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Gold9472
09-01-2007, 06:24 PM
The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy
By John J Mearsheimer and Stephen M Walt

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/non-fiction/article2348741.ece

Reviewed by Max Hastings
9/1/2007

Five years ago, Atlantic Monthly commissioned two academics, John Mearsheimer of Chicago University and Stephen Walt of Harvard, to write a significant article about the influence of the Israeli lobby on American foreign policy. When the piece was at last completed, the magazine declined to publish, deeming it too hot for delicate American palates. It eventually appeared in 2005, in the London Review of Books, provoking one of the most bitter media and academic rows of recent times. The authors were accused of antisemitism, and attacked with stunning venom by some prominent US commentators. Mearsheimer and Walt obviously like a fight, however, for they have now expanded their thesis into a book.

Its argument is readily summarised. The authors support Israel’s right to exist. But they are dismayed by America’s unconditional support for its governments’ policies, including vast sums of cash aid for which there is no plausible accounting process. They reject the view articulated as a mantra by all modern American presidents (and 2008 presidential candidates) that Israel and America share common values, and their national interests march hand in hand.

On the contrary, say the authors, America’s backing for Israel does grave damage to its own foreign-policy interests. And many Israeli government actions, including the expansion of West Bank settlements and the invasion of Lebanon, reflect repressive policies that do not deserve Washington’s endorsement: “While there is no question that the Jews were victims in Europe, they were often the victimisers, not the victims, in the Middle East, and their main victims were and continue to be the Palestinians.”

The authors argue that American policy towards Israel is decisively and

They quote the experience of a Senate candidate who was invited to visit AIPAC early in his campaign for “discussions”. Harry Lonsdale described what followed as “an experience I will never forget. It wasn’t enough that I was pro-Israel. I was given a list of vital topics and quizzed (read grilled) for my specific opinion on each. Actually, I was told what my opinion must be . . . Shortly after that . . . I was sent a list of American supporters of Israel . . . that I was free to call for campaign contributions. I called; they gave from Florida to Alaska”.

When congresswoman Betty McCollum, a liberal with a solid pro-Israel voting record, opposed the AIPAC-backed Palestinian AntiTerrorism Act, which was also opposed by the state department, an AIPAC lobbyist told McCollum’s chief-of-staff that her “support for terrorists will not be tolerated”. Former president Jimmy Carter incurred not merely criticism but vilification when he published a book entitled Palestine Peace Not Apartheid, likening Israel’s policy towards the Palestinians to that of the old white regime in South Africa towards its black majority.

Whatever view Europeans take of Israel, most find it difficult to comprehend the sheer ferocity of American sentiment. Ian Buruma wrote an article for The New York Times entitled How to Talk About Israel. He said how difficult it is to have an honest debate, and remarked that “even legitimate criticism of Israel, or of Zionism, is often quickly denounced as antiSemitism by various watchdogs”.

Such remarks brought down a storm on his head. The editor of The Jerusalem Post, also a columnist for The Wall Street Journal, published an open letter to Buruma that began: “Are you a Jew?” He argued that nonJews should discuss these issues only in terms acceptable to Jews.

The American media, claim the authors, even such mighty organs as The New York Times and The Washington Post, do less than justice to the Palestinians, much more than justice to the Israelis. Robert Bartley, a former editor of The Wall Street Journal, once said: “Shamir, Sharon, Bibi – whatever those guys want is pretty much fine by me.” There is no American counterpart to such notably Arabist British polemicists as Robert Fisk.

Mearsheimer and Walt’s book argues its points at such ponderous length that it makes pretty leaden reading. But it is extraordinary that, in a free society, the legitimacy of the expression of their opinions should be called into question. “We show,” say the authors, “that although Israel may have been an asset during the cold war it is increasingly a strategic liability now that the cold war is over. Backing Israel so strongly helps fuel America’s terrorism problem and makes it harder for the United States to address the other problems it faces in the Middle East.”

Americans ring-fence Israel from the normal sceptical proc-esses of democracy, while arguments for the Palestinians are often denounced as pernicious as well as antisemitic. All the 2008 presidential candidates, say Mearsheimer and Walt, know that their campaign would be dead in the water if they hinted that Israel would receive less than 100% backing if they win. They note that many Israelis are much bolder in attacking their own governments than any American politician would dare to be.

Part of the trouble is that AIPAC faces no significant opposition. Palestinians, and indeed all Arabs, command negligible sympathy in America, especially since 9/11. The authors think that the most helpful step towards diminishing the Israel lobby’s grip would be for election campaigns to be publicly financed, ending candidates’ dependence on private contributions: “AIPAC’s success is due in large part to its ability to reward legislators and congressional candidates who support its agenda, and to punish those who do not.”

But the authors know reform will not happen. The Israel lobby is vastly strengthened by the support of America’s Christian Zionists, an important element of George W Bush’s constituency. Some may think these people are lunatics, but there are an awful lot of them. They are even more strident in their opposition to Arab rights in Palestine than the Israeli Likud party.

Mearsheimer and Walt conclude, weakly but inevitably, with a mere plea for more open debate in the US about Israel. “Because most Americans are only dimly aware of the crimes committed against the Palestinians,” they say, “they see their continued resistance as an irrational desire for vengeance. Or as evidence of unwarranted hatred of Jews akin to the antisemitism that was endemic in old Europe.

“Although we deplore the Palestinians’ reliance on terrorism and are well aware of their own contribution to prolonging the conflict, we believe their grievances are genuine and must be addressed. We also believe that most Americans would support a different approach . . . if they had a more accurate understanding of past events and present conditions.”

For Europeans, all this adds up to a bleak picture. Only America might be capable of inducing the government of Israel to moderate its behaviour, and it will not try. Washington gives Jerusalem a blank cheque, and all of us in some degree pay a price for Israel’s abuses of it.

After that remark, I shall be pleasantly surprised to escape an allegation from somebody that I belong in the same stable of antisemites as Walt and Mearsheimer. Yet otherwise intelligent Americans diminish themselves by hurling charges of antisemitism with such recklessness. There will be no peace in the Middle East until the United States faces its responsibilities there in a much more convincing fashion than it does today, partly for reasons given in this depressing book.

simuvac
09-01-2007, 10:55 PM
This is definitely the elephant in the room.

On the one hand, I empathize with Israelis who take extreme measures to protect their country and their people. If I were Jewish and surrounded by a billion Christians and a billion Muslims, most of whom grow up with some form of antisemitism in their cultures, I would probably adopt some reactionary politics. The Holocaust was proof that enough people could turn their backs on the Jews.

On the other hand, those reactionary politics almost inevitably lead to unintended consequences. The neocons in both America and Israel are driving their countries to ruin, because the laws of physics suggest that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. You bully the world long enough, and the world will eventually bully you back.

That's my primitive reading of the situation. I guess I see the ebb and flow of the relationship between Israel and America as something of an inevitability. There are enough reactionaries in both countries, and at the moment they seem to have reigns, that I don't see things ending well. I mean, name one historical example in which a reactionary mode of politics lasted a generation or more without inciting a violent reaction to it. I can't think of one. Even the mafia goes through periods of purges, and they've been dishing it out for a long time. Eventually, people will be pushed too far, or some crisis will occur that will unleash suppressed resentment.

There is a media element to this story that I find troubling. Because corporate media will not allow any kind of moderate assessment of Israeli politics, it tends to radicalize its viewers. Either you vociferously endorse Israel in every way, like the evangelicals do, or you quietly loathe the amount of influence Israel has on American politics. That's not a healthy debate. Where are the moderates? The debate needs moderates. The longer the media forces criticism of Israel into the hushed corners of private conversation, the more radicalized that criticism will become because it will have no outlet for a proper dialogue. You're either with neocon/Republican/Likud politics, or you're silenced. That's not a sustainable debate, and it's certainly not a productive one.

As long as there is oil in the Middle East, however, America will support Israel without reservation. The bigots can say this is all about Zionists and their zealotry; but I believe the American establishment wouldn't give two hoots about Israel if it were not a geopolitical buffer in the Middle East, and therefore a necessary beachhead for American oil oligarchs. And I still believe that Saudi Arabia is far more important to American power than Israel, and that is the real "elephant in the room" for 9/11.

simuvac
09-01-2007, 10:59 PM
This is the sort of thing I'm talking about:

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/01/3552/

Published on Saturday, September 1, 2007 by Inter Press Service (http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39109)

Call to Halt EU Trade with Israel

by David Cronin

BRUSSELS - Trade between the European Union and Israel should be halted in protest at human rights violations in the Palestinian territories, a United Nations conference has heard.

Under a so-called association agreement, Israel currently enjoys free trade in industrial goods, and preferential treatment of farm produce entering the European Union. Luisa Morgantini, a vice-president of the European Parliament, said that her institution has called for this agreement to be suspended. So far, however, these calls have been rejected by EU governments and by the Union’s executive, the European Commission.

This is despite how article 2 of the agreement, which entered into force in 2000, commits both sides to respect human rights.

Morgantini was speaking at a UN conference on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Brussels (Aug. 30-31).

She argued that the EU has made “a lot of mistakes” in its handling of relations with the Middle East, particularly over the last year.

It was wrong, she said, for the Union to suspend direct aid to the Palestinian Authority in 2006, when the Islamist party Hamas swept to victory in parliamentary elections that the Union officially considered as fair and democratic.

She denounced, too, the EU’s decision to focus its support on the West Bank rather than Gaza. “As Europeans, we have to push not to divide but to unite the Palestinian people,” she said. “Our policy is sometimes exactly the opposite of this.”

She also voiced unease about how the EU has since 2005 been operating a border assistance mission in Rafah, the sole connection point between Gaza and the outside world.

The crossing has been largely closed by Israeli forces since Hamas seized control of Gaza in June, with the EU staff involved in the assistance mission taking no action to lift restrictions on the movement of Palestinians.

Eoin Murray from the Irish anti-poverty organisation Trócaire said that the EU has become “a subcontractor for the occupation” of Palestine and that the Union’s Rafah mission should be abandoned.

Each morning, he told IPS, the members of the EU mission travel to a point beside the crossing known to Palestinians as Karim Abu Salam, and to Israelis as Kerin Shalom. “The Israelis then say that they can’t come in for security reasons,” he said. “And the EU just accepts that.”

“Opening Rafah is essential to open people’s minds and end the suffocation of Gaza. At the moment, if you have cancer in Gaza you will just die because the Israelis will not allow you to cross to Egypt for radiological treatment.”

Murray called on the Union to rethink the willingness it has shown to repair civilian infrastructure, including schools and hospitals, destroyed by Israel.

The European Commission has estimated that 44 million euros (60 million dollars) worth of damage has been done by Israel to EU-funded projects in the Palestinian territories.

“The EU has picked up the tab for Israel,” he said. “The EU has paid for reconstruction and never asked for a penny back. It has allowed Israel to ignore its responsibilities under international law.”

Richard Kuper, London-based spokesman for European Jews for a Just Peace, alleged that Israel has carried out “grave breaches” of the Fourth Geneva Convention; agreed in 1949, it sets out the rights of people under foreign occupation.

He contended that Israel has been singled out for ’special treatment’ by both the EU and the U.S. Unlike other countries in the surrounding region, Israel has been allowed to develop nuclear weapons and has not been held to account for ignoring UN Security Council resolutions.

Kuper criticised the European Union’s Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia in Vienna (now renamed the Fundamental Rights Agency) for equating criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism.

In 2005, the Monitoring Centre produced a list of six examples of what could be considered as anti-Semitism. Five of these related to comments about Israel.

He called on the agency to rethink that definition and make it clear that criticism of Israel’s human rights violations is not tantamount to a blanket hatred of Jews. “Importing the Middle East conflict into Europe is the worst thing for Jews in Europe and for Muslims in Europe,” he told IPS.

“It goes without saying that we are totally opposed to anti-Semitism, as we are to all forms of racism. We are deeply concerned by any evidence of its revival, such as attacks on cemeteries, synagogues or individuals, attacked because they are identified as Jewish.

“Nonetheless, we are not impressed by attempts to define a ‘new anti-Semitism’ in which Israel as the ‘collective Jew’ occupies centre-stage. It seems to us that a concerted attempt is underway to make any criticism of Israel suspect.”

The Palestinian Authority’s envoy to Malaysia Abdelaziz Aboughosh said that “the long-standing failure to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict” has caused “deep-seated anger and frustration” among Muslims throughout the world.

He cited U.S. use of its veto at the UN Security Council as a factor in the conflict’s endurance.

“When the UN attempts to protect the Palestinian people from blatant, recurring violations of human rights and the daily atrocities perpetrated against them, it hopelessly finds itself faced against the veto power. Meanwhile, there are human rights documents being used against certain Third World states for much less serious violations.”

simuvac
09-03-2007, 12:01 PM
What? No one here has any thoughts on this?

The article on which this book is based was one of the most talked about publications last year. The topic is obviously contentious. And yet I stand alone having anything at all to say about this?

C'mon, folks. I want to hear a variety of opinions, not the hollow sound of my own voice.

Or is there nothing left to say at this point?

AuGmENTor
09-03-2007, 12:05 PM
I don't know too much about the whole Israel thing. It would take alot of core knowlege to get me going. I guess what I am saying is I haven't really devoted any time to what's going on with them. I'm sure it all ties in some how...

Gold9472
09-03-2007, 06:44 PM
You're asking for a debate on the topic, and unfortunately, any debate that would be about Israel's influence over the U.S. would be labeled as "anti-semitic."

Gold9472
09-03-2007, 06:47 PM
I don't mean here. I'm talking about in D.C.

simuvac
09-03-2007, 08:57 PM
It's unfortunate that that is the case.

I wasn't trying to goad anyone into hate speech. I'm just interested in what people think of the whole question of Israel's influence on American foreign policy.

I know the authors in question, even though they are both tenured professors from notable schools, were raked over the coals by several media outlets for their initial article on the subject. Doesn't bode well for the rest of us.

Gold9472
09-03-2007, 09:05 PM
Well... I do know that Israel has A LOT of influence over the current Administration. Moreso it seems than any Administration before it. That being said, does anyone have any idea how many countries lobby politicians in D.C.? We think of Israel as having so much influence (and it does with this Administration and others on Capitol Hill), but we never take into account the other countries that lobby the U.S. The corporations that lobby the U.S. Foreign policy is not solely written by Israel.

simuvac
09-03-2007, 09:14 PM
The Sibel Edmonds testimony suggests to me that "influence" in American foreign policy is less about a specific country such as Israel and more about networks of influential players that cross national boundaries. Iran/Contra seems indicative of this same phenomenon. The fact that 26 countries, including America and Israel, sold arms to Saddam Hussein also seems indicative of this phenomenon.

Guns
Oil
Drugs

I would bet controlling these things creates strange bedfellows (like when Israel was shipping arms to Iran in the Iran Contra affair). Again, the Sibel Edmonds testimony suggests this is the case, in which it appears Israeli citizens working in the US government are selling arms via Turkey and the American Turkish Council (i.e., representing a largely Muslim country). Ethnicity and religion seem like little more than window dressing, in the context of such criminal alliances.