Is there such a thing as 'the Israel lobby', and how powerful is it?

Friends of Israel provides a forensically researched account of the activities of Israel's advocates in Britain, showing how they contribute to maintaining Israeli apartheid. The book traces the history and changing fortunes of key actors within the British Zionist movement in the context of the Israeli government's contemporary efforts to repress a rising tide of solidarity with Palestinians expressed through the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Offering a nuanced and politically relevant account of pro-Israel actors' strategies, tactics, and varying levels of success in key arenas of society, it draws parallels with the similar anti-boycott campaign waged by supporters of the erstwhile apartheid regime in South Africa.

By demystifying the actors involved in the Zionist movement, the book provides an anti-racist analysis of the pro-Israel lobby which robustly rebuffs anti-Semitic conspiracies. Sensitively and accessibly written, it emphasises the complicity of British actors - both those in government and in civil society. Drawing on a range of sources including interviews with leading pro-Israel activists and Palestinian rights activists, documents obtained through Freedom of Information requests and archival material, Friends of Israel is a much-needed contribution to Israel/Palestine-related scholarship and a useful resource for the Palestine solidarity movement.

"Friends of Israel is an important publication and its wealth of information a vital resource for realizing that Palestinian solidarity and resistance to settler colonialism is driving pro-Israel lobbies to increase their efforts to mask the country's apartheid policies." - The Prisma

"Aked grounds Friends of Israel in an anti-racist analysis, which applies a holistic and transnational approach to understanding the pro-Israel movement in the UK and its efforts to counter the growing solidarity with Palestinians. Friends of Israel, through its careful analysis, is a welcome contribution to this effort and deserves to be read widely." - Washington Report on Middle East Affairs

"A necessary book. It touches upon multiple dimensions of the Israel Lobby in the UK that had long needed investigation." - Informed Comment

"Brilliantly researched ... Aked's message, rightly, is that our civic society is right now our best and only channel for changing minds at the top about how Britain should tackle the Israel-Palestine question." - Balfour Project

"Politically situated, relentlessly concrete, theoretically sophisticated, and accessibly written ... [Friends of Israel is] praxis, in the best sense: it is an understanding of the world that simultaneously demands that we change it." - Race & Class