The AJC is not the best-known in the plethora of American Jewish organizations. But it is among the most respected, according to Jonathan Sarna, a professor at Brandeis University and one of the foremost experts on American Jewish history. Though not as visible as organizations like American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)and the Anti-Defamation League, in some ways, it functions like both of them combined in that it lobbies for Israeli interests (though AJC does not refer to itself as a lobby), but also aims to protect Jews everywhere from anti-Semitism. The AJC has been called 'the State Department of the Jews' - a term Harris insists the organizations didn't coin. Still, he says, the AJC's international presence is, indeed, formidable.
This is also pertinent to the Mearsheimer & Walt affair. See AJC Director David Harris's comment:
Harris says, however, that the powers of the American Jewish lobby are exaggerated. As for the recent controversial article by Professors John Mearsheimer and Stephan Walt (alleging that the American Jewish lobby pushes the U.S. into foreign policy decisions contrary to its own interests) Harris calls it a "tendentious and one-sided" report that "seeks to demonize the American Jewish community as a force that works contrary to US interests, that yields excessive power, that works in mysterious ways."
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