The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy

 

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, the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt, The Robert and Rene Belfer Professor of International Relations at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, that has gone through several versions from 2002 to 2007. The most recent version is The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, a New York Times Best Seller, published in September 2007 by Farrah, Strauss, and Giroux.

The work claims that "the United States has been willing to set aside its own security in order to advance the interests of another state [Israel]", and further that 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."^[2]

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]

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]

"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), the American Jewish Committee 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."

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."
  

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:

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."

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.'"

Reception

The March 2006 publication of Mearsheimer and Walt's bluntly worded essay, "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy," promoted a charged debate as to what constitutes antisemitic conspiracy theorizing when criticizing the Israel lobby.^[8] The essay's central controversial claim was that the Israel lobby's influence has distorted U.S. Middle East foreign policy away from what the authors referred to as "American national interest."

The matter was further complicated, as Michelle Goldberg reported on Salon.com, because this was "not just a case of brave academics telling taboo truths" but that they had "blundered forth with an article that has several factual mistakes and baffling omissions" and that seemed "expressly designed to elicit exactly the reaction it has received."^[9]

In April 2007 the Dutch Tegenlicht ('Backlight'), VPRO's international 50 minute documentary program, produced a documentary as a result of the controversy created by Mearsheimer and Walt's article. The documentary was entitled The Israel Lobby.^[10][11]

Praise

The paper was described as a "wake-up call" by Daniel Levy,^[12] 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".^[13]

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."^[14]

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".^[15]

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."^[16]

Michael Scheuer, a former senior official at the Central Intelligence Agency 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."^[17]

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."^[18]

In his review in The Times, journalist Max Hastings wrote "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."^[19]

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^[20]) said he thinks "that the people who wrote that report were working for the interest of the American people."^[21]

David Duke, a leading white nationalist and former Republican member of the Louisiana House of Representatives and Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, "devoted his entire half-hour Internet radio broadcast on March 18 [2006] to the paper."^{[22][23][24][25]} Duke, has dedicated several radio webcasts to Mearsheimer and Walt and their book comparing it to his work 'Jewish Supremacism'^{[26][27][28][29]}. 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".^[30] 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". ^[31]

Mark Mazower, a professor of history at Columbia University, wrote that it is not possible to openly debate the article's critical thesis:

"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 US 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 US today about the country’s relationship with Israel." ^[32]

Criticism of the Mearsheimer and Walt 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 US 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." ^[33]

Political commentator Molly Ivins, who voiced support for Mearsheimer and Walt's thesis, wrote that

"[i]n the United States, we do not have full-throated, full-throttle debate about Israel ..., but the truth is that the accusation of anti-Semitism is far too often raised in this country against anyone who criticizes the government of Israel. Being pro-Israel is no defense, as I long ago learned to my cost. Now I've gotten used to it. Jews who criticize Israel are charmingly labeled 'self-hating Jews.'"^[34]

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".^[35] He also stated that the authors "seriously mischaracterize the origins of the problem" and produced "an article that is redeemed from complete dullness and mediocrity only by being slightly but unmistakably smelly."^[36]

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."^[37]

Mitchell Plitnick, Director of Education and Policy for Jewish Voice for Peace, wrote an extensive critique of the book, while also stating firmly that "The ideas Walt and Mearsheimer present are not comfortable and, in my view, sometimes not accurate. But they are not personally anti-Semitic, nor are they motivated by animosity toward Israel." Plitnick details his view that Walt and Mearsheimer seriously overstate "The Lobby's" role in policymaking, although their influence in Congress is considerable. He also challenges the view that Israel was a prime motivator in the invasion of Iraq, saying "...it was clear that Iraq was no threat to Israel. There was simply no reason for Israel to risk alienating a large segment of the American people in order to push for this war and, in fact, they did not. It was an American misadventure, and the Israeli involvement was by American request, not on their own impetus." Plitnick sees US Mideast policy as consistent with US policy in other places and based on an analysis with which both he and Walt and Mearsheimer would disagree, but saying "The Lobby" is responsible is overstating the matter. ^[38]

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. "^[39]

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.^[40]

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."^[41]

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."^[42]

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."^[43]

In a review in The New Yorker, David Remnick 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. It’s a narrative that recounts every lurid report of Israeli cruelty as indisputable fact but leaves out the rise of Fatah and Palestinian terrorism before 1967; the Munich Olympics; Black September; myriad cases of suicide bombings; and other spectaculars. ... The duplicitous and manipulative arguments for invading Iraq put forward by the Bush Administration, the general inability of the press to upend those duplicities, the triumphalist illusions, the miserable performance of the military strategists, the arrogance of the Pentagon, the stifling of dissent within the military and the government, the moral disaster of Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo, the rise of an intractable civil war, and now an incapacity to deal with the singular winner of the war, Iran—all of this has left Americans furious and demanding explanations. Mearsheimer and Walt provide one: the Israel lobby. In this respect, their account is not so much a diagnosis of our polarized era as a symptom of it."^[44]

Princeton professor Aaron Friedberg takes issue with the suggestion that lobby members put the interests of Israel above the interests of the United States:

"at a minimum, this is a slanderous and unfalsifiable allegation of treason leveled at individuals whose views on Middle East policy differ from the authors. At worst, it is an ugly accusation of collective disloyalty, containing the most unsavory of historical echoes."^[45]

Ruth Wisse, a professor of Yiddish Literature and Comparative Literature at Harvard, wrote,

"When [Walt and Mearsheimer] 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". ^[46]

Eliot A. Cohen, a professor at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University, argues that the Walt and Mearsheimer paper bears all the traditional hallmarks of antisemitism:

"obsessive and irrationally hostile beliefs about Jews," accusations of Jewish "disloyalty, subversion or treachery, of having occult powers and of participating in secret combinations that manipulate institutions and governments," and systematically omits "any exculpatory information".^[47]

Daily Mail journalist Melanie Phillips writing in her own blog called the paper a "particularly ripe example of the 'global Zionist conspiracy' libel".^[48]

Madeleine Albright 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:

"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. There are other lobbies that are very strong, and Washington is full of lobbyists. 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."^[49]

Stephen Zunes, professor of politics at the University of San Francisco, writes that "The authors have also been unfairly criticized for supposedly distorting the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, though their overview is generally quite accurate." and takes issue with Joseph Massad's interpretation of Mearsheimer's and Walt's argument

"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."^[50]

Mitchell G. Bard of the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise writes:

"Criticizing Israel does not necessarily make someone anti-Semitic. The determining factor is the intent of the commentator. Legitimate critics accept Israel's right to exist, whereas anti-Semites do not. Anti-Semites use double standards when they criticize Israel, for example, denying Israelis the right to ... defend itself, and ignore Jewish victims, while blaming Israel for pursuing their murderers."^[51]

Criticism

Scholars

The paper has faced criticism, for differing reasons, from individuals across the ideological spectrum.

Abraham H. Foxman wrote a book in response to Mearsheimer and Walts paper, entitled 'The Deadliest Lies: The Israel Lobby and the Myth of Jewish Control' ^[52][53] where he allegedly "demolishes a number of shibboleths . . . a rebuttal of a pernicious theory about a mythically powerful Jewish lobby." ^[54] Former Secretary of State George Shultz wrote in the Forward to the book, "... the notion. U.S. policy on Israel and Middle East is the result of their influence is simply wrong." ^[55][56]

David A. Harris has written several responses to the paper and more recently to the book. His latests, in the Jersualem Post discussses the difficulty Europeans have in understanding America's "special relationship" with Israel and the resulting eagnerness of European publishers to fast track the book. "'Although the book was panned by most American reviewers, it will serve as red meat for those eager to believe the worst about American decision-making regarding Israel and the Middle East'."The Jerusalem Post [17]

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[18] at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, said that the paper failed to meet basic quality standards for academic research.^[57] 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".^[58] 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"^[59] 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."^[60]

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.^[61]

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."^[62]

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."^[63]

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."^[64]

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."^[65]

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."^[66]

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."^[67][68]

Other critical scholars include Johns Hopkins University professor Eliot A. Cohen;^[69] University of Maryland history professor Jeffrey Herf;^[70] Columbia University journalism professor Samuel G. Freedman;^[71] Princeton University professor of politics and international affairs Aaron Friedberg;^[72] and Stanford University political science professor Josef Joffe.^[73]

Mark LeVine, professor of modern Middle Eastern history, culture and Islamic studies at the University of California, Irvine, wrote in the Asia Times that "the authors' premise and conclusions are all wrong or, more precisely, backward. Mearsheimer and Walt seem to know little about the Middle East, Israel's role in US foreign policy, and what are core US goals and strategic interests in the region. The United States has been using Israel to fulfill its policy objectives for decades, from its role as a regional 'pillar' (along with Saudi Arabia and Iran) in US containment strategies against the Soviet Union in the 1970s up until last summer... One thing is for sure: aside from the 'Jewish lobby' (for whom the book is a godsend of a fundraising tool), the two groups most happy about the publication of book are the oil and arms lobbies, unquestionably the most powerful, and invisible, lobbies in the United States."^[74]

Members of organizations

The American Jewish Committee published several critiques of the paper, many of which were reproduced in newspapers around the the world. AJC's Anti-Semitism expert, Kenneth Stern, made the following argument against the paper: "Such a dogmatic approach blinds them from seeing what most Americans do. They seek to destroy the “moral” case for Israel by pointing at alleged Israeli misdeeds, rarely noting the terror and anti-Semitism that predicates Israeli reactions."^[75]

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".^[76]

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".^[77]

A list of critiques of the paper, with links, is posted on the Engage website.^[78].

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."^[17]

Other critical organizations and affiliated individuals include the Dore Gold from the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs,^[79] and Neal Sher of AIPAC.^[80]

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."^[57]

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."^[81]

Others critical of the paper include Caroline Glick of The Jerusalem Post;^[82] columnist Bret Stephens;^[83][84] editor of Jewish Current Issues Rick Richman;^[85][86] and James Taranto of the The Wall Street Journal;^[87]

George P. Schultz, who served as the United States Secretary of Labor from 1969 to 1970, as the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury from 1972 to 1974, and as the U.S. Secretary of State from 1982 to 1989, wrote in the U.S. News and World Report: "Anyone who thinks that Jewish groups constitute a homogeneous 'lobby' ought to spend some time dealing with them. For example, my decision to open a dialogue with Yasser Arafat after he met certain conditions evoked a wide spectrum of responses from the government of Israel, its political parties, and American Jewish groups who weighed in on one side or the other. ... The United States supports Israel not because of favoritism based on political pressure or influence but because the American people, and their leaders, say that supporting Israel is politically sound and morally just. ... So, on every level, those who blame Israel and its Jewish supporters for U.S. policies they do not support are wrong. They are wrong because, to begin with, support for Israel is in our best interests. They are also wrong because Israel and its supporters have the right to try to influence U.S. policy. And they are wrong because the U.S. government is responsible for the policies it adopts, not any other state or any of the myriad lobbies and groups that battle daily—sometimes with lies—to win America's support."^[88]

In a review in the Chicago Sun-Times: "It's no secret that the Israeli lobby has a record of success... Yet, no other interest group is so frequently singled out for harsh scrutiny, as if somehow laboring on Israel's behalf turns out to be working against America's best interests. ... Forget the dynamics of radical Islamism, Arab resentment of the West and other complexities of international affairs. Just change U.S. policy toward Israel and the world will be a happier place for America. Two intellectuals at two of our best universities have reduced international relations to that." Huntley said the authors' discrediting of certain sources proved "a bias against Israel so deep seated that it defies reality."^[89]

Rob Eshman, editor-in-chief of the Jewish Journal wrote "Five years ago, before the start of the Iraq War, I wrote an editorial titled 'The Jewish War.' If the Iraq War is a disaster, I wrote, mainstream voices will start blaming the Jews... Guess what? It's time to get off the couch. ... (It is not an exaggeration to say that in the view of the authors, the whole thing is Israel's fault, aided and abetted by the American Jewish Israel lobby and their puppets in the Congress and the White House. Five decades of Arab rejectionism and Palestinian terror, Yasser Arafat's torpedoing of the Oslo accords, a majority American and Israeli Jewish support for land-for-peace deals -- none of this matters.) ... The authors take pains -- well, four pages -- to note that Jews are loyal Americans and that their lobbying is legal, like that of other special interest groups... But these pages, which may as well have been titled, "Hey, Some of Our Best Friends Are Jewish," are contradicted time and again in the authors' selective re-telling of the events leading up the Iraq War.^[90]

In a review in Newsday: "From a couple of prominent political scientists, you'd expect a close analysis of particular pro-Israel organizations (for example, AIPAC) and fresh research into how they exercise influence. But the footnotes, which draw heavily from books and newspaper articles, reveal that the authors have not really done interviews with people presumably belonging to the "lobby," nor gotten access to internal documents. At the same time, they are wedded to the notion that the U.S. and Israel have distinct national interests - with the American interest defined, more or less, as sustained access to Middle Eastern oil. They reject the idea that Iraq was occupied in pursuit of oil." McLemee also criticized the authors' definition of the Israel lobby and their allegation of its role in the occupation of Iraq.^[91]

In a review in the Los Angeles Times: "Anyone familiar with the tortured history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will have a hard time recognizing the history Mearsheimer and Walt rehearse. Every hoary old Israeli atrocity tale is trotted out, and the long story of Palestinian terrorism is rendered entirely as a reaction to Israeli oppression. The failure of every peace negotiation is attributed to Israeli deviousness under the shield of the American Israel lobby. There is nothing here of Palestinian corruption, division and duplicity or even of this unhappy people's inability to provide a reliable secular partner with whom peace can be negotiated... At times, the authors simply contradict themselves, asserting -- rather remarkably -- at one point that the United States has nothing to fear from a nuclear-armed Iran and, at another, that the dangerous prospect of a nuke-equipped Tehran is the Israel lobby's fault. Similarly, they write, Al Qaeda would hammer its swords into ploughshares and Osama bin Laden would lay down with the lamb if only the United States would come out from under Israel's thrall and create by coercion a Palestinian state... (You'd never guess from the Mearsheimer-Walt analysis that many people in this country support Israel precisely because they admire it as a brave, dynamic and democratic society.) ... In fact, if you accept the analysis put forward in this book, it's impossible not to conclude that the United States was, in fact, tricked into a disastrous war in Iraq by a domestic Fifth Column and that the ranks of that subversive formation are filled with Jews, their friends and willing dupes."^[92]

In a review in the Denver Post, Richard Cohen writes, "By the time I put down the book, occasional critic of Israel though I be, I was ready to burst into 'Hatikvah,' the Israeli national anthem. ... Where Israel is wrong, they say so. But where Israel is right, they are somehow silent. By the time you finish the book, you almost have to wonder why anyone in their right mind could find any reason to admire or like Israel. ... They had an observation worth making and a position worth debating. But their argument is so dry, so one-sided — an Israel lobby that leads America around by the nose — they suggest that not only do they not know Israel, they don't know America, either."^[93]

Barack Obama Amazon ad

A New York Sun reporter alerted Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama that a small ad for his campaign's Web site was appearing as one of several "sponsored links" on the Amazon.com page for The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, and on September 10, 2007, the Obama campaign raced to take it down. The Obama campaign says its ad probably appeared on the book's Amazon page simply because the campaign paid for its Web site to be mentioned on searches that included the word "politics," among other phrases, part of a publicity strategy being used by many 2008 candidates.

Campaign spokesman Jennifer Psaki told The Sun that Obama had not read the book but knew enough about it to disagree with its authors. "The ad has been removed from the site because the views of the book do not reflect the views of Senator Obama on the U.S.- Israel relationship," she said. "Senator Obama has stated that his support for a strong U.S.- Israel relationship, which includes both a commitment to Israel's security and to helping Israel achieve peace with its neighbors, comes from his belief that it's the right policy for the United States. The idea that supporters of Israel have somehow distorted U.S. foreign policy, or that they are responsible for the debacle in Iraq, is just wrong."

The Obama campaign dismissed questions about squaring Obama's spurning of the book's authors with the strong defense of it by Zbigniew Brzezinski, who has endorsed Obama. Another Obama supporter, Congressman Robert Wexler (D-FL), who publicly endorsed Obama several months earlier, offered a statement in his defense, saying Obama has "been a consistent supporter of Israel and this is an unfortunate case of a fabricated controversy for political reasons." "I speak with him often on Israel policy," Wexler added, "and I can tell you firsthand that Barack Obama is opposed to the arguments presented in this book."^[94]

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.^[95][96][97] 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"^[98] and stated that they are committed to academic freedom, and do not take a position on faculty conclusions and research.^[99]

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."^[100]

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." ^[33]

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".^[31]

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)".^[101]

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."^[102]

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."^[103] 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."^[98]

Mearsheimer and Walt responded to their critics in a letter to the London Review of Books. ^[104]

• 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."^[105] 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."^[106]

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'" [19], and are working on a book on the subject.^[107]

Debate

The London Review of Books organised a follow-up debate on the paper, moderated by Anne-Marie Slaughter.^[108] The panelists were John Mearsheimer, Shlomo Ben-Ami, Martin Indyk, Tony Judt, Rashid Khalidi, and Dennis Ross.

See also

• Arab lobby in the United States
• American Israel Public Affairs Committee
• The Council for the National Interest

References