The roots of the Arab lobby in America can be traced back to 1951, when King Saud of Saudi Arabia

asked U.S. di lomats to finance a ro!Arab lobby to ser"e as a counterweight to the American #ionist $ommittee for %ublic Affairs &later renamed the American 'srael %ublic Affairs $ommittee, or A'%A$(. )hile the ace of the Arab lobby*s growth was initially slow, it became more asserti"e o"er time, articularly as foreign oil came to lay a larger role in the American economy. After the 19+, Arab!'sraeli Si- .ay )ar, for e-am le, the Arabian American /il $om any &A0A1$/( set u a fund to resent the Arab ers ecti"e on the conflict. .ri"en by oil re"enues, the Arab lobby*s le"erage in affecting American olicy was demonstrated in early 19,2 when 1obil ublished a ro!Arab ad"ertorial in The New York Times. 'n 3uly of that year, the chairman of Standard /il of $alifornia &now called $he"ron( distributed a letter asking the com any4s 56,666 em loyees and 7+7,666 stockholders to ressure their elected re resentati"es to su ort 8the as irations of the Arab eo le.9 'n a similar s irit, the chairman of Te-aco urged the U.S. to reassess its 1iddle :ast olicy. 'n 19,, %resident 3immy $arter noted, in his diary, that the Arab lobby had ressured him mightily while he was in"ol"ed in the eace negotiations between :gy tian %resident Anwar Sadat and 'sraeli %rime 1inister 1enachem ;egin. 8They <Arab Americans= ha"e gi"en all the staff, <national security ad"iser= ;r>e>inski, <Secretary of State= )arren $hristo her, and others, a hard time.9 Among the more notable indi"idual members of the Arab lobby in recent decades was the late $lark $lifford &died /ctober 199?(, whom The New York Times described as a key ad"iser to .emocratic U.S. residents beginning with @arry Truman, and as an influential aid lobbyist for Arab sources. Another key figure in the Arab lobby has been Ared .utton, former Assistant Secretary for Begislati"e Affairs and s ecial assistant to %resident 3ohn A. Kennedy. /n 3uly 19, 7665, The Hill, a news a er about the U.S. $ongress, re orted that .utton &a lobbyist for Saudi Arabia( had worked assiduously to ersuade $ongress to a ro"e two maCor arms sales to that nation. Some members of the Arab lobby in America are hea"ily financed with money from the Arab world. ;efore his death in 7665, for instance, Saudi Arabia*s King Aahd made se"eral multi!million!dollar donations to the $arter $enter, whose founder, former U.S. %resident 3immy $arter, has culti"ated a longstanding re utation as a ro! Arab detractor of 'srael. The Arab lobby does not s eak for all Arab Americans. According to the Arab American 'nstitute, there are a ro-imately 2.5 million eo le of Arab heritage in the U.S. today, about half of them concentrated in fi"e states !! $alifornia, Alorida, 1ichigan, Dew 3ersey, and Dew Eork. Dearly 56 ercent of these Arab Americans are Bebanese, mostly $hristians, who tend to be unsym athetic to the Arab lobby4s anti!'srael ers ecti"es. ;y contrast, only about ,6,666 %alestinian Americans reside in the United States !! a small ercentage of the Arab American o ulation. ;ut because of their high le"el of olitical acti"ism, their "iews and concerns ha"e recei"ed hugely dis ro ortionate attention from olitical leaders and the media alike.

;ecause Arab Americans do not constitute a numerically large "oting bloc, the Arab lobby has focused considerable effort on culti"ating sym athy from the general ublic as a means of influencing U.S. olicy. To further ma-imi>e its influence, this lobby has also formed alliances with many anti!war, ci"il rights, ci"il liberties, and 8social Custice9 organi>ations of the olitical left. )hile the Arab lobby has a few friends in $ongress today, its effect is felt mainly as a result of its Coint efforts with organi>ations like the American $i"il Biberties Union to dilute anti!terrorism measures.

Lost in all of the controversy over the mosque is the fact that the Arab lobby is one of the strongest in Americaeven stronger than Israels. "One of the most important distinguishing characteristics of the Arab lobby is that it has no popular support. While the Israeli lobby has hundreds of thousands of grass root members and public opinion polls consistently reveal a huge gap between support for Israel and the Arab nations/Palestinians, the Arab lobby has almost no foot soldiers or public sympathy. It s most powerful elements tend to be bureaucrats who represent only their personal views or what they believe are their institutional interests, and foreign governments that care only about their national interests, not those of the !nited "tates. What they lac# in human capital in terms of American advocates, they ma#e up for with almost unlimited resources to try to buy what they usually cannot win on the merits of their arguments." $ut why is the Arab lobby, and most particularly the "audi lobby, also powerful% "audi Arabia has virtually no support among Americans. Indeed, it is widely reviled for its e&port of terrorists such as Osama bin 'aden, its manipulation of oil prices, its anti()hristian and anti("emitic policies, its total deprivation of any semblance of freedom of speech or dissent, and its primitive forms of punishment that include stoning and amputation. *et, as $ard demonstrates, the "audi lobby has beaten the pro(Israel lobby over and over again in head(to(head conflicts, such as the sale of sophisticated weapons to a regime that doesn t even have the technical s#ills to use them, and the conflict over whether to move the !nited "tates embassy to +erusalem. ,ven now, "audi Arabia is lobbying to obtain a multibillion(dollar arms deal, and it is li#ely to succeed over the ob-ections of Israel.