Why lobbies don't matter

[Behind the Aegis]

The signing of a peace treaty between Armenia and Turkey in October was a little-noticed milestone. Since the Ottomans deported and murdered Armenians in World War I in what Armenians and much of the world call the Armenian Genocide, Armenians have not been fond of Turkey. For its part, Turkey has long disputed both the genocide and the Armenian presence in Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave in Azerbaijan, a close Turkish ally. Though signed pledges do not guarantee peace, the U.S.-brokered pledges to reestablish ties and open borders could well prove to be the beginning of the end of this intractable conflict.

The pledges were made in the face of some resistance in both countries, but particularly among the Armenian diaspora and its leaders. The so-called "Armenian lobby," which was thought in the 1990s to determine both U.S. and Armenian government policy in the Caspian Sea, staunchly opposed the deal and mobilized the community against it. In Los Angeles the week before the signing, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan was confronted by around 12,000 protesters. One prominent Armenian-American declared the agreement "the latest entry in the ledger of crimes committed, and covered up, against the Armenian nation." Nevertheless, opposition from the Armenian Diaspora did not stop Turkey and Armenia from coming to terms.

The Armenian lobby's failure to block the treaty is instructive when one considers that other mythically powerful diaspora group known as the "Israel lobby." The Israel lobby has long been thought to exert vast influence on U.S. policy in the Middle East. In the extreme version of this view, it is only the foot-dragging of hawkish pro-Israel groups like AIPAC that has stymied American efforts to improve the prospects for peace in the Middle East.

Many believers in the power of lobbying have expressed hope that new dynamics in the American Jewish community could shift U.S. policy in the Middle East. Finally, there is a president who has pledged a more "evenhanded" policy between Israelis and Palestinians, and the American Jewish community remains firmly in his camp. Furthermore, a new dovish Israel lobby called J Street, which held its inaugural conference in November to great fanfare, was formed with the explicit task of supporting U.S. President Barack Obama's Middle East policy - or in the words of J Street founder Jeremy Ben-Ami, "to be the president's blocking back."

In short, if ever there were a time in which America could "change course" in the Middle East, it would seem to be now. Obama, supported by J Street and the American Jewish community at large, can lean on Israel with no domestic political cost, so American policy in the Middle East can finally become more rational and effective.

But so far, there has not been much progress. A year into Obama's term, the situation in the Middle East - particularly on the Israeli-Palestinian front - looks as intractable as before. The parties remain as far from each other as ever on the so-called "core issues" such as the future of Jerusalem and the Palestinian right of return. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas of the Fatah faction has said he will not run for a new term. Without him, Fatah's control over the West Bank, tenuous at the best of times, could become still weaker.

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[Behind the Aegis]

1. 6 minutes.

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