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The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy
By John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007,
484 pp. List: $26.00; AET: $17.75.
Reviewed by Paul Findley
ABRAHAM LINCOLN ducked when religion surfaced during his successful campaign
for Congress in 1846. Asked about a controversial Mormon village nearby, he
responded with a story: "This reminds me of the farmer who confronted a tree
trunk in the center of a field he was plowing. It was too green to burn, too
twisted to split, and too heavy to haul away. What did he do? He plowed
around it."
Lincoln knew religion was a touchy issue, so he plowed around it. In
contrast, John J. Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen M.
Walt of Harvard, distinguished professors in distinguished universities,
plow straight into the most politically sensitive religious issue of this
era-the phenomenal, harmful influence of a foreign religious state, Israel,
in the formulation of U.S. foreign policy.
The volume they have co-authored, The Israel Lobby, is a comprehensive study
of the staggering damage to U.S. national interest by the American Israel
Public Affairs Committee and other pro-Israel advocacy groups. In it, they
set a new standard of political bravery by proposing that further U.S. aid
be conditioned on Israel withdrawing from Arab territory seized in June 1967
and on its "willingness to conform its policies to American interests."
During the past 40 years, no president or serious presidential candidate of
either party has hinted-on or off the record-that even minor conditions
should be put on aid to Israel. In my close experience in the thicket of
Middle East politics during those years, I could count on the fingers of one
hand the candidates for any office that daring. The professors are brave
pioneers.
Unlike Lincoln in 1846, neither Mearsheimer nor Walt was or is a candidate
for public office, but they wrote this book with their eyes wide open, fully
warned by recent events that any major document presenting criticism of
Israel will stir passions strong enough to threaten any career, academic or
otherwise. A year earlier, their study paper on the same theme as their
book, first rejected by the Atlantic Monthly magazine, was published by the
London Review of Books. Widely circulated through the Internet, and
reprinted by the Washington Report, it prompted both caresses and cuffs. The
latter even included reckless charges of anti-Semitism from Zionists like
Harvard's Alan Dershowitz who seem to think only with their glands when
Israel is criticized.
Instead of retreating to the relative obscurity of thick ivy, Mearsheimer
and Walt stood their ground without flinching, answered their critics,
defended their analysis and conclusions, and spent most of the next year
expanding the study paper's theme into a book that deserves the attention of
every thoughtful citizen.
A few of its gems:
"Pressure from Israel and the lobby was not the only factor behind the
Bush administration's decision to attack Iraq in March 2003, but it was a
crucial element.
".the United States has a terrorism problem in good part because it has
long been so supportive of Israel.
".bin Laden and his deputies clearly see the issue of Palestine as central
to their agenda.
"Israel's ability to defy the United States-and even to get Washington to
allow its preferred approach to dealing with the Palestinians-offers a
classical illustration of interest group politics at work.
"Backing Israel against the Palestinians makes winning the war on terror
harder, not easier.
"...Israel's l.36 million non-Jews are de facto treated as second-class
citizens.
"Smearing critics of Israel or the lobby with the charge of anti-Semitism
works to marginalize them in the public arena."
The book details the terrible human and monetary cost to the American people
of permitting Israel, through its U.S. lobby, to manipulate U.S. Middle East
policy. The intrepid pair shuns ambiguity and reaches firm conclusions on
almost every topic. They demolish the extensive mythology about Israel in
355 pages of easy-read text, buttressed by 106 pages of small-font reference
notes. The language is plain and devoid of confrontational prose. The
authors take care to assure the reader that they do not consider the lobby a
part of a cabal or conspiracy, but their book is a veritable bombshell that
should arouse the sleepiest citizen to political action.
Especially impressive is the book's examination of the Israel lobby's
crucial role in the build-up for the U.S. assault on Iraq and its pressures
for bombing Iran's nuclear facilities. While the rest of the world protested
strongly, lobby activity prompted Congress and the Bush administration to
support and publicly endorse Israel's bloody, destructive invasion of
Lebanon in 2006. The text shows that oil interests played no significant
role at any stage in the buildup for the war against Iraq. The authors
lament U.S. failure to stop or even moderate Israel's long years of brutal
and humiliating treatment of Palestinians, a record that the authors find
largely responsible for anti-American sentiment worldwide, especially among
Muslims.
For me, the book is gratifying d
The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy
By John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007,
484 pp. List: $26.00; AET: $17.75.
Reviewed by Paul Findley
ABRAHAM LINCOLN ducked when religion surfaced during his successful campaign
for Congress in 1846. Asked about a controversial Mormon village nearby, he
responded with a story: "This reminds me of the farmer who confronted a tree
trunk in the center of a field he was plowing. It was too green to burn, too
twisted to split, and too heavy to haul away. What did he do? He plowed
around it."
Lincoln knew religion was a touchy issue, so he plowed around it. In
contrast, John J. Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen M.
Walt of Harvard, distinguished professors in distinguished universities,
plow straight into the most politically sensitive religious issue of this
era-the phenomenal, harmful influence of a foreign religious state, Israel,
in the formulation of U.S. foreign policy.
The volume they have co-authored, The Israel Lobby, is a comprehensive study
of the staggering damage to U.S. national interest by the American Israel
Public Affairs Committee and other pro-Israel advocacy groups. In it, they
set a new standard of political bravery by proposing that further U.S. aid
be conditioned on Israel withdrawing from Arab territory seized in June 1967
and on its "willingness to conform its policies to American interests."
During the past 40 years, no president or serious presidential candidate of
either party has hinted-on or off the record-that even minor conditions
should be put on aid to Israel. In my close experience in the thicket of
Middle East politics during those years, I could count on the fingers of one
hand the candidates for any office that daring. The professors are brave
pioneers.
Unlike Lincoln in 1846, neither Mearsheimer nor Walt was or is a candidate
for public office, but they wrote this book with their eyes wide open, fully
warned by recent events that any major document presenting criticism of
Israel will stir passions strong enough to threaten any career, academic or
otherwise. A year earlier, their study paper on the same theme as their
book, first rejected by the Atlantic Monthly magazine, was published by the
London Review of Books. Widely circulated through the Internet, and
reprinted by the Washington Report, it prompted both caresses and cuffs. The
latter even included reckless charges of anti-Semitism from Zionists like
Harvard's Alan Dershowitz who seem to think only with their glands when
Israel is criticized.
Instead of retreating to the relative obscurity of thick ivy, Mearsheimer
and Walt stood their ground without flinching, answered their critics,
defended their analysis and conclusions, and spent most of the next year
expanding the study paper's theme into a book that deserves the attention of
every thoughtful citizen.
A few of its gems:
"Pressure from Israel and the lobby was not the only factor behind the
Bush administration's decision to attack Iraq in March 2003, but it was a
crucial element.
".the United States has a terrorism problem in good part because it has
long been so supportive of Israel.
".bin Laden and his deputies clearly see the issue of Palestine as central
to their agenda.
"Israel's ability to defy the United States-and even to get Washington to
allow its preferred approach to dealing with the Palestinians-offers a
classical illustration of interest group politics at work.
"Backing Israel against the Palestinians makes winning the war on terror
harder, not easier.
"...Israel's l.36 million non-Jews are de facto treated as second-class
citizens.
"Smearing critics of Israel or the lobby with the charge of anti-Semitism
works to marginalize them in the public arena."
The book details the terrible human and monetary cost to the American people
of permitting Israel, through its U.S. lobby, to manipulate U.S. Middle East
policy. The intrepid pair shuns ambiguity and reaches firm conclusions on
almost every topic. They demolish the extensive mythology about Israel in
355 pages of easy-read text, buttressed by 106 pages of small-font reference
notes. The language is plain and devoid of confrontational prose. The
authors take care to assure the reader that they do not consider the lobby a
part of a cabal or conspiracy, but their book is a veritable bombshell that
should arouse the sleepiest citizen to political action.
Especially impressive is the book's examination of the Israel lobby's
crucial role in the build-up for the U.S. assault on Iraq and its pressures
for bombing Iran's nuclear facilities. While the rest of the world protested
strongly, lobby activity prompted Congress and the Bush administration to
support and publicly endorse Israel's bloody, destructive invasion of
Lebanon in 2006. The text shows that oil interests played no significant
role at any stage in the buildup for the war against Iraq. The authors
lament U.S. failure to stop or even moderate Israel's long years of brutal
and humiliating treatment of Palestinians, a record that the authors find
largely responsible for anti-American sentiment worldwide, especially among
Muslims.
For me, the book is gratifying d