Who Actually Buys Washington?

Everyone has an opinion about who really runs Washington’s Middle East policy. The data is all public - every PAC dollar, every lobbying filing, every foreign agent registration. But nobody wants to talk about what the numbers actually show. So here it is: twenty years of federal disclosures, added up.

Where the Money Flows

US law creates three trackable channels. PAC contributions, where domestic groups bundle donations to candidates. Domestic lobbying under the Lobbying Disclosure Act. And FARA registrations, where foreign governments hire US firms.

The first two are where you’d expect the pro-Israel side to dominate - and it does. Pro-Israel PACs have been active since the 1990s, contributing $56.8M cumulatively through 2006 alone [1]. AIPAC spends a few million a year on domestic lobbying, and reportedly dropped $30M on a single campaign against the Iran deal in 2015 [2]. Pro-Arab domestic PAC and lobbying activity is basically a rounding error - under $200K per year.

But FARA is where the picture flips. Saudi Arabia has deployed up to 49 lobbying firms simultaneously [3]. Qatar has hired 88 since 2016 [4]. The UAE paid one firm - Akin Gump - nearly $6M in 14 months [5]. Israel spends heavily through FARA too, about $194M since 2016 [6]. But the Gulf states outspend it comfortably.

Add It Up

Over the full 2005–2025 period, cumulative pro-Israel spending across all three channels comes to roughly $562M. Pro-Arab spending: roughly $1 billion. That’s about 1.8x.

I didn’t expect that ratio. Most public discussion makes it sound like one side massively outspends the other. The reality is both sides spend enormous amounts - just through completely different mechanisms. More on that below.

In the 2016–2025 window, when comprehensive FARA tracking became available, the gap narrows: pro-Israel ~$457M vs pro-Arab ~$689M.

The Story in Three Acts

2005–2015: Gulf money everywhere

This is the Saudi PR era. After 9/11, the kingdom hired Qorvis Communications and basically never stopped paying them - about $14M a year, over $100M total across two decades [7]. During the Iraq War, Qorvis alone billed $11M. When the Yemen War started in 2015, another $10M surge.

The scale of the Gulf lobbying apparatus was honestly staggering. Saudi retained BGR Group, Squire Patton Boggs, Hogan Lovells, DLA Piper, the Podesta Group - combined monthly fees exceeding $1.3M [9]. The UAE became the top FARA spender globally in 2007–08 [8]. Pro-Arab spending outpaced pro-Israel by about 2.5x consistently.

Pro-Israel spending was modest by comparison: a few million a year in PAC contributions, a couple million in lobbying, and minimal Israeli government FARA activity.

One caveat: pre-2016 FARA numbers are based on named contracts rather than comprehensive tracking, so true Gulf totals are probably higher.

2016–2021: The curtain lifts

OpenSecrets started systematically tracking FARA data in 2016, and the numbers that emerged were wild.

The 2017 Qatar blockade triggered a spending war. Qatar hired 7 lobbying firms in 3 months [10] and their FARA spending nearly quadrupled [4]. Saudi Arabia spent $27M the same year, tripling its 2016 figure [11].

Then came Khashoggi. After the October 2018 murder of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the behest of Crown Price Mohammed Bin Salman, Saudi Arabia doubled down. Qorvis received $18M in just the first six weeks. The McKeon Group got $450K three days after the killing [7]. Saudi FARA spending hit $38.5M that year, their all-time high [3]. Some firms dropped them (BGR, Gibson Dunn, Glover Park Group), but others filled the gap immediately.

Meanwhile, Israel became the top FARA spender globally in 2018 [12]. The UAE spent $64M across 2020–21 through 25 firms, making over 10,000 contacts with US officials or media [13]. Qatar’s cumulative tab since 2016: roughly $250M across 88 firms, with 627 in-person congressional meetings and 7,400 political communications [4].

2022–2025: AIPAC goes nuclear

AIPAC formed a PAC in late 2021, and the landscape changed overnight.

In the 2022 cycle, AIPAC’s PAC delivered $17.5M to candidates. The affiliated United Democracy Project raised $36M and spent $26M on independent expenditures [14]. Democratic Majority for Israel added another $9M [15].

Then 2024 blew the doors off. AIPAC PAC disbursed $44.8M - supporting candidates in 389 of 469 races. That’s more than 80% of all seats up for election. UDP raised $87M. Combined AIPAC-affiliated spending: $127M for the cycle [16]. RJC quadrupled to $19.7M. NORPAC was up 375% [17].

For the first time, pro-Israel total spending nearly matched pro-Arab spending at around $105M in 2024.

The Gulf states escalated too, though. Post-October 7, Saudi FARA spending hit $55.5M in 2023 alone [18] - their biggest year ever. The UAE spent $36M in 2022 [5].

2025 is technically an off-cycle year. AIPAC is taking a “quieter approach” [19]. But quiet is relative - UDP ended 2025 sitting on $96M in cash after a $30M infusion from AIPAC [20]. That’s a $100M war chest for the midterms. Their first 2026 move was spending $2.3M against a candidate in the NJ-11 special election. It backfired - the progressive won [21].

The thing the totals don’t tell you

The stacked charts above show comparable dollar amounts. But they hide the most interesting finding: the sources for the funding are worlds apart.

The pro-Israel side is a hybrid. Part of it is domestic - AIPAC, DMFI, evangelical organizations like Christians United for Israel (10M+ members [22]), individual donors writing checks because they want to. Part of it is Israeli government FARA spending. The domestic PAC component exploded since 2022, but it was always there.

The pro-Arab side is 99%+ Gulf government money. There is essentially no-domestic pro-Arab political infrastructure in the United States. The entire bar is Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE writing checks to K Street firms. Domestic pro-Arab PAC contributions have never cracked $200K in any year.

Think about what that means. One side has millions of American citizens voluntarily participating in the political process alongside a foreign government apparatus. The other is almost entirely three autocratic, trillionaire monarchies, purchasing influence through hired firms.

What the filings don’t show

Everything above tracks only the three legally mandated disclosure channels. A lot of influence spending falls outside that frame.

Think tanks

On the pro-Israel side: FDD pulled in $32.5M in revenue in 2024 with $41M in assets [23]. WINEP - founded with AIPAC support - reported $21.5M in revenue and $97.5M in assets [24]. Haim Saban founded the Saban Center at Brookings with a $13M grant [25].

On the pro-Arab side: Qatar was Brookings’ single largest foreign donor at $14.8M over four years [26]. The UAE secretly donated $20M to the Middle East Institute, only revealed through leaked emails [27]. They also gave $5M+ to the Aspen Institute and $4M+ to the Atlantic Council [27]. The former Brookings president resigned in 2022 after an FBI investigation into unregistered lobbying for Qatar [26].

And then there’s this: the UAE wired $2.5M to FDD - supposedly a pro-Israel think tank - through a Canadian intermediary [23]. The categories get messy fast.

Universities

This is where the numbers get absurd.

Total Arab state funding to US universities since 1981: $13–15 billion across 288 institutions in 49 states [28]. A third of that arrived since 2020.

Qatar alone accounts for $6.6 billion - making it the single largest foreign funding source for US higher education [28]. Cornell got $2.3B, Carnegie Mellon $2B, Georgetown and Texas A&M over $1B each [29]. A lot of this funds branch campuses in Doha’s Education City, but the structural dependency is real regardless.

In 2025, Qatar’s university funding hit $1.1 billion - triple the prior year. Saudi added $285M [29].

Here’s a detail that stood out: 73% of all Arab contributions to US schools - roughly $10.7 billion - have no publicly articulated purpose, despite being legally required to disclose one [30].

Mega-donors

None of this appears in the charts above. Miriam Adelson has given $284M in lifetime political donations, including $100M to Trump’s Preserve America PAC in 2024 alone. Combined with her late husband Sheldon: over $524M from 2010 to 2020 [31].

Haim Saban - who once called himself a “one-issue guy” whose issue is Israel - gave $13.8M to political groups in the 2016 cycle, $7M to Clinton’s super PAC, and over $27M to Clinton-affiliated causes over his career [25].

OpenSecrets doesn’t categorize any of this as “pro-Israel” because it goes to general campaigns, not industry-coded PACs. So none of it shows up in the data.

The FARA gray zone

Al Jazeera - owned by the Qatari government - was ordered to register under FARA in 2020. Five years later, it still hasn’t [32]. It holds 136 congressional press credentials, more than the New York Times’ 82 [33]. Multiple senators have demanded enforcement [34].

Israel plays this game too. Leaked Ministry of Justice documents from 2018 show Israel sought legal advice on FARA avoidance, worried that compliance would damage Israeli-directed American groups. A Guardian investigation found Israeli officials tried to create a front nonprofit to dodge registration [35].

And the person now in charge of enforcement? AG Pam Bondi - who previously lobbied for Qatar - issued guidance in 2025 that analysts say weakens FARA enforcement [36]. You can’t make this up.

Everything else

CUFI has 10M+ members but is registered as a church - no financial disclosure required. Their reported lobbying spend is ~$260K/yr [22]. That gap between organizational scale and reported spending is… something.

Then there are sovereign wealth funds. QIA, ADIA, and PIF investments in US companies, real estate, and infrastructure create dependencies that make direct lobbying look quaint.

And defense contractors like Raytheon and Lockheed lobby for arms sales to both sides, which is its own kind of influence.

So what does this actually mean?

Putting both sides on the same chart is useful for showing total dollars aimed at shaping US Middle East policy. But it hides the structural asymmetry that I think is the real story here.

The pro-Israel side has organic domestic roots - millions of citizens voluntarily donating, think tanks built over decades, mega-donors giving to general campaigns, and a state FARA apparatus on top.

The pro-Arab side is almost entirely three Gulf governments purchasing influence through hired firms. Bankrolling think tanks. Funding university campuses. There is no domestic pro-Arab grassroots political infrastructure in America.

Both sides spend enormous sums trying to shape policy. They’re just playing completely different games.

Data notes

I’m fairly confident in the 2016–2024 numbers - all three tracks are compiled by OpenSecrets and cross-checked against the Quincy Institute, FDD, Statista, and CSID. The 2005–2015 numbers are softer. PAC and LDA data is solid, but FARA estimates are pieced together from named contracts, so true Gulf totals are probably higher. 2025 figures are H1 actuals, annualized.

For context, cumulative FARA spending since 2016 by country: China ~$460M, Qatar $225–260M, Israel ~$194M, UAE $154–175M, Saudi Arabia ~$125M [37]. Rankings shift depending on the time window - Japan led in 2024 [12].