Sent to you by Sean McBride via Google Reader: New "Israel Lobby" book by Mearsheimer and Walt reviewed by NY Times via On the Contrary by Michael A. Hoffman II on 9/6/07 A Prosecutorial Brief Against the Israeli Regime and Its Supporters
Editor's Note: A review by William Grimes of John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt's newly published "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" appears in today's editions of the New York Times. We have reproduced the review below, following our commentary. The headline of the review, "A Prosecutorial Brief Against Israel and Its Supporters" is subtly tilted against the authors. It should have been headlined, "A Prosecutorial Brief Against the Israeli Regime and Its Supporters," rather than "against Israel." The Times' accords George W. Bush the distinction of opposing the "Iranian regime" while allegedly supporting "the Iranian people." The Times should have extended the same distinctive benefit of the doubt to Mearsheimer and Walt. Having said that, this initial review (the Times will publish another one by a different and likely more jaundiced reviewer in a future edition) is something approaching a balanced assessment. It is marred by distractions, such as the predictive programming embedded in the reviewer's omniscient assertion that "most Americans" are pro-Israeli. We also can't help discerning the creeping semi-literacy that has slowly eroded the Times' once formidable use of the English language. I refer to Grimes' use of the neologism, "unignorable," a non-word inspired by the tech-manual scribbling of computer geeks who have appended the suffix, "able" to hundreds of words, reflective of our growing American intellectual laziness. In that slothful sense Grimes' review fails in that he does not scruple to quote one major argument of Mearsheimer and Walt. His central antidote to their work is his suggestion that Americans have too much emotional affection for the Israeli entity to detach from it. This is not an argument, it's a crystal ball prognostication. Grimes also fails to observe that Mearsheimer and Walt's antagonist, Alan Dershowitz, our nation's self-appointed Grand Inquisitor, is fresh from his triumphant interference in the tenure process at DePaul University, where he helped ensure the termination of Dr. Norman Finkelstein's professorship at that institution. Grimes also damns Mearsheimer and Walt's book with faint praise. He makes it appear cold, statistical, academic and therefore, unappealing. To his credit, however, the Times' reviewer briefly notes, though without naming the culprits, that the authors have been boycotted by institutions that are supposed to be champions of free inquiry. Allow this writer to fill in the blanks: the City University of New York, the Chicago Council on Foreign Affairs and three organizations in Chicago turned down or canceled scheduled public events with the authors. A book can't change the masses. The masses no longer read books. They are in thrall to television, movies and talk radio. "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" is intended to educate the current American elite and the future elite among today's university students. While this volume will not necessarily spark a revolution, it will gnaw, in the boardrooms, judges' chambers and among the middle and upper classes generally, at the foundations of Israeli prestige, as Jimmy Carter's "Peace not Apartheid" book did, and that's better than nothing. With typical hyperbole, the hysterical Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations compared the Mearsheimer/Walt book to "Hitler's big lie," charging that its aim is to "intimidate Jews and silence them." Observe the Judaic mentality at work: Hoenlein's powerhouse umbrella organization has done everything in its power to keep the book from being published. Mearsheimer and Walt have never tried to do anything similar to Zionist books (ADL's Abe Foxman has issued a book-length diatribe against them), and yet they are the ones accused of silencing and intimidating people. The tragedy of it all is found in the question that no one is asking: where is the Palestinian lobby in America? Answer: it doesn't exist. Hence, even if tomorrow utopia dawned, and every American pledged to support the Palestinian cause, there would be no political, financial or lobbying vehicle to channel that support into legislative muscle on Capitol hill. Some of the Israeli grip on the American ship of state is not due solely to pernicious Israeli lobbying, it's also the fault of Arab-American torpor. Sad to say, thus far U.S. Arabs have not approached anywhere near the energy and organizing ability of American Judaics. But let's see what there is to celebrate, rather than always being negative: two courageous professors who will not back down; the Farrar, Straus & Giroux publishing house that is printing and distributing their book and has paid them a $750,000 advance; and the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, which continues to function as protection against religious-fanatic zealots who would, if they had the opportunity, ban Mearsheimer and Walt's reasoned and documented dissent as "anti-semitic hate literature." I assure you, if we are not grateful for even small victories, God will not send us bigger ones. Thank you, John Mearsheimer, Stephen Walt, and your allies in American publishing and journalism, for a significant intellectual effort toward curbing the single most destructive assault on our nation's security, and the peace of the world: the regime that has imposed the racist, Talmudic, pirate state of counterfeit "Israel" on the indigenous people of the Middle East. --Michael A. Hofman II (Hoffman is the author of "The Israeli Holocaust Against the Palestinians." He is at work putting the finishing touches on his forthcoming book, "Judaism Discovered"). BOOKS OF THE TIMES A Prosecutorial Brief Against Israel and Its Supporters By WILLIAM GRIMES NY Times September 6, 2007 THE ISRAEL LOBBY AND U.S. FOREIGN POLICY By John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt 484 pages. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. $26. "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" arrives carrying heavy baggage. John J. Mearsheimer, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, and Stephen M. Walt, a professor of international affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, set off a furor last year by arguing, in an article that appeared in The London Review of Books, that uncritical American support for Israel, shaped by powerful lobbying organizations like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, does grave harm to both American and Israeli interests. A bitter debate has raged ever since, with accusations of anti-Semitism leveled by, among others, Alan M. Dershowitz, the Harvard law professor, and Abraham H. Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, one of the principal lobbying organizations taken to task by Mr. Mearsheimer and Mr. Walt. "The Israel Lobby," an extended, more fully argued version of the London Review article, has done nothing to calm the waters. The authors have been barred from making appearances by at least one university and several cultural centers to discuss their subject, and continue to reap a whirlwind of criticism and abuse. If they were looking for a fight, they have found it. Slowly, deliberately and dispassionately Mr. Mearsheimer and Mr. Walt lay out the case for a ruthlessly realistic Middle East policy that would make Israel nothing more than one of many countries in the region. On those occasions when Israel's interests coincide with America's, it should count on American support, but otherwise not. What Americans fail to understand, the authors argue, is that most of the time the two countries' interests are opposed. The reason they do not realize this, Mr. Mearsheimer and Mr. Walt insist, can be explained quite simply: The Israel lobby makes sure of it. Working closely with members of Congress, public-policy organizations and journals of opinion, energetic, well-financed groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and the American Jewish Committee, along with dozens of political-action committees, perpetuate the myth, as the authors see it, of Israel as an isolated, beleaguered state surrounded by enemies and in need of America's unstinting financial and military support. This lobby is particularly adept at stifling debate before it begins, the authors argue. "Whether the issue is abortion, arms control, affirmative action, gay rights, the environment, trade policy, health care, immigration or welfare, there is almost always a lively debate on Capitol Hill," they write. "But where Israel is concerned, potential critics fall silent and there is hardly any debate at all." There is nothing underhanded or devious about this, the authors say. Like the National Rifle Association or the AARP, the Israel lobby relies on the traditional political weapons available to any special-interest group in pressing its agenda. It just happens to be unusually skillful and effective. "It is simply a powerful interest group, made up of both Jews and gentiles, whose acknowledged purpose is to press Israel's case within the United States and influence American foreign policy in ways that its members believe will benefit the Jewish state," they write. The problem, Mr. Mearsheimer and Mr. Walt argue, is that Israel has become a strategic liability with the end of the cold war and a moral pariah in its dealings with the Palestinians and, most recently, the Lebanese. Uncritical American support for its closest Middle East ally has damaged American credibility in the Arab world, encouraged terrorism, stymied the search for a solution to the Palestinian problem, and in every way made America's international position weaker and more dangerous. Coolly, not to say coldly, Mr. Mearsheimer and Mr. Walt mount a prosecutorial brief against Israel's foreign and domestic policies, and against the state of Israel itself. They describe a virtual rogue state, empowered by American wealth and might, that blocks peace at every turn, threatens its cowering neighbors with impunity, crushes the national aspirations of the Palestinians and, whenever the opportunity arises, bites the hand that feeds it. Working tirelessly in the background is the Israel lobby, playing Iago to America's Othello, leading president after president down ever more dangerous paths. Without intense pressure from the Israel lobby, the authors argue, America would not have undertaken the war in Iraq. Most American readers will bristle at the authors' characterization of Israel. This is to be expected, Mr. Mearsheimer and Mr. Walt argue, because of the completely false image of Israel and its history that has been manufactured by the Israel lobby. As a result, Americans completely misinterpret the Palestinian issue and fail to support a productive policy that would tilt away from Israel and toward the Palestinians. The authors state, on several occasions, their belief that Israel has a moral and legal right to exist, but the effect of their book is to leave it dangling by a moral and strategic thread. In essence they call for the United States to cut Israel loose, to return more or less to American policy before the 1967 war, when the United States tried to occupy a middle ground between Israel and its Arab neighbors. Strangely, the authors do not itemize the fabulous benefits delivered by this approach in the 1950s and '60s. It is a little odd that so chilly a book should generate such heat. Most of Mr. Mearsheimer and Mr. Walt's arguments are familiar ones, and it is hardly inflammatory to point out that the major Jewish organizations tend to take a much tougher line on, say, a two-state solution to the Palestinian problem, the Iraq war or settlements in the West Bank, than most American Jews favor. The writers stand on eminently defensible ground when they argue for a more constructive, creative American role in peace talks. The general tone of hostility to Israel grates on the nerves, however, along with an unignorable impression that hardheaded political realism can be subject to its own peculiar fantasies. Israel is not simply one country among many, for example, just as Britain is not. Americans feel strong ties of history, religion, culture and, yes, sentiment, that the authors recognize, but only in an airy, abstract way. They also seem to feel that, with Israel and its lobby pushed to the side, the desert will bloom with flowers. A peace deal with Syria would surely follow, with a resultant end to hostile activity by Hezbollah and Hamas. Next would come a Palestinian state, depriving Al Qaeda of its principal recruiting tool. (The authors wave away the idea that Islamic terrorism thrives for other reasons.) Well, yes, Iran does seem to be a problem, but the authors argue that no one should be particularly bothered by an Iran with nuclear weapons. And on and on. "It is time," Mr. Mearsheimer and Mr. Walt write, "for the United States to treat Israel not as a special case but as a normal state, and to deal with it much as it deals with any other country." But it's not. And America won't. That's realism. End quote *** Things you can do from here: - Visit the original item on On the Contrary - Subscribe to On the Contrary using Google Reader - Get started using Google Reader to easily keep up with all your favorite sites
