American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, commonly known by the acronym AIPAC, is an influential pro-Israel political lobbying group in the United States. It advocates for U.S. assistance to Israel—in the form of economic and military aid, diplomatic support, and other measures—and for other U.S. policies that align with the priorities of the Israeli government. It has close relationships with politicians from both the Republican and the Democratic parties, though it has also regularly been the target of criticism from some Democrats.

AIPAC, established in 1954 under the name American Zionist Committee for Public Affairs (AZCPA), was a successor to the American Zionist Emergency Council (AZEC), which advocated for greater Jewish immigration to Palestine during World War II and for the eventual creation of a Jewish state. Following the formation of the state of Israel in 1948, the AZEC was succeeded in 1949 by the American Zionist Council (AZC), a Washington, D.C.-based organization that lobbied for federal aid to Israel.

The main impetus for the creation of the AZCPA was a wave of negative press coverage in the United States regarding the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). In 1953 a Jewish woman and her two children living in an Israeli village near the West Bank were killed when a grenade was thrown into their home. In response, a special unit of the IDF, under the command of future Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, raided the Arab village of Qibya in the West Bank (then governed by Jordan). As Time magazine reported, “They shot every man, woman and child they could find”—killing 66 villagers in all—and they dynamited 42 houses, a school, and a mosque. With the support of the United States, the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution censuring Israel for the Qibya attack. Meanwhile, the administration of U.S. Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953–61), suspecting that the Israeli government was funding the AZC, considered forcing the organization to register as an agent of a foreign power.

Although the AZCPA was established in direct response to the international condemnation of the Qibya attack, “there was no change in leadership or membership” from the AZC, said the AZCPA’s leader, the Canadian-born American lawyer and activist Isaiah L. Kenen. However, the AZCPA would run on donations that were not tax-deductible, which meant that fewer restrictions would apply to its lobbying activities. The AZCPA changed its name to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in 1959.

Kenen headed AIPAC until his retirement in 1974, when Morris Amitay took over as the organization’s executive director. According to The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (2007), authored by the political scientists John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, Amitay transformed AIPAC from an “intimate, low-budget operation into a large, mass-based organization.” In 1974, AIPAC had roughly a dozen staff members and a budget of $300,000 to $400,000. Both figures tripled in size under Amitay’s leadership. Under Howard Kohr, who was executive director from 1996 to the end of 2024, the organization continued to grow. During the election cycle of 2023–24 AIPAC’s affiliated political action committees spent more than $45 million on congressional elections to ensure the victory of pro-Israel candidates or the defeat of pro-Palestinian or left-leaning candidates.

AIPAC priorities are frequently translated into U.S. government policy. Since the end of World War II the United States has given vastly more aid to Israel than to any other country. In 1999 the United States committed itself to providing Israel with at least $26.7 billion in military and economic aid over a 10-year period. That figure was raised to $30 billion in 2009 and to $38 billion in 2019. Soon after the Israel-Hamas War began in October 2023, U.S. Pres. Joe Biden (2021–25) requested, and Congress granted, an additional $14 billion in military aid to Israel, and throughout 2024 the country received even more military assistance. Moreover, the United States has vetoed dozens of Security Council resolutions critical of Israel and has reportedly helped to protect the country’s nuclear arsenal.

Traditionally, AIPAC has cultivated relationships with both Republican and Democratic lawmakers. However, since the presidency of Barack Obama (2009–17), a sizable number of Democratic lawmakers have criticized the organization. Although bipartisan support for Israel was strengthened in 2023 following Hamas’s terrorist attack against Israel at the start of the Israel-Hamas War, some Democrats became critical of Israel’s prolonged and devastating military response, which was officially aimed at eliminating Hamas but also targeted the Gaza Strip’s civilian population by destroying schools, hospitals, mosques, and refugee centers and restricting or blocking humanitarian aid.

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