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The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy
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The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy[1] (a condensed version used
the title The Israel Lobby[2]) is the title of a work by John
Mearsheimer, political science professor at the University of Chicago,
and Stephen Walt, academic dean of the Kennedy School of Government at
Harvard University that has gone through several version from 2002 to
2007. It claims that "the United States has been willing to set aside
its own security in order to advance the interests of another state
[Israel]". Further, U.S. Middle East policy is driven primarily by the
"Israel Lobby," defined as a "loose coalition of individuals and
organizations who actively work to steer U.S. foreign policy in a pro-
Israel direction." The authors state that the "core of the Lobby" is
"American Jews who make a significant effort in their daily lives to
bend U.S. foreign policy so that it advances Israel's interests." They
note that "not all Jewish-Americans are part of the Lobby," and that
"Jewish-Americans also differ on specific Israeli policies."
The paper was originally commissioned in 2002 by The Atlantic Monthly,
which then rejected it.[3] It became available as a working paper at
the Kennedy School's website in 2006. The paper was finally published
in March 2006 by the London Review of Books. Philip Weiss discusses
some of the background to the creation of the paper in an article in
The Nation.[4] A third, revised version addressing some of the
criticism was published in the Fall, 2006 issue of Middle East Policy.
The authors state that "In terms of its core claims, however, this
revised version does not depart from the original Working Paper."[5]
In late August 2007 an enlarged version was published as a book.[6][7]
Contents [hide]
1 Content
1.1 "The Lobby"
1.1.1 On U.S. support for Israel
1.2 Analysis of Israel as a Strategic Asset and the moral case for
support
1.2.1 Strategic Asset
1.2.2 The Moral Case for Support
2 Reception
2.1 Praise
2.2 Mixed reviews
2.3 Criticism
2.3.1 Scholars
2.3.2 Members of organizations
2.3.3 Others
3 Reaction to the reception
3.1 Mearsheimer and Walt's response
3.2 Response to support by David Duke
4 Debate
5 See also
6 References
7 External links
[edit] Content
Mearsheimer and Walt argue that "No lobby has managed to divert U.S.
foreign policy as far from what the American national interest would
otherwise suggest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that U.S.
and Israeli interests are essentially identical".[2] They argue that
"in its basic operations, it is no different from interest groups like
the Farm Lobby, steel and textile workers, and other ethnic lobbies.
What sets the Israel Lobby apart is its extraordinary effectiveness."
According to Mearsheimer and Walt, the "loose coalition" that makes up
the Lobby has "significant leverage over the Executive branch," as
well as the ability to make sure that the "Lobby's perspective on
Israel is widely reflected in the mainstream media." They claim that
AIPAC in particular has a "stranglehold on the U.S. Congress," due to
its "ability to reward legislators and congressional candidates who
support its agenda, and to punish those who challenge it."
Mearsheimer and Walt decry what they call misuse of "the charge of
anti-Semitism," and argue that pro-Israel groups place great
importance on "controlling debate" in American academia; they
maintain, however, that the Lobby has yet to succeed in its "campaign
to eliminate criticism of Israel from college campuses" (see Campus
Watch and U.S. Congress Bill H.R. 509). The authors conclude by
arguing that when the Lobby succeeds in shaping U.S. policy in the
Middle East, then "Israel's enemies get weakened or overthrown, Israel
gets a free hand with the Palestinians, and the United States does
most of the fighting, dying, rebuilding, and paying."[1]
[edit] "The Lobby"
The paper says the following about "The Lobby":
"We use 'the Lobby' as a convenient short-hand term for the loose
coalition of individuals and organizations who actively work to shape
U.S. foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction."
"The core of the Lobby is comprised of American Jews who make a
significant effort in their daily lives to bend U.S. foreign policy so
that it advances Israel's interests."
"The Lobby also includes prominent Christian evangelicals like Gary
Bauer, Jerry Falwell, Ralph Reed and Pat Robertson, as well as Dick
Armey and Tom DeLay...all of whom believe Israel's rebirth is the
fulfillment of biblical prophecy and support its expansionist agenda;
to do otherwise, they believe, would be contrary to God's will."
" In addition, the Lobby's membership includes neoconservative
gentiles such as John Bolton, the late Wall Street Journal editor
Robert Bartley, former Secretary of Education William Bennett, former
U.N. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, and columnist George Will."
" Over the past 25 years, pro-Israel forces have established a
commanding presence at the American Enterprise Institute, the
Brookings Institution, the Center for Security Policy, the Foreign
Policy Research Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Hudson
Institute, the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, and the Jewish
Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA)."
"Jewish-Americans have formed an impressive array of organizations to
influence American foreign policy, of which AIPAC is the most powerful
and well-known."
"Many of the key organizations in the Lobby, such as the American
Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the Conference of
Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, are run by
hardliners who generally support the Likud Party's expansionist
policies, including its hostility to the Oslo Peace Process."
"AIPAC itself, however, forms the core of the Lobby's influence in
Congress."
"The bottom line is that AIPAC, which is a de facto agent for a
foreign government, has a stranglehold on the U.S. Congress."
"The Lobby also has significant leverage over the Executive branch.
That power derives in part from the influence Jewish voters have on
presidential elections."
"Key organizations in the Lobby also directly target the
administration in power ... [and] make sure that critics of the Jewish
state do not get important foreign-policy appointments"
"Pro-Israel congressional staffers are another source of the Lobby's
power. As Morris Amitay, a former head of AIPAC, once admitted, 'There
are a lot of guys at the working level up here [on Capitol Hill] ... who
happen to be Jewish, who are willing ... to look at certain issues in
terms of their Jewishness.... These are all guys who are in a position
to make the decision in these areas for those senators.'"
"The Lobby's perspective on Israel is widely reflected in the
mainstream media in good part because most American commentators are
pro-Israel."
"The Lobby doesn't want an open debate, of course, because that might
lead Americans to question the level of support they provide."
"Were it not for the Lobby's ability to manipulate the American
political system, the relationship between Israel and the United
States would be far less intimate than it is today."
"American Jewish leaders often consult with Israeli officials, so that
the former can maximize their influence in the United States."
"The Lobby also monitors what professors write and teach."
"Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this campaign to eliminate
criticism of Israel from college campuses is the effort by Jewish
groups to push Congress to establish mechanisms that monitor what
professors say about Israel."
"Jewish philanthropists have established Israel studies programs (in
addition to the roughly 130 Jewish Studies programs that already
exist) so as to increase the number of Israel-friendly scholars on
campus."
"No discussion of how the Lobby operates would be complete without
examining one of its most powerful weapons: the charge of anti-
Semitism. Anyone who criticizes Israeli actions or says that pro-
Israel groups have significant influence over U.S. Middle East policy
- an influence that AIPAC celebrates - stands a good chance of getting
labeled an anti-Semite."
"the [Iraq] war was due in large part to the Lobby's influence,
especially the neoconservatives within it."
"Congress insisted on putting the screws to Damascus, largely in
response to pressure from Israel officials and pro-Israel groups like
AIPAC."
"the Lobby must keep constant pressure on U.S. politicians to confront
Tehran."
"If their efforts to shape U.S. policy succeed, then Israel's enemies
get weakened or overthrown, Israel gets a free hand with the
Palestinians, and the United States does most of the fighting, dying,
rebuilding, and paying."
"It is not meant to suggest that 'the lobby' is a unified movement
with a central leadership, or that individuals within it do not
disagree on certain issues."
"Not all Jewish Americans are part of the Lobby, because Israel is not
a salient issue for many of them."
"There is nothing improper about American Jews and their Christian
allies attempting to sway U.S. policy; the Lobby's activities are not
a conspiracy... For the most part the individuals and groups in it are
only doing what other special interest groups do, but doing it very
much better." However, "the mere existence of the Lobby suggests that
unconditional support for Israel is not in the American national
interest. If it was, one would not need an organized special interest
group to bring it about."
"Can the Lobby's power be curtailed? One would like to think so ...
But that is not going to happen anytime soon."
[edit] On U.S. support for Israel
Economic: According to the authors, Israel is "the largest total
recipient since World War II" of U.S. aid. "Total direct U.S. aid to
Israel for this period amounts to well over $1.4 trillion from 1973 to
2003. Israel receives about $3 billion in direct foreign assistance
each year, which is about one-fifth of America's foreign aid budget."
The authors claim that "This largesse is especially striking when one
realizes that Israel is now a wealthy industrial state with a per
capita income roughly equal to South Korea or Spain."
The authors claim that "Israel is the only recipient of U.S. aid that
does not have to account for how the aid is spent." According to the
authors, this makes it "virtually impossible to prevent the money from
being used for purposes the United States opposes."
Diplomatic/political: The authors write, "Since 1982, the United
States has vetoed 32 United Nations Security Council resolutions that
were critical of Israel, a number greater than the combined total of
vetoes cast by all the other Security Council members together." They
further posit that the U.S. also "blocks Arab states' efforts to put
Israel's nuclear arsenal on the International Atomic Energy Agency's
agenda."
[edit] Analysis of Israel as a Strategic Asset and the moral case for
support
The authors state: "This extraordinary generosity might be
understandable if Israel were a vital strategic asset or if there were
a compelling moral case for sustained U.S. backing. But neither
rationale is convincing". The authors offer the following in support
of this argument:
[edit] Strategic Asset
"Backing Israel is not cheap, however, and it complicates America's
relations with the Arab World."
"The first Gulf War revealed the extent to which Israel was becoming a
strategic burden."
"In fact, Israel is a liability in the war on terror and the broader
effort to deal with rogue states."
"More important, saying that Israel and the U.S. are united by a
shared terrorist threat has the causal relationship backwards; the
U.S. has a terrorism problem because it is so closely aligned with
Israel, not the other way around."
"As for the so-called rogue states in the Middle East, they are not a
dire threat to vital U.S. interests, except inasmuch as they are a
threat to Israel."
"A final reason to question Israel's strategic value is that it does
not behave like a loyal ally."
[edit] The Moral Case for Support
"There is a strong moral case for supporting Israel's continued
existence, but that is not in jeopardy."
"Today Israel is the strongest military power in the Middle East. Its
conventional forces are far superior to those of its neighbors and it
is the only state in the region with nuclear weapons."
"That Israel is a fellow democracy surrounded by hostile dictatorships
cannot account for the current level of aid."
"The country's creation was undoubtedly an appropriate response to the
long record of crimes against Jews but it also brought about fresh
crimes against a largely innocent third party: the Palestinians".
"Yet on this ground (seeking peace), Israel's record is not
distinguishable from that of its opponents."
"...Yitzhak Shamir, once a terrorist and later prime minister of
Israel declared that 'neither Jewish ethics nor Jewish tradition can
disqualify terrorism as a means of combat.'"
[edit] Reception
[edit] Praise
The paper was described as a "wake-up call" by Daniel Levy,[8] former
advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. In a March 25 article
for Haaretz, Levy wrote, "Their case is a potent one: that
identification of American with Israeli interests can be principally
explained via the impact of the Lobby in Washington, and in limiting
the parameters of public debate, rather than by virtue of Israel being
a vital strategic asset or having a uniquely compelling moral case for
support".[9]
Former U.S. Ambassador Edward Peck, now of the Independent Institute
and the Council for the National Interest, an anti-Israel lobby, wrote
that "The expected tsunami of rabid responses condemned the report,
vilified its authors, and denied there is such a lobby - validating
both the lobby's existence and aggressive, pervasive presence and
obliging Harvard to remove its name." Peck is generally in agreement
with the paper's core thesis: "Opinions differ on the long-term costs
and benefits for both nations, but the lobby's views of Israel's
interests have become the basis of U.S. Middle East policies."[10]
Rupert Cornwell, writing in The Independent, welcomed "a debate on
America's support for Israel", and accused the "Jewish lobby" of
"suppression of serious domestic debate on the U.S. relationship with
Israel" and "conflation of Israel's conflict with the Palestinians
with America's war on terror".[11]
Tony Judt, a historian at New York University, wrote in the New York
Times, that "[in] spite of [the paper's] provocative title, the essay
draws on a wide variety of standard sources and is mostly
uncontentious." He goes on to ask "[does] the Israel Lobby affect our
foreign policy choices? Of course - that is one of its goals. [...]
But does pressure to support Israel distort American decisions? That's
a matter of judgment." He concludes the essay by taking the
perspective that "this essay, by two 'realist' political scientists
with no interest whatsoever in the Palestinians, is a straw in the
wind." And that "it will not be self-evident to future generations of
Americans why the imperial might and international reputation of the
United States are so closely aligned with one small, controversial
Mediterranean client state."[12]
Michael Scheuer, a former senior official at the CIA and now a
terrorism analyst for CBS News, said to NPR that Mearsheimer and Walt
are basically right. Israel, according to Scheuer, has engaged in one
of the most successful campaigns to influence public opinion in the
United States ever conducted by a foreign government. Scheuer said to
NPR that "They [Mearsheimer and Walt] should be credited for the
courage they have had to actually present a paper on the subject. I
hope they move on and do the Saudi lobby, which is probably more
dangerous to the United States than the Israeli lobby."[13]
Zbigniew Brzezinski, former national security advisor to U.S.
President Jimmy Carter, wrote: "Mearsheimer and Walt adduce a great
deal of factual evidence that over the years Israel has been the
beneficiary of privileged - indeed, highly preferential - financial
assistance, out of all proportion to what the United States extends to
any other country. The massive aid to Israel is in effect a huge
entitlement that enriches the relatively prosperous Israelis at the
cost of the American taxpayer. Money being fungible, that aid also
pays for the very settlements that America opposes and that impede the
peace process."[14]
Abdulmo'em Abulfotah, a senior member of the Muslim Brotherhood (a
Sunni Islamist group that, according to U.S. Government-operated Voice
of America, was banned but tolerated by the Egyptian government as of
late 2005[15]) said he thinks "that the people who wrote that report
were working for the interest of the American people."[16]
[edit] Mixed reviews
Columnist Christopher Hitchens agreed that "AIPAC and other Jewish
organizations exert a vast influence over Middle East policy", and
stated that the paper "contains much that is true and a little that is
original" and that he "would have gone further than Mearsheimer and
Walt". However, he also says that "what is original is not true and
what is true is not original", and that the notion that the "Jewish
tail wags the American dog... the United States has gone to war in
Iraq to gratify Ariel Sharon, and... the alliance between the two
countries has brought down on us the wrath of Osama Bin Laden" is
"partly misleading and partly creepy".[17]
An editorial in Israeli newspaper Haaretz said that the paper
"involved an attempt to blame the Jews for developments that are
unconnected to them", and goes on to say that "the conclusion that
Israel can draw from the anti-Israel feeling expressed in the article
is that it will not be immune for eternity." It concludes that "it
would be irresponsible to ignore the article's serious and disturbing
message.... The professors' article does not deserve condemnation;
rather, it should serve as a warning sign."[18]
In describing the last of three "surprising weaknesses" of the paper,
Eric Alterman writes in The Nation, "Third, while it's fair to call
AIPAC obnoxious and even anti-democratic, the same can often be said
about, say, the NRA, Big Pharma and other powerful lobbies. The
authors note this but often seem to forget it. This has the effect of
making the Jews who read the paper feel unfairly singled out, and
inspires much emotionally driven mishigas in reaction. Do these
problems justify the inference that the authors are anti-Semitic? Of
course not. "[19]
Joseph Massad, professor of modern Arab politics and intellectual
history at Columbia University, writes, "Is the pro-Israel lobby
extremely powerful in the United States? As someone who has been
facing the full brunt of their power for the last three years through
their formidable influence on my own university and their attempts to
get me fired, I answer with a resounding yes. Are they primarily
responsible for U.S. policies towards the Palestinians and the Arab
world? Absolutely not." Massad then argued U.S. policy is
imperialistic, and has only supported those struggling for freedom
when it is politically convenient, especially in the Middle East.[20]
Michelle Goldberg[3]gives a detailed analysis of the paper. She writes
about some "baffling omissions", e.g. : "Amazingly, Walt and
Mearsheimer don't even mention Fatah or Black September, Munich or
Entebbe. One might argue that Israel has killed more Palestinians than
visa versa, but it doesn't change the role of spectacular Palestinian
terrorism in shaping American attitudes toward Israel." She also finds
valuable points: "Walt and Mearsheimer are correct, after all, in
arguing that discussion about Israel is hugely circumscribed in
mainstream American media and politics.... Indeed, one can find far
more critical coverage of the Israeli occupation in liberal Israeli
newspapers like Haaretz than in any American daily."
Michael Massing, contributing editor of the Columbia Journalism
Review, writes: "The lack of a clearer and fuller account of
Palestinian violence is a serious failing of the essay. Its tendency
to emphasize Israel's offenses while largely overlooking those of its
adversaries has troubled even many doves." On the other hand, he
writes: "The nasty campaign waged against John Mearsheimer and Stephen
Walt has itself provided an excellent example of the bullying tactics
used by the lobby and its supporters. The wide attention their
argument has received shows that, in this case, those efforts have not
entirely succeeded. Despite its many flaws, their essay has performed
a very useful service in forcing into the open a subject that has for
too long remained taboo."[21]
Stephen Zunes, professor of politics at the University of San
Francisco, gives a detailed point by point critique of the paper, and
concludes: "The consequences of U.S. policy regarding the Israeli-
Palestinian conflict could be tragic, not just for Palestinians and
other Arabs, who are the immediate victims of the diplomatic support
and largess of American aid to Israel, but ultimately for Israel as
well. The fates of American client states have often not been
positive. Though differing in many respects, Israel could end up like
El Salvador or South Vietnam, whose leadership made common cause with
U.S. global designs in ways that ultimately led to untold misery and
massive destruction. Israeli leaders and their counterparts in many
American Zionist organizations have been repeating the historic error
of accepting short-term benefits for their people at the risk of
compromising long-term security.... To blame the current morass in the
Middle East on the Israel lobby only exacerbates animosities and plays
into the hands of the divide-and-rule tactics of those in Congress and
the administration whose primary objective is ultimately not to help
Israel but to advance the American Empire."[22]
University of Maryland professor Shibley Telhami, a fellow at the
Brookings Institution and critic of the Iraq war, describes the
professors as "incredibly bold" at stirring policy and theoretical
debates, but strongly disputes the Lobby's role in pushing the U.S.
into war. "There's no doubt that neocons long wanted a war. But in the
end it was the decision of a president who was super-empowered after
9/11 and who could have ignored them."[23]
David Remnick, editor of the New Yorker, writes, "Mearsheimer and Walt
give you the sense that, if the Israelis and the Palestinians come to
terms, bin Laden will return to the family construction
business." (http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/
2007/09/03/070903taco_talk_remnick)
[edit] Criticism
[edit] Scholars
The paper has faced criticism, for differing reasons, from individuals
across the ideological spectrum.
A number of Harvard professors have criticized the paper. Marvin Kalb,
a lecturer in public policy, Edward R. Murrow Professor of Press and
Public Policy from 1987 to 1999, and former Director and now Senior
Fellow[16] at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard,
said that the paper failed to meet basic quality standards for
academic research.[24] Ruth Wisse, a professor of Yiddish Literature
and Comparative Literature, wrote, "When the authors imply that the
bipartisan support of Israel in Congress is a result of Jewish
influence, they function as classic conspiracy theorists who attribute
decisions to nefarious alliances rather than to the choices of a
democratic electorate".[25] David Gergen, a professor of public
service at the Kennedy School at Harvard, wrote that the charges in
the paper are "wildly at variance with what I have personally
witnessed in the Oval Office over the years"[26] Alan Dershowitz,
professor of Law, wrote a report challenging the factual basis of the
paper, the motivations of the authors and their scholarship.
Dershowitz claimed that, "The paper contains three types of major
errors: quotations are wrenched out of context, important facts are
misstated or omitted, and embarrassingly weak logic is employed."[27]
Noam Chomsky, professor of linguistics at MIT, asserts that he did not
find the thesis of the paper very convincing. He said that Stephen
Zunes has rightly pointed out that "there are far more powerful
interests that have a stake in what happens in the Persian Gulf region
than does AIPAC [or the Lobby generally], such as the oil companies,
the arms industry and other special interests whose lobbying influence
and campaign contributions far surpass that of the much-vaunted
Zionist lobby and its allied donors to congressional races." He finds
that the authors "have a highly selective use of evidence (and much of
the evidence is assertion)", ignores historical "world affairs", and
blames the Lobby for issues that are not relevant.[28]
Benny Morris, a widely quoted scholar on the Arab-Israeli conflict and
a professor of Middle East history at Ben-Gurion University, prefaced
a very detailed analysis with the remark: "Like many pro-Arab
propagandists at work today, Mearsheimer and Walt often cite my own
books, sometimes quoting directly from them, in apparent corroboration
of their arguments. Yet their work is a travesty of the history that I
have studied and written for the past two decades. Their work is
riddled with shoddiness and defiled by mendacity."[29]
Stephen Zunes, professor of politics at the University of San
Francisco, gives a detailed point by point critique of the paper, and
writes: "There is something quite convenient and discomfortingly
familiar about the tendency to blame an allegedly powerful and wealthy
group of Jews for the overall direction of an increasingly
controversial U.S. policy. Indeed, like exaggerated claims of Jewish
power at other times in history, such an explanation absolves the real
powerbrokers and assigns blame to convenient scapegoats. This is not
to say that Mearsheimer, Walt, or anyone else who expresses concern
about the power of the Israel lobby is an anti-Semite, but the way in
which this exaggerated view of Jewish power parallels historic anti-
Semitism should give us all pause."[30]
Jonathan Rosenblum, columnist for Maariv and the Jerusalem Post, said
that Mearsheimer and Walt prefer "to portray President Bush, Vice
President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (not to
mention former President Bill Clinton) as helpless dupes of the lobby,
than to discuss their policy choices."[31]
Shlomo Ben-Ami, foreign minister of Israel under Barak, wrote:
"Mearsheimer and Walt's focus on the Israel lobby's influence on
America's Middle East policy is grossly overblown. They portray U.S.
politicians as being either too incompetent to understand America's
national interest, or so undutiful that they would sell it to any
pressure group for the sake of political survival. Sentiment and
idealism certainly underlie America's commitment to Israel. But so do
the shared interests and considerations of realpolitik."[32]
John Judis, a senior editor at The New Republic and a visiting scholar
at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote: "I think
Walt and Mearsheimer do exaggerate the influence of the Israel lobby
and define the lobby in such an inclusive way as to beg the question
of its influence."[33]
Middle East historian Michael Oren wrote: "To prove their argument,
the professors don't rely on such banal sources as declassified
records, presidential memoirs, or State Department documents. These
would unimpeachably show that Arab oil (and not Israel) was America's
persistent focus in the Middle East - and that presidents have
supported Israel for strategic and moral reasons, not political ones.
But, instead of citing archival sources, Walt and Mearsheimer pack
their footnotes with newspaper articles and references to the
polemical writings of Noam Chomsky and Norman Finklestein, as well as
the unreservedly pro-Arab Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.
The paper's slipshod quality was so evident that the Kennedy School
removed its official seal from the treatise."[34][35]
Other critical scholars include Johns Hopkins University professor
Eliot A. Cohen;[36] University of Maryland history professor Jeffrey
Herf;[37] Columbia University journalism professor Samuel G. Freedman;
[38] Princeton University professor of politics and international
affairs Aaron Friedberg;[39] and Stanford University political science
professor Josef Joffe.[40]
[edit] Members of organizations
The Anti-Defamation League published an analysis of the paper,
describing it as "amateurish and biased critique of Israel, American
Jews, and American policy" and a "sloppy diatribe".[41]
The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, a
media watchdog group monitoring perceived anti-Israel coverage,
published a detailed critique of the paper, claiming that it was
"riddled with errors of fact, logic and omission, has inaccurate
citations, displays extremely poor judgement regarding sources, and,
contrary to basic scholarly standards, ignores previous serious work
on the subject".[42]
A list of critiques of the paper, with links, is posted on the Engage
website.[43].
Edward Walker, president of the Middle East Institute and former U.S.
ambassador in Egypt and Israel, told NPR: "I lived through all the
history that these gentlemen write about, and I didn't recognize it,
not from the way they described it - and I was in government all this
time."[13]
Other critical organizations and affiliated individuals include the
Dore Gold from the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs,[44] and Neal
Sher of AIPAC.[45]
[edit] Others
Congressman Eliot L. Engel described the authors as "dishonest so-
called intellectuals" - he insisted they were "entitled to their
stupidity", and had a right to publish it, but also supported "the
right of the rest of us to expose them for being the anti-Semites they
are."[24]
Congressman Robert Wexler (D-FL) dismissed the idea that Israel's
supporters control American policy in the Middle East. "Americans are
just solid, rock-solid with the people of Israel. It is a democratic
nation and a freedom-loving people and a very decent people and they
deserve to have a free and secure state."[46][47]
Madeleine Albright, Secretary of State of the United States from 1997
to 2000, acknowledged that the Israel lobby was very strong. She spoke
of the resistance she encountered from the lobby over sales of
airplanes to Saudi Arabia in 1978, during her tenure on the National
Security Council in the Carter administration. However, she found "a
genuine problem in some of the things" in the Mearsheimer-Walt paper,
and found it "highly overstated". She concluded "So I think it's very
easy to get on this tack all of a sudden that it's some kind of an
overly powerful Jewish lobby.... So I would not, in fact, stress that
as much as I would stress the fact that the U.S. does have an
indissoluble relationship with Israel that is based on history and
culture."[48]
Daily Mail journalist Melanie Phillips writing in her own blog called
the paper a "particularly ripe example of the global Zionist
conspiracy' libel". According to Phillips, "The fundamental
misrepresentations and distortions in this LRB paper are quite
astonishing." For example, she dismisses the paper's assertion that
Israeli citizenship "is based on the principle of blood kinship" as
"totally untrue" because "Arabs and other non-Jews are Israeli
citizens." Contrary to the claim by the paper's authors that critics
of Israel stand "a good chance of getting labeled an antisemite",
writes Phillips, "they stand instead an excellent chance of being
published in the London Review of Books". [49]
Others critical of the paper include Caroline Glick of The Jerusalem
Post;[50] columnist Bret Stephens;[51][52] editor of Jewish Current
Issues Rick Richman;[53][54] and James Taranto of the The Wall Street
Journal;[55]
[edit] Reaction to the reception
Harvard's Kennedy School of Government removed its logo, more strongly
wording its disclaimer and making it more prominent, and insisting the
paper reflected only the views of its authors.[56][57][58] The Kennedy
School said in a statement: "The only purpose of that removal was to
end public confusion; it was not intended, contrary to some
interpretations, to send any signal that the school was also
'distancing' itself from one of its senior professors"[59] and stated
that they are committed to academic freedom, and do not take a
position on faculty conclusions and research.[60]
Mark Mazower, a professor of history at Columbia University, wrote
that it is not possible to openly debate the topic of the article:
"What is striking is less the substance of their argument than the
outraged reaction: to all intents and purposes, discussing the US-
Israel special relationship still remains taboo in the U.S. media
mainstream. [...] Whatever one thinks of the merits of the piece
itself, it would seem all but impossible to have a sensible public
discussion in the U.S. today about the country's relationship with
Israel."[61]
Criticism of the paper has itself been called "moral blackmail" and
"bullying" by an opinion piece in The Financial Times: "Moral
blackmail - the fear that any criticism of Israeli policy and U.S.
support for it will lead to charges of anti-Semitism - is a powerful
disincentive to publish dissenting views...Bullying Americans into a
consensus on Israeli policy is bad for Israel and makes it impossible
for America to articulate its own national interest." The editorial
praised the paper, remarking that "They argue powerfully that
extraordinarily effective lobbying in Washington has led to a
political consensus that American and Israeli interests are
inseparable and identical." [62]
Juan Cole responded to Alan Dershowitz, disputing Dershowitz's major
factual criticisms, charging that Dershowitz "sets up the straw man
that the authors claim that a central "cabal" of "Jews" tightly
controls the U.S. press and the U.S. government and prevents them from
criticizing Israel" and claiming that Dershowitz is trying to imply
that "Mearsheimer and Walt are anti-Semites in the Henry Ford/
Protocols of the Elders of Zion tradition".[63]
Richard Cohen responded in The Washington Post to Eliot A. Cohen's
prior editorial in the same newspaper, denying that the working paper
is anti-Semitic, and calling Eliot Cohen's piece "offensive": "To
associate Mearsheimer and Walt with hate groups is rank guilt by
association and does not in any way rebut the argument made in their
paper on the Israel lobby." Richard Cohen found the paper
unremarkable, calling its "basic point" "inarguable", but contends
that "Israel's special place in U.S. foreign policy is deserved, in my
view, and not entirely the product of lobbying." He also observes that
the article is "a bit sloppy and one-sided (nothing here about the
Arab oil lobby)".[64]
Syndicated political commentator Molly Ivins believes that "the sheer
disproportion, the vehemence of the attacks on anyone perceived as
criticizing Israel that makes them so odious. Mearsheimer and Walt are
both widely respected political scientists - comparing their writing
to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is just silly." She herself
comments that she finds the arguments of the paper to be
"unexceptional" and that "it seems an easy case can be made that the
United States has subjugated its own interests to those of Israel in
the past."[65]
[edit] Mearsheimer and Walt's response
Mearsheimer stated, "[w]e fully recognised that the lobby would
retaliate against us" and "[w]e expected the story we told in the
piece would apply to us after it was published. We are not surprised
that we've come under attack by the lobby."[66] He also stated "we
expected to be called anti-semites, even though both of us are philo-
semites and strongly support the existence of Israel."[59]
Mearsheimer and Walt responded to their critics in a letter to the
London Review of Books. [67]
To the accusation that they "see the lobby as a well-organised Jewish
conspiracy" they refer to their description of the lobby "a loose
coalition of individuals and organisations without a central
headquarters".
To the accusation of mono-causality, they remark "we also pointed out
that support for Israel is hardly the only reason America's standing
in the Middle East is so low".
To the complaint that they "'catalogue Israel's moral flaws', while
paying little attention to the shortcomings of other states", they
refer to the "high levels of material and diplomatic support" given by
the United States especially to Israel as a reason to focus on it.
To the claim that U.S. support for Israel reflects "genuine support
among the American public" they agree, but argue that "this popularity
is substantially due to the lobby's success at portraying Israel in a
favourable light and effectively limiting public awareness and
discussion of Israel's less savoury actions".
To the claim that there are countervailing forces "such as 'paleo-
conservatives, Arab and Islamic advocacy groups... and the diplomatic
establishment'", they argue that these are no match for the lobby.
To the argument that oil rather than Israel drives Middle East policy,
they claim that the United States would favour the Palestinians
instead of Israel, and would not have gone to war in Iraq or be
threatening Iran if that were so.
They accuse various critics of smearing them by linking them to
racists, and dispute various claims by Alan Dershowitz and others that
their facts, references or quotations are mistaken.
Ori Nir at The Forward wrote: "Asked if the study may have been
initially rejected by the American publisher because of poor research,
Mearsheimer said that the "evidence in the piece is just the tip of
the iceberg," and that the study's observations are supported by a
large body of evidence."[68] Speaking at a forum at invitation of the
Council on American-Islamic Relations, Walt expresses that the Israel
lobby "is not a cabal," that it is "not synonymous with American Jews"
and that "there is nothing improper or illegitimate about its
activities."[69]
In answering a question at Georgetown University about David Gergen's
criticism, Walt noted that Gergen, in his White House days, was
primarily involved in public relations and spin, not the formation of
Middle East policy.
The authors have privately circulated a 79-page rebuttal, "Setting the
Record Straight: A Response to Critics of 'The Israel Lobby'" [17],
and are working on a book on the subject.[70]
[edit] Response to support by David Duke
David Duke "devoted his entire half-hour Internet radio broadcast on
March 18 [2006] to the paper."[71][72][73][74] On March 21, 2006, Duke
praised the paper on MSNBC's Scarborough Country program.[75] Duke has
stated he is "surprised how excellent [the paper] is" and claimed his
views had been "vindicated" by its publication. According to Duke,
"the task before us is to wrest control of America's foreign policy
and critical junctures of media from the Jewish extremist Neocons".
[16] In response, Walt stated "I have always found Mr. Duke's views
reprehensible, and I am sorry he sees this article as consistent with
his view of the world".[16]
Mary-Kay Wilmers, the editor of the London Review of Books, which
published a version of the paper, said: "I don't want David Duke to
endorse the article. It makes me feel uncomfortable. But when I re-
read the piece, I did not see anything that I felt should not have
been said. Maybe it is because I am Jewish, but I think I am very
alert to anti-Semitism. And I do not think that criticising U.S.
foreign policy, or Israel's way of going about influencing it, is anti-
Semitic. I just don't see it."[76]
Juan Cole, a historian at the University of Michigan writing in
Salon.com in support of the paper, characterises the association of
the paper with Duke made in the New York Sun and elsewhere as "guilt
by association". [63]
[edit] Debate
>From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy[1] (a condensed version used
the title The Israel Lobby[2]) is the title of a work by John
Mearsheimer, political science professor at the University of Chicago,
and Stephen Walt, academic dean of the Kennedy School of Government at
Harvard University that has gone through several version from 2002 to
2007. It claims that "the United States has been willing to set aside
its own security in order to advance the interests of another state
[Israel]". Further, U.S. Middle East policy is driven primarily by the
"Israel Lobby," defined as a "loose coalition of individuals and
organizations who actively work to steer U.S. foreign policy in a pro-
Israel direction." The authors state that the "core of the Lobby" is
"American Jews who make a significant effort in their daily lives to
bend U.S. foreign policy so that it advances Israel's interests." They
note that "not all Jewish-Americans are part of the Lobby," and that
"Jewish-Americans also differ on specific Israeli policies."
The paper was originally commissioned in 2002 by The Atlantic Monthly,
which then rejected it.[3] It became available as a working paper at
the Kennedy School's website in 2006. The paper was finally published
in March 2006 by the London Review of Books. Philip Weiss discusses
some of the background to the creation of the paper in an article in
The Nation.[4] A third, revised version addressing some of the
criticism was published in the Fall, 2006 issue of Middle East Policy.
The authors state that "In terms of its core claims, however, this
revised version does not depart from the original Working Paper."[5]
In late August 2007 an enlarged version was published as a book.[6][7]
Contents [hide]
1 Content
1.1 "The Lobby"
1.1.1 On U.S. support for Israel
1.2 Analysis of Israel as a Strategic Asset and the moral case for
support
1.2.1 Strategic Asset
1.2.2 The Moral Case for Support
2 Reception
2.1 Praise
2.2 Mixed reviews
2.3 Criticism
2.3.1 Scholars
2.3.2 Members of organizations
2.3.3 Others
3 Reaction to the reception
3.1 Mearsheimer and Walt's response
3.2 Response to support by David Duke
4 Debate
5 See also
6 References
7 External links
[edit] Content
Mearsheimer and Walt argue that "No lobby has managed to divert U.S.
foreign policy as far from what the American national interest would
otherwise suggest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that U.S.
and Israeli interests are essentially identical".[2] They argue that
"in its basic operations, it is no different from interest groups like
the Farm Lobby, steel and textile workers, and other ethnic lobbies.
What sets the Israel Lobby apart is its extraordinary effectiveness."
According to Mearsheimer and Walt, the "loose coalition" that makes up
the Lobby has "significant leverage over the Executive branch," as
well as the ability to make sure that the "Lobby's perspective on
Israel is widely reflected in the mainstream media." They claim that
AIPAC in particular has a "stranglehold on the U.S. Congress," due to
its "ability to reward legislators and congressional candidates who
support its agenda, and to punish those who challenge it."
Mearsheimer and Walt decry what they call misuse of "the charge of
anti-Semitism," and argue that pro-Israel groups place great
importance on "controlling debate" in American academia; they
maintain, however, that the Lobby has yet to succeed in its "campaign
to eliminate criticism of Israel from college campuses" (see Campus
Watch and U.S. Congress Bill H.R. 509). The authors conclude by
arguing that when the Lobby succeeds in shaping U.S. policy in the
Middle East, then "Israel's enemies get weakened or overthrown, Israel
gets a free hand with the Palestinians, and the United States does
most of the fighting, dying, rebuilding, and paying."[1]
[edit] "The Lobby"
The paper says the following about "The Lobby":
"We use 'the Lobby' as a convenient short-hand term for the loose
coalition of individuals and organizations who actively work to shape
U.S. foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction."
"The core of the Lobby is comprised of American Jews who make a
significant effort in their daily lives to bend U.S. foreign policy so
that it advances Israel's interests."
"The Lobby also includes prominent Christian evangelicals like Gary
Bauer, Jerry Falwell, Ralph Reed and Pat Robertson, as well as Dick
Armey and Tom DeLay...all of whom believe Israel's rebirth is the
fulfillment of biblical prophecy and support its expansionist agenda;
to do otherwise, they believe, would be contrary to God's will."
" In addition, the Lobby's membership includes neoconservative
gentiles such as John Bolton, the late Wall Street Journal editor
Robert Bartley, former Secretary of Education William Bennett, former
U.N. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, and columnist George Will."
" Over the past 25 years, pro-Israel forces have established a
commanding presence at the American Enterprise Institute, the
Brookings Institution, the Center for Security Policy, the Foreign
Policy Research Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Hudson
Institute, the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, and the Jewish
Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA)."
"Jewish-Americans have formed an impressive array of organizations to
influence American foreign policy, of which AIPAC is the most powerful
and well-known."
"Many of the key organizations in the Lobby, such as the American
Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the Conference of
Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, are run by
hardliners who generally support the Likud Party's expansionist
policies, including its hostility to the Oslo Peace Process."
"AIPAC itself, however, forms the core of the Lobby's influence in
Congress."
"The bottom line is that AIPAC, which is a de facto agent for a
foreign government, has a stranglehold on the U.S. Congress."
"The Lobby also has significant leverage over the Executive branch.
That power derives in part from the influence Jewish voters have on
presidential elections."
"Key organizations in the Lobby also directly target the
administration in power ... [and] make sure that critics of the Jewish
state do not get important foreign-policy appointments"
"Pro-Israel congressional staffers are another source of the Lobby's
power. As Morris Amitay, a former head of AIPAC, once admitted, 'There
are a lot of guys at the working level up here [on Capitol Hill] ... who
happen to be Jewish, who are willing ... to look at certain issues in
terms of their Jewishness.... These are all guys who are in a position
to make the decision in these areas for those senators.'"
"The Lobby's perspective on Israel is widely reflected in the
mainstream media in good part because most American commentators are
pro-Israel."
"The Lobby doesn't want an open debate, of course, because that might
lead Americans to question the level of support they provide."
"Were it not for the Lobby's ability to manipulate the American
political system, the relationship between Israel and the United
States would be far less intimate than it is today."
"American Jewish leaders often consult with Israeli officials, so that
the former can maximize their influence in the United States."
"The Lobby also monitors what professors write and teach."
"Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this campaign to eliminate
criticism of Israel from college campuses is the effort by Jewish
groups to push Congress to establish mechanisms that monitor what
professors say about Israel."
"Jewish philanthropists have established Israel studies programs (in
addition to the roughly 130 Jewish Studies programs that already
exist) so as to increase the number of Israel-friendly scholars on
campus."
"No discussion of how the Lobby operates would be complete without
examining one of its most powerful weapons: the charge of anti-
Semitism. Anyone who criticizes Israeli actions or says that pro-
Israel groups have significant influence over U.S. Middle East policy
- an influence that AIPAC celebrates - stands a good chance of getting
labeled an anti-Semite."
"the [Iraq] war was due in large part to the Lobby's influence,
especially the neoconservatives within it."
"Congress insisted on putting the screws to Damascus, largely in
response to pressure from Israel officials and pro-Israel groups like
AIPAC."
"the Lobby must keep constant pressure on U.S. politicians to confront
Tehran."
"If their efforts to shape U.S. policy succeed, then Israel's enemies
get weakened or overthrown, Israel gets a free hand with the
Palestinians, and the United States does most of the fighting, dying,
rebuilding, and paying."
"It is not meant to suggest that 'the lobby' is a unified movement
with a central leadership, or that individuals within it do not
disagree on certain issues."
"Not all Jewish Americans are part of the Lobby, because Israel is not
a salient issue for many of them."
"There is nothing improper about American Jews and their Christian
allies attempting to sway U.S. policy; the Lobby's activities are not
a conspiracy... For the most part the individuals and groups in it are
only doing what other special interest groups do, but doing it very
much better." However, "the mere existence of the Lobby suggests that
unconditional support for Israel is not in the American national
interest. If it was, one would not need an organized special interest
group to bring it about."
"Can the Lobby's power be curtailed? One would like to think so ...
But that is not going to happen anytime soon."
[edit] On U.S. support for Israel
Economic: According to the authors, Israel is "the largest total
recipient since World War II" of U.S. aid. "Total direct U.S. aid to
Israel for this period amounts to well over $1.4 trillion from 1973 to
2003. Israel receives about $3 billion in direct foreign assistance
each year, which is about one-fifth of America's foreign aid budget."
The authors claim that "This largesse is especially striking when one
realizes that Israel is now a wealthy industrial state with a per
capita income roughly equal to South Korea or Spain."
The authors claim that "Israel is the only recipient of U.S. aid that
does not have to account for how the aid is spent." According to the
authors, this makes it "virtually impossible to prevent the money from
being used for purposes the United States opposes."
Diplomatic/political: The authors write, "Since 1982, the United
States has vetoed 32 United Nations Security Council resolutions that
were critical of Israel, a number greater than the combined total of
vetoes cast by all the other Security Council members together." They
further posit that the U.S. also "blocks Arab states' efforts to put
Israel's nuclear arsenal on the International Atomic Energy Agency's
agenda."
[edit] Analysis of Israel as a Strategic Asset and the moral case for
support
The authors state: "This extraordinary generosity might be
understandable if Israel were a vital strategic asset or if there were
a compelling moral case for sustained U.S. backing. But neither
rationale is convincing". The authors offer the following in support
of this argument:
[edit] Strategic Asset
"Backing Israel is not cheap, however, and it complicates America's
relations with the Arab World."
"The first Gulf War revealed the extent to which Israel was becoming a
strategic burden."
"In fact, Israel is a liability in the war on terror and the broader
effort to deal with rogue states."
"More important, saying that Israel and the U.S. are united by a
shared terrorist threat has the causal relationship backwards; the
U.S. has a terrorism problem because it is so closely aligned with
Israel, not the other way around."
"As for the so-called rogue states in the Middle East, they are not a
dire threat to vital U.S. interests, except inasmuch as they are a
threat to Israel."
"A final reason to question Israel's strategic value is that it does
not behave like a loyal ally."
[edit] The Moral Case for Support
"There is a strong moral case for supporting Israel's continued
existence, but that is not in jeopardy."
"Today Israel is the strongest military power in the Middle East. Its
conventional forces are far superior to those of its neighbors and it
is the only state in the region with nuclear weapons."
"That Israel is a fellow democracy surrounded by hostile dictatorships
cannot account for the current level of aid."
"The country's creation was undoubtedly an appropriate response to the
long record of crimes against Jews but it also brought about fresh
crimes against a largely innocent third party: the Palestinians".
"Yet on this ground (seeking peace), Israel's record is not
distinguishable from that of its opponents."
"...Yitzhak Shamir, once a terrorist and later prime minister of
Israel declared that 'neither Jewish ethics nor Jewish tradition can
disqualify terrorism as a means of combat.'"
[edit] Reception
[edit] Praise
The paper was described as a "wake-up call" by Daniel Levy,[8] former
advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. In a March 25 article
for Haaretz, Levy wrote, "Their case is a potent one: that
identification of American with Israeli interests can be principally
explained via the impact of the Lobby in Washington, and in limiting
the parameters of public debate, rather than by virtue of Israel being
a vital strategic asset or having a uniquely compelling moral case for
support".[9]
Former U.S. Ambassador Edward Peck, now of the Independent Institute
and the Council for the National Interest, an anti-Israel lobby, wrote
that "The expected tsunami of rabid responses condemned the report,
vilified its authors, and denied there is such a lobby - validating
both the lobby's existence and aggressive, pervasive presence and
obliging Harvard to remove its name." Peck is generally in agreement
with the paper's core thesis: "Opinions differ on the long-term costs
and benefits for both nations, but the lobby's views of Israel's
interests have become the basis of U.S. Middle East policies."[10]
Rupert Cornwell, writing in The Independent, welcomed "a debate on
America's support for Israel", and accused the "Jewish lobby" of
"suppression of serious domestic debate on the U.S. relationship with
Israel" and "conflation of Israel's conflict with the Palestinians
with America's war on terror".[11]
Tony Judt, a historian at New York University, wrote in the New York
Times, that "[in] spite of [the paper's] provocative title, the essay
draws on a wide variety of standard sources and is mostly
uncontentious." He goes on to ask "[does] the Israel Lobby affect our
foreign policy choices? Of course - that is one of its goals. [...]
But does pressure to support Israel distort American decisions? That's
a matter of judgment." He concludes the essay by taking the
perspective that "this essay, by two 'realist' political scientists
with no interest whatsoever in the Palestinians, is a straw in the
wind." And that "it will not be self-evident to future generations of
Americans why the imperial might and international reputation of the
United States are so closely aligned with one small, controversial
Mediterranean client state."[12]
Michael Scheuer, a former senior official at the CIA and now a
terrorism analyst for CBS News, said to NPR that Mearsheimer and Walt
are basically right. Israel, according to Scheuer, has engaged in one
of the most successful campaigns to influence public opinion in the
United States ever conducted by a foreign government. Scheuer said to
NPR that "They [Mearsheimer and Walt] should be credited for the
courage they have had to actually present a paper on the subject. I
hope they move on and do the Saudi lobby, which is probably more
dangerous to the United States than the Israeli lobby."[13]
Zbigniew Brzezinski, former national security advisor to U.S.
President Jimmy Carter, wrote: "Mearsheimer and Walt adduce a great
deal of factual evidence that over the years Israel has been the
beneficiary of privileged - indeed, highly preferential - financial
assistance, out of all proportion to what the United States extends to
any other country. The massive aid to Israel is in effect a huge
entitlement that enriches the relatively prosperous Israelis at the
cost of the American taxpayer. Money being fungible, that aid also
pays for the very settlements that America opposes and that impede the
peace process."[14]
Abdulmo'em Abulfotah, a senior member of the Muslim Brotherhood (a
Sunni Islamist group that, according to U.S. Government-operated Voice
of America, was banned but tolerated by the Egyptian government as of
late 2005[15]) said he thinks "that the people who wrote that report
were working for the interest of the American people."[16]
[edit] Mixed reviews
Columnist Christopher Hitchens agreed that "AIPAC and other Jewish
organizations exert a vast influence over Middle East policy", and
stated that the paper "contains much that is true and a little that is
original" and that he "would have gone further than Mearsheimer and
Walt". However, he also says that "what is original is not true and
what is true is not original", and that the notion that the "Jewish
tail wags the American dog... the United States has gone to war in
Iraq to gratify Ariel Sharon, and... the alliance between the two
countries has brought down on us the wrath of Osama Bin Laden" is
"partly misleading and partly creepy".[17]
An editorial in Israeli newspaper Haaretz said that the paper
"involved an attempt to blame the Jews for developments that are
unconnected to them", and goes on to say that "the conclusion that
Israel can draw from the anti-Israel feeling expressed in the article
is that it will not be immune for eternity." It concludes that "it
would be irresponsible to ignore the article's serious and disturbing
message.... The professors' article does not deserve condemnation;
rather, it should serve as a warning sign."[18]
In describing the last of three "surprising weaknesses" of the paper,
Eric Alterman writes in The Nation, "Third, while it's fair to call
AIPAC obnoxious and even anti-democratic, the same can often be said
about, say, the NRA, Big Pharma and other powerful lobbies. The
authors note this but often seem to forget it. This has the effect of
making the Jews who read the paper feel unfairly singled out, and
inspires much emotionally driven mishigas in reaction. Do these
problems justify the inference that the authors are anti-Semitic? Of
course not. "[19]
Joseph Massad, professor of modern Arab politics and intellectual
history at Columbia University, writes, "Is the pro-Israel lobby
extremely powerful in the United States? As someone who has been
facing the full brunt of their power for the last three years through
their formidable influence on my own university and their attempts to
get me fired, I answer with a resounding yes. Are they primarily
responsible for U.S. policies towards the Palestinians and the Arab
world? Absolutely not." Massad then argued U.S. policy is
imperialistic, and has only supported those struggling for freedom
when it is politically convenient, especially in the Middle East.[20]
Michelle Goldberg[3]gives a detailed analysis of the paper. She writes
about some "baffling omissions", e.g. : "Amazingly, Walt and
Mearsheimer don't even mention Fatah or Black September, Munich or
Entebbe. One might argue that Israel has killed more Palestinians than
visa versa, but it doesn't change the role of spectacular Palestinian
terrorism in shaping American attitudes toward Israel." She also finds
valuable points: "Walt and Mearsheimer are correct, after all, in
arguing that discussion about Israel is hugely circumscribed in
mainstream American media and politics.... Indeed, one can find far
more critical coverage of the Israeli occupation in liberal Israeli
newspapers like Haaretz than in any American daily."
Michael Massing, contributing editor of the Columbia Journalism
Review, writes: "The lack of a clearer and fuller account of
Palestinian violence is a serious failing of the essay. Its tendency
to emphasize Israel's offenses while largely overlooking those of its
adversaries has troubled even many doves." On the other hand, he
writes: "The nasty campaign waged against John Mearsheimer and Stephen
Walt has itself provided an excellent example of the bullying tactics
used by the lobby and its supporters. The wide attention their
argument has received shows that, in this case, those efforts have not
entirely succeeded. Despite its many flaws, their essay has performed
a very useful service in forcing into the open a subject that has for
too long remained taboo."[21]
Stephen Zunes, professor of politics at the University of San
Francisco, gives a detailed point by point critique of the paper, and
concludes: "The consequences of U.S. policy regarding the Israeli-
Palestinian conflict could be tragic, not just for Palestinians and
other Arabs, who are the immediate victims of the diplomatic support
and largess of American aid to Israel, but ultimately for Israel as
well. The fates of American client states have often not been
positive. Though differing in many respects, Israel could end up like
El Salvador or South Vietnam, whose leadership made common cause with
U.S. global designs in ways that ultimately led to untold misery and
massive destruction. Israeli leaders and their counterparts in many
American Zionist organizations have been repeating the historic error
of accepting short-term benefits for their people at the risk of
compromising long-term security.... To blame the current morass in the
Middle East on the Israel lobby only exacerbates animosities and plays
into the hands of the divide-and-rule tactics of those in Congress and
the administration whose primary objective is ultimately not to help
Israel but to advance the American Empire."[22]
University of Maryland professor Shibley Telhami, a fellow at the
Brookings Institution and critic of the Iraq war, describes the
professors as "incredibly bold" at stirring policy and theoretical
debates, but strongly disputes the Lobby's role in pushing the U.S.
into war. "There's no doubt that neocons long wanted a war. But in the
end it was the decision of a president who was super-empowered after
9/11 and who could have ignored them."[23]
David Remnick, editor of the New Yorker, writes, "Mearsheimer and Walt
give you the sense that, if the Israelis and the Palestinians come to
terms, bin Laden will return to the family construction
business." (http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/
2007/09/03/070903taco_talk_remnick)
[edit] Criticism
[edit] Scholars
The paper has faced criticism, for differing reasons, from individuals
across the ideological spectrum.
A number of Harvard professors have criticized the paper. Marvin Kalb,
a lecturer in public policy, Edward R. Murrow Professor of Press and
Public Policy from 1987 to 1999, and former Director and now Senior
Fellow[16] at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard,
said that the paper failed to meet basic quality standards for
academic research.[24] Ruth Wisse, a professor of Yiddish Literature
and Comparative Literature, wrote, "When the authors imply that the
bipartisan support of Israel in Congress is a result of Jewish
influence, they function as classic conspiracy theorists who attribute
decisions to nefarious alliances rather than to the choices of a
democratic electorate".[25] David Gergen, a professor of public
service at the Kennedy School at Harvard, wrote that the charges in
the paper are "wildly at variance with what I have personally
witnessed in the Oval Office over the years"[26] Alan Dershowitz,
professor of Law, wrote a report challenging the factual basis of the
paper, the motivations of the authors and their scholarship.
Dershowitz claimed that, "The paper contains three types of major
errors: quotations are wrenched out of context, important facts are
misstated or omitted, and embarrassingly weak logic is employed."[27]
Noam Chomsky, professor of linguistics at MIT, asserts that he did not
find the thesis of the paper very convincing. He said that Stephen
Zunes has rightly pointed out that "there are far more powerful
interests that have a stake in what happens in the Persian Gulf region
than does AIPAC [or the Lobby generally], such as the oil companies,
the arms industry and other special interests whose lobbying influence
and campaign contributions far surpass that of the much-vaunted
Zionist lobby and its allied donors to congressional races." He finds
that the authors "have a highly selective use of evidence (and much of
the evidence is assertion)", ignores historical "world affairs", and
blames the Lobby for issues that are not relevant.[28]
Benny Morris, a widely quoted scholar on the Arab-Israeli conflict and
a professor of Middle East history at Ben-Gurion University, prefaced
a very detailed analysis with the remark: "Like many pro-Arab
propagandists at work today, Mearsheimer and Walt often cite my own
books, sometimes quoting directly from them, in apparent corroboration
of their arguments. Yet their work is a travesty of the history that I
have studied and written for the past two decades. Their work is
riddled with shoddiness and defiled by mendacity."[29]
Stephen Zunes, professor of politics at the University of San
Francisco, gives a detailed point by point critique of the paper, and
writes: "There is something quite convenient and discomfortingly
familiar about the tendency to blame an allegedly powerful and wealthy
group of Jews for the overall direction of an increasingly
controversial U.S. policy. Indeed, like exaggerated claims of Jewish
power at other times in history, such an explanation absolves the real
powerbrokers and assigns blame to convenient scapegoats. This is not
to say that Mearsheimer, Walt, or anyone else who expresses concern
about the power of the Israel lobby is an anti-Semite, but the way in
which this exaggerated view of Jewish power parallels historic anti-
Semitism should give us all pause."[30]
Jonathan Rosenblum, columnist for Maariv and the Jerusalem Post, said
that Mearsheimer and Walt prefer "to portray President Bush, Vice
President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (not to
mention former President Bill Clinton) as helpless dupes of the lobby,
than to discuss their policy choices."[31]
Shlomo Ben-Ami, foreign minister of Israel under Barak, wrote:
"Mearsheimer and Walt's focus on the Israel lobby's influence on
America's Middle East policy is grossly overblown. They portray U.S.
politicians as being either too incompetent to understand America's
national interest, or so undutiful that they would sell it to any
pressure group for the sake of political survival. Sentiment and
idealism certainly underlie America's commitment to Israel. But so do
the shared interests and considerations of realpolitik."[32]
John Judis, a senior editor at The New Republic and a visiting scholar
at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote: "I think
Walt and Mearsheimer do exaggerate the influence of the Israel lobby
and define the lobby in such an inclusive way as to beg the question
of its influence."[33]
Middle East historian Michael Oren wrote: "To prove their argument,
the professors don't rely on such banal sources as declassified
records, presidential memoirs, or State Department documents. These
would unimpeachably show that Arab oil (and not Israel) was America's
persistent focus in the Middle East - and that presidents have
supported Israel for strategic and moral reasons, not political ones.
But, instead of citing archival sources, Walt and Mearsheimer pack
their footnotes with newspaper articles and references to the
polemical writings of Noam Chomsky and Norman Finklestein, as well as
the unreservedly pro-Arab Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.
The paper's slipshod quality was so evident that the Kennedy School
removed its official seal from the treatise."[34][35]
Other critical scholars include Johns Hopkins University professor
Eliot A. Cohen;[36] University of Maryland history professor Jeffrey
Herf;[37] Columbia University journalism professor Samuel G. Freedman;
[38] Princeton University professor of politics and international
affairs Aaron Friedberg;[39] and Stanford University political science
professor Josef Joffe.[40]
[edit] Members of organizations
The Anti-Defamation League published an analysis of the paper,
describing it as "amateurish and biased critique of Israel, American
Jews, and American policy" and a "sloppy diatribe".[41]
The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, a
media watchdog group monitoring perceived anti-Israel coverage,
published a detailed critique of the paper, claiming that it was
"riddled with errors of fact, logic and omission, has inaccurate
citations, displays extremely poor judgement regarding sources, and,
contrary to basic scholarly standards, ignores previous serious work
on the subject".[42]
A list of critiques of the paper, with links, is posted on the Engage
website.[43].
Edward Walker, president of the Middle East Institute and former U.S.
ambassador in Egypt and Israel, told NPR: "I lived through all the
history that these gentlemen write about, and I didn't recognize it,
not from the way they described it - and I was in government all this
time."[13]
Other critical organizations and affiliated individuals include the
Dore Gold from the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs,[44] and Neal
Sher of AIPAC.[45]
[edit] Others
Congressman Eliot L. Engel described the authors as "dishonest so-
called intellectuals" - he insisted they were "entitled to their
stupidity", and had a right to publish it, but also supported "the
right of the rest of us to expose them for being the anti-Semites they
are."[24]
Congressman Robert Wexler (D-FL) dismissed the idea that Israel's
supporters control American policy in the Middle East. "Americans are
just solid, rock-solid with the people of Israel. It is a democratic
nation and a freedom-loving people and a very decent people and they
deserve to have a free and secure state."[46][47]
Madeleine Albright, Secretary of State of the United States from 1997
to 2000, acknowledged that the Israel lobby was very strong. She spoke
of the resistance she encountered from the lobby over sales of
airplanes to Saudi Arabia in 1978, during her tenure on the National
Security Council in the Carter administration. However, she found "a
genuine problem in some of the things" in the Mearsheimer-Walt paper,
and found it "highly overstated". She concluded "So I think it's very
easy to get on this tack all of a sudden that it's some kind of an
overly powerful Jewish lobby.... So I would not, in fact, stress that
as much as I would stress the fact that the U.S. does have an
indissoluble relationship with Israel that is based on history and
culture."[48]
Daily Mail journalist Melanie Phillips writing in her own blog called
the paper a "particularly ripe example of the global Zionist
conspiracy' libel". According to Phillips, "The fundamental
misrepresentations and distortions in this LRB paper are quite
astonishing." For example, she dismisses the paper's assertion that
Israeli citizenship "is based on the principle of blood kinship" as
"totally untrue" because "Arabs and other non-Jews are Israeli
citizens." Contrary to the claim by the paper's authors that critics
of Israel stand "a good chance of getting labeled an antisemite",
writes Phillips, "they stand instead an excellent chance of being
published in the London Review of Books". [49]
Others critical of the paper include Caroline Glick of The Jerusalem
Post;[50] columnist Bret Stephens;[51][52] editor of Jewish Current
Issues Rick Richman;[53][54] and James Taranto of the The Wall Street
Journal;[55]
[edit] Reaction to the reception
Harvard's Kennedy School of Government removed its logo, more strongly
wording its disclaimer and making it more prominent, and insisting the
paper reflected only the views of its authors.[56][57][58] The Kennedy
School said in a statement: "The only purpose of that removal was to
end public confusion; it was not intended, contrary to some
interpretations, to send any signal that the school was also
'distancing' itself from one of its senior professors"[59] and stated
that they are committed to academic freedom, and do not take a
position on faculty conclusions and research.[60]
Mark Mazower, a professor of history at Columbia University, wrote
that it is not possible to openly debate the topic of the article:
"What is striking is less the substance of their argument than the
outraged reaction: to all intents and purposes, discussing the US-
Israel special relationship still remains taboo in the U.S. media
mainstream. [...] Whatever one thinks of the merits of the piece
itself, it would seem all but impossible to have a sensible public
discussion in the U.S. today about the country's relationship with
Israel."[61]
Criticism of the paper has itself been called "moral blackmail" and
"bullying" by an opinion piece in The Financial Times: "Moral
blackmail - the fear that any criticism of Israeli policy and U.S.
support for it will lead to charges of anti-Semitism - is a powerful
disincentive to publish dissenting views...Bullying Americans into a
consensus on Israeli policy is bad for Israel and makes it impossible
for America to articulate its own national interest." The editorial
praised the paper, remarking that "They argue powerfully that
extraordinarily effective lobbying in Washington has led to a
political consensus that American and Israeli interests are
inseparable and identical." [62]
Juan Cole responded to Alan Dershowitz, disputing Dershowitz's major
factual criticisms, charging that Dershowitz "sets up the straw man
that the authors claim that a central "cabal" of "Jews" tightly
controls the U.S. press and the U.S. government and prevents them from
criticizing Israel" and claiming that Dershowitz is trying to imply
that "Mearsheimer and Walt are anti-Semites in the Henry Ford/
Protocols of the Elders of Zion tradition".[63]
Richard Cohen responded in The Washington Post to Eliot A. Cohen's
prior editorial in the same newspaper, denying that the working paper
is anti-Semitic, and calling Eliot Cohen's piece "offensive": "To
associate Mearsheimer and Walt with hate groups is rank guilt by
association and does not in any way rebut the argument made in their
paper on the Israel lobby." Richard Cohen found the paper
unremarkable, calling its "basic point" "inarguable", but contends
that "Israel's special place in U.S. foreign policy is deserved, in my
view, and not entirely the product of lobbying." He also observes that
the article is "a bit sloppy and one-sided (nothing here about the
Arab oil lobby)".[64]
Syndicated political commentator Molly Ivins believes that "the sheer
disproportion, the vehemence of the attacks on anyone perceived as
criticizing Israel that makes them so odious. Mearsheimer and Walt are
both widely respected political scientists - comparing their writing
to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is just silly." She herself
comments that she finds the arguments of the paper to be
"unexceptional" and that "it seems an easy case can be made that the
United States has subjugated its own interests to those of Israel in
the past."[65]
[edit] Mearsheimer and Walt's response
Mearsheimer stated, "[w]e fully recognised that the lobby would
retaliate against us" and "[w]e expected the story we told in the
piece would apply to us after it was published. We are not surprised
that we've come under attack by the lobby."[66] He also stated "we
expected to be called anti-semites, even though both of us are philo-
semites and strongly support the existence of Israel."[59]
Mearsheimer and Walt responded to their critics in a letter to the
London Review of Books. [67]
To the accusation that they "see the lobby as a well-organised Jewish
conspiracy" they refer to their description of the lobby "a loose
coalition of individuals and organisations without a central
headquarters".
To the accusation of mono-causality, they remark "we also pointed out
that support for Israel is hardly the only reason America's standing
in the Middle East is so low".
To the complaint that they "'catalogue Israel's moral flaws', while
paying little attention to the shortcomings of other states", they
refer to the "high levels of material and diplomatic support" given by
the United States especially to Israel as a reason to focus on it.
To the claim that U.S. support for Israel reflects "genuine support
among the American public" they agree, but argue that "this popularity
is substantially due to the lobby's success at portraying Israel in a
favourable light and effectively limiting public awareness and
discussion of Israel's less savoury actions".
To the claim that there are countervailing forces "such as 'paleo-
conservatives, Arab and Islamic advocacy groups... and the diplomatic
establishment'", they argue that these are no match for the lobby.
To the argument that oil rather than Israel drives Middle East policy,
they claim that the United States would favour the Palestinians
instead of Israel, and would not have gone to war in Iraq or be
threatening Iran if that were so.
They accuse various critics of smearing them by linking them to
racists, and dispute various claims by Alan Dershowitz and others that
their facts, references or quotations are mistaken.
Ori Nir at The Forward wrote: "Asked if the study may have been
initially rejected by the American publisher because of poor research,
Mearsheimer said that the "evidence in the piece is just the tip of
the iceberg," and that the study's observations are supported by a
large body of evidence."[68] Speaking at a forum at invitation of the
Council on American-Islamic Relations, Walt expresses that the Israel
lobby "is not a cabal," that it is "not synonymous with American Jews"
and that "there is nothing improper or illegitimate about its
activities."[69]
In answering a question at Georgetown University about David Gergen's
criticism, Walt noted that Gergen, in his White House days, was
primarily involved in public relations and spin, not the formation of
Middle East policy.
The authors have privately circulated a 79-page rebuttal, "Setting the
Record Straight: A Response to Critics of 'The Israel Lobby'" [17],
and are working on a book on the subject.[70]
[edit] Response to support by David Duke
David Duke "devoted his entire half-hour Internet radio broadcast on
March 18 [2006] to the paper."[71][72][73][74] On March 21, 2006, Duke
praised the paper on MSNBC's Scarborough Country program.[75] Duke has
stated he is "surprised how excellent [the paper] is" and claimed his
views had been "vindicated" by its publication. According to Duke,
"the task before us is to wrest control of America's foreign policy
and critical junctures of media from the Jewish extremist Neocons".
[16] In response, Walt stated "I have always found Mr. Duke's views
reprehensible, and I am sorry he sees this article as consistent with
his view of the world".[16]
Mary-Kay Wilmers, the editor of the London Review of Books, which
published a version of the paper, said: "I don't want David Duke to
endorse the article. It makes me feel uncomfortable. But when I re-
read the piece, I did not see anything that I felt should not have
been said. Maybe it is because I am Jewish, but I think I am very
alert to anti-Semitism. And I do not think that criticising U.S.
foreign policy, or Israel's way of going about influencing it, is anti-
Semitic. I just don't see it."[76]
Juan Cole, a historian at the University of Michigan writing in
Salon.com in support of the paper, characterises the association of
the paper with Duke made in the New York Sun and elsewhere as "guilt
by association". [63]
[edit] Debate
