again, this should not be misinterpreted as a faux anti-elitist narrative in fact alluding to Jewish people (constructed as ‘the establishment’ as if working-class Jewish communities somehow didn’t exist). Rather, the dominant power structure in question is the Israeli state’s apartheid system imposed on Palestinians. The BDS movement comes ‘from below’ because it seeks to act in solidarity with the oppressed Palestinian people to dismantle this apartheid system. It is also a largely grassroots initiative. The Zionist movement comes ‘from above’, even though it has non-elite as well as elite elements, because it defends the dominant oppressive structure of Israeli apartheid.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews