Ian Lustick
American political scientistWikipedia
18
MENTIONS
8
EPISODES
8
PODCASTS
Search complete. 18 mentions across 8 episodes found for "Ian Lustick".
Sep 20, 2026
Maria SultanHOST
Professor John Mearsheimer, one of America's most influential political scientists, returns with a new analysis that every listener of this podcast should hear.
Maria SultanHOST
In this episode, he examines a powerful new book by Eli Clifton and Ian Lustig titled Israel's Lobby, America in the Grip of a Foreign Power.
Maria SultanHOST
Meir Scheimer explains how this book builds on, expands, and in many ways challenges the arguments he and Stephen Walt first introduced 20 years ago in their landmark work, The Israel Lobby.
Maria SultanHOST
He walks us through the evolution of the lobby's influence, how public discourse has shifted, how accusations of anti-Semitism have been weaponized to silence criticism, and how the collapse of traditional media gatekeeping has opened space for new voices to speak openly about U.S. policy toward Israel.
John MearsheimerSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
So if you get into trouble... and you dial 911, there's nobody at the other end.
John MearsheimerSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
Hello, this is John Mearsheimer.
John MearsheimerSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
And in today's episode, I would like to talk about the new book on the Israel lobby by Eli Clifton and Ian Lustig.
John MearsheimerSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
It's called Israel's Lobby, America in the Grip of a Foreign Power.
Debra ShushanGUEST
And so there are now a number of other groups Jewish American organizations that do work vis-a-vis Capitol Hill.
Debra ShushanGUEST
And that take a different position to, you know, the groups that are known that, you know, Clifton and Lustick call Israel's lobby.
Debra ShushanGUEST
By the way, by the way, as an aside, this is a conversation that we had a bit like amongst our community on the debrief, my podcast.
Debra ShushanGUEST
One thing that I think is super, super important is not to conflate, you know, Israel's lobby, pro-Israel lobby, whatever, with, you Jewish lobby, right? Yeah.
Stephen MethvenHOST
Called Israel's Lobby, it explores how Israel interferes in US domestic politics via AIPAC and other groups.
Stephen MethvenHOST
In this wide-ranging interview with its authors, Quincy Institute co-founder and investigative journalist Eli Clifton, and political scientist Ian Lustick, they explain how the lobby has subverted American national interests, as well as Britain's too, to the interests of the Israeli state.
Stephen MethvenHOST
Now, they joined me on Friday, and I began by asking Eli to define what exactly they meant by Israel's lobby.
Eli CliftonGUEST
So Israel's lobby is a panoply of organizations, Jewish, Christian, and otherwise, uh, who, uh, openly and explicitly are advocating for US policies that are beneficial for Israel, the state of Israel.
51 MINS LATER
Eli CliftonGUEST
Through the general election, it's entirely possible they will spend a quarter of a billion dollars.
Eli CliftonGUEST
What that means for the next election cycle, a presidential election cycle, I think is open to pure speculation, but it's going to be even more than that.
Stephen MethvenHOST
That was Eli Clifton and Ian Lustick speaking to me on Friday about their new book, Israel's Lobby.
Stephen MethvenHOST
Now, I can't really recommend it enough.
John MearsheimerHOST
So on that note, I will conclude.
John MearsheimerHOST
And I just want to say again, I think that people who are interested in US Middle East policy, who are interested in how the lobby influences that policy, you should definitely go out and read this new book by Ian Lustick and Eli Clifton.
John MearsheimerHOST
because it's a superb book and it says all sorts of interesting and important things about the lobby and about Israel and about the effect the lobby is having on US democracy.
John MearsheimerHOST
This is not a small issue and this is an issue that I have not dwelled on today, but which these two authors spend a lot of time talking about in their new book.
Robert WrightHOST
This is a Non-Zero podcast.
Robert WrightHOST
You two are Ian Lustick and Eli Clifton, co-authors of a new book called Israel's Lobby.
Robert WrightHOST
I guess you could say a successor of sorts to a well-known book called The Israel Lobby by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Waltz.
Robert WrightHOST
But with a number of differences, not to mention the fact that the landscape has changed pretty appreciably since then in a number of ways.
Martin DeCaroHOST
They write, The United States committed itself to insisting on Egyptian implementation of its commitments independent of whether Israel made progress toward peace or not with other Arab countries, and straightjacketed Washington on the Palestinian question.
Martin DeCaroHOST
Eli Clifton and Ian Lustick will be here in a moment.
Martin DeCaroHOST
Now, the following year, in 1976, Prime Minister Rabin addressed a joint session of Congress after receiving much of what he wanted from President Ford.
Yitzhak RabinSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
I today declare I am ready to meet with any Arab head of government at any time, at any place for the purpose of peace talks.
Martin DeCaroHOST
Eli Clifton is a co-founder and senior advisor at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
Martin DeCaroHOST
He is an investigative journalist focusing on money in politics and U.S. foreign policy.
Martin DeCaroHOST
Ian Lustick is an eminent political scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, where he teaches Middle Eastern politics, and he is an expert on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Martin DeCaroHOST
They are the co-authors of Israel's Lobby.
Ahmed MoorHOST
And, and so I do wanna talk about other states including, uh, Florida in a moment, Angie Nixon.
Ahmed MoorHOST
Uh, but before we do, I listened to the recent interview that Peter conducted, Peter Beinart conducted with Ian Lustick and Eli Clifton for, for FMEP, and, um, he asked kind of when is the other shoe, what is the other shoe, the next shoe to drop, uh, around the Israel lobby and, and the damage that it's done domestically in curtailing civil liberties and so forth.
Ahmed MoorHOST
Uh, and the answer provided by, um, either Ian or, or Eli was, uh, the Republican Party.
Ahmed MoorHOST
We're going to see the Republican Party follow the Democratic Party and where it's gone, um, around an America First agenda, uh, that has less to do with Israel.
Andrew DayHOST
And then I would like to get your sense also, Connor, in this last kind of portion of this episode about changing views of Israel on the American right versus on the American left, because I think the story is kind of the same, but it looks different on the right than on the left, I would say.
Andrew DayHOST
But as I said earlier, you co-authored a report.
Andrew DayHOST
It had the headline, Israel is sponsoring ads on Ted Cruz's podcast.
Andrew DayHOST
Is that legal? Cruz, of course, is the Texas senator, Republican, likely 2028 candidate.