Middle East Critique

Complicity and Contestation: Zionism in the American Political Order

The relationship between Zionism and the United States has entered a new phase of visibility and crisis. The ongoing genocide in Gaza, enabled by two consecutive administrations—Democratic and Republican—has exposed a bipartisan consensus that transcends the customary divisions of US politics. Yet even as the assault on Gaza continues, the US has launched a war on Iran, a dramatic escalation that starkly contradicts the anti-war platform on which the current administration campaigned and won the 2024 election. Critics across American civil society have pointed to Israel's role in driving this escalation, raising urgent questions about the relationship between Zionist influence and the making of US foreign policy. The chasm between electoral promises of restraint and the reality of regional war has laid bare contradictions at the heart of the US political order that demands rigorous scholarly examination.

These concurrent developments—genocide in Gaza, war on Iran, bipartisan complicity, and the exposure of electoral politics as spectacle—have simultaneously generated unprecedented popular contestation. Mass mobilizations across universities, labor unions, and civil society represent the largest Palestine solidarity movement in US history, while opposition to the Iran war has galvanized anti-war sentiment that cuts across traditional political alignments. Elite unanimity and popular revolt now stand in open tension, forcing fundamental questions about the nature of the US political system, the structure of US empire, and the role of Zionism in both.

This special issue proceeds from the recognition that the US-Zionism nexus is not merely a question of foreign policy but a defining feature of American political life in the 21^st century. The 'special relationship' functions as a prism through which fundamental questions about American empire, liberal democracy, and the limits of the possible become visible. How does bipartisan support for genocide and regional war coexist with rhetorical commitments to human rights, international law, and even anti-interventionism? What does the systematic repression of Palestine solidarity activism reveal about the boundaries of legitimate dissent in the US? How have the events since October 2023—and their acceleration into regional war—intensified contradictions that were long latent in US political culture?

The existing scholarship on US-Israel relations, while substantial, remains fragmented across analytical frameworks that this special issue seeks to bring into productive dialogue. The 'Israel Lobby' thesis, most prominently articulated by Mearsheimer and Walt, emphasizes the role of organized pressure groups in shaping US foreign policy, suggesting American support for Israel often contradicts 'national interest.' Historical materialist scholarship, by contrast, situates Zionism within the structural logic of US empire, arguing that Israel functions as a strategic asset serving broader imperial objectives. A third current examines ideological formations—particularly Christian Zionism—that have cultivated mass support for Israel among American publics.

We invite contributions that hold these tensions open rather than resolving them prematurely: Does Zionism capture US foreign policy, or does it serve US imperial interests? Are these frameworks mutually exclusive, or does their relationship require more dialectical theorization? The current conjuncture—with an administration elected on anti-war promises now waging war widely attributed to Israeli influence—offers an unprecedented opportunity to interrogate these questions empirically.

The current conjuncture offers a singular opportunity to examine how the question of Palestine intensifies contradictions within the US political order and what these contradictions portend for both Palestinian liberation and transformations within the US itself.

Middle East Critique invites contributions from scholars across disciplines whose work converges on this object of analysis. We seek to bring together scholarship from Middle East studies, American studies, US political history, foreign policy analysis, American political development, political economy, and social movement studies—fields that too often remain siloed despite the manifestly interdisciplinary nature of the US-Zionism nexus. By centering the US as the object of inquiry, we aim to generate a conversation that illuminates dimensions of the US political order that no single disciplinary lens can fully apprehend.

We welcome interdisciplinary contributions exploring the following themes, among others:

We welcome interdisciplinary contributions—historical and contemporary—exploring the following themes, among others:

-          Political Economy of US-Zionist Alignment

Contributions examining the material foundations of US support for Israel from the early 20^th  to the present, including: the historical development of military-industrial linkages and the arms trade; Israel's evolving function within US strategic positioning in the Middle East and beyond; capital flows, investment patterns, and economic integration across different periods; and the political economy of US military and economic aid. We particularly welcome analyses tracing how these material relationships have developed over time and what they reveal about the changing structure of American empire.

-          Ideological Infrastructures

Scholarship analyzing the ideological formations sustaining US-Zionist alignment across the political spectrum and across time, including: Christian Zionism from its 19^th century Protestant origins to contemporary evangelical politics; the historical trajectory of liberal Zionism and its role in manufacturing consent among American progressives; neoconservatism and the post-Cold War integration of Zionist commitments into US foreign policy doctrine; and the genealogy of ideological constructs such as 'shared values,' 'the only democracy in the Middle East,' and 'Judeo-Christian civilization.' We welcome both historically-focused studies and analyses of how earlier ideological formations shape the present.

-          Bipartisan Consensus and Its Contradictions

Analyses of how support for Israel became and has remained a rare point of convergence in US politics, including: the historical construction of bipartisan consensus from Truman through the present; the institutional mechanisms—campaign finance, lobbying, advocacy organizations—reproducing this consensus across administrations; comparative examination of Democratic and Republican approaches to Israel-Palestine over time; the disjuncture between electoral platforms and governing practice; and the emergent cracks in this consensus, particularly among younger voters, communities of color, and the various wings of the Republican/Democratic Party. We welcome both historical studies of consensus formation and contemporary analyses of its fracturing.

-          Knowledge Production, Repression, and the Limits of Democracy

Critical examinations of how US institutions have produced and policed knowledge about Palestine across different periods, including: the historical evolution of attacks on academic freedom and the targeting of scholars and students who support Palestinian rights; media representations and the manufacture of consent from 1948 to the present; the role of think tanks and policy institutes in shaping discourse; the development of anti-BDS legislation and the criminalization of solidarity; and what these repressions—past and present—reveal about the actual commitments of US democracy. We welcome historical case studies as well as contemporary analyses.

-          Settler-Colonial Formations, Resistance, and Solidarity

Scholarship exploring the historical and contemporary relationship between US and Israeli settler-colonialism and the movements that have contested them, including: comparative analyses of settler-colonial logics, institutions, and practices from the 19^th century to the present; the role of frontier mythology and eliminatory logic in both national formations; the historical development of Palestine solidarity movements in the US; Indigenous-Palestinian solidarity and its theoretical and political implications; Black-Palestinian solidarity from the Black Power era to the present; Jewish anti-Zionist traditions and organizing; the evolution of the BDS movement and its impact; and assessments of what these movements—across different historical moments—reveal about fissures in US hegemony and possibilities for political transformation.

Historical Scope

We welcome contributions spanning the entire historical arc of US-Zionist relations, from the early 20^th century activities of figures such as Louis Brandeis through the Truman administration's recognition of Israel, the consolidation of the 'special relationship' after 1967, the Reagan-era strategic alliance, the post-Cold War 'peace process,' and developments through the present conjuncture. Contributions offering long-durée perspectives that illuminate continuities and ruptures across this history are particularly encouraged, as are those that historicize the current moment within broader trajectories.

Methodological Approaches

Consistent with Middle East Critique's commitment to heterodox theoretical frameworks and critical methodologies, we welcome contributions drawing on historical materialism, anti-colonial and decolonial theory, settler-colonial studies, critical political economy, American studies, feminist and intersectional analysis, and other heterodox approaches that challenge dominant epistemological frameworks.