The Arab Lobby: The Invisible Alliance That Undermines America's Interests in the Middle East

The The Arab Lobby: The Invisible Alliance That Undermines America's Interests in the Middle East is a book written by Mitchell Bard, the head of the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise and the director of the Jewish Virtual Library, published in August 2010. It was written in response to John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt's bestselling albeit controversial The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, which focused on the role of the Israel lobby in shaping U.S. foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction.

In the Arab Lobby, Bard argues that an influential Arab lobby has sought to counter the Israel lobby by tilting U.S. foreign policy towards a pro-Arabist and anti-Israel direction. He describes the lobby as having two components: an "oil lobby" and a domestic Palestinian advocacy lobby. The oil lobby is described as a "petroleum-diplomatic complex" consisting of Saudi Arabia, Arabist sympathizers within the State Department and diplomatic community, and defense contractors. Meanwhile, Palestinian advocacy groups include mainline non-evangelical Christian denominations, Arab and Muslim-American interest groups, and Middle Eastern studies academics. Bard traces the origins of the "petroleum-diplomatic complex" to the days of King Saud. The main premise is that the Saudis and other Arab states of the Persian Gulf have the oil and will supply it to America and its allies on the condition that America keeps the Arab ruling families in power.