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The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy

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The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy is a controversial working paper written by John Mearsheimer, political science professor at the University of Chicago, and Stephen Walt, academic dean of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, in 2006. It claims that U.S. Middle East policy is not in America's national interest and is driven primarily by the "Israel Lobby", a "loose coalition of individuals and organizations who actively work to steer US foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction". The paper was originally commissioned in 2002 by The Atlantic Monthly, which then rejected it. 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.

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". They also claim that AIPAC jeopardizes the United States' national security. They accuse the Lobby of "controlling debate" and they decry the "campaign to eliminate criticism of Israel from college campuses" (see Campus Watch and U.S. Congress Bill H.R. 509).

"The Lobby"

The paper says the following about "The Lobby":

  • "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."
  • "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 fufillment of bilbical prophecy and support its expansionist agenda; to do otherwise, they believe, would be contrary to God's will."
  • "Not all Jewish Americans are part of the Lobby, because Israel is not a salient issue for many of them."
  • "Many of the key organizations in the Lobby, such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, are run by hardliners who generally support the Likud Party's expansionist policies, including its hostility to the Oslo Peace Process."
  • "There is nothing improper about American Jews and their Christian allies attempting to sway US 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."
  • "Although neo-conservative and other Lobby leaders were eager to invade Iraq, the broader American Jewish Community was not."
  • "What is needed is a candid discussion of the Lobby's influence and a more open debate about US interests in this vital region. Israel's well-being is one of those interests, but its continued occupation of the West Bank and its broader regional agenda are not."
  • "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 doesn’t want an open debate, of course, because that might lead Americans to question the level of support they provide."
  • "The Lobby also monitors what professors write and teach." (this is a reference to Campus Watch)
  • "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."
  • "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."
  • "Not surprisingly, American Jewish leaders often consult with Israeli officials, so that the former can maximize their influence in the United States."
  • "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." (this is a reference to the controversial HR 3077/HR 509 Bill in the U.S. Congress)

US support for Israel

  • Economic: Israel is the largest total recipient of US aid since World War II. Total direct U.S. aid to Israel for this period amounts to well over $140 billion in 2003 dollars. Israel receives about $3 billion in direct foreign assistance each year, which is about one-fifth of America’s foreign aid budget. The authors write 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."
    Israel is the only recipient of US aid that does not have to account for how the aid is spent. This makes it in practice impossible to prevent the money from being used for purposes the United States officially opposes.
  • Diplomatic/political: Since 1982, the United States has vetoed 32 United Nations Security Council resolutions that were critical of Israel. (This is a number greater than the combined total of vetoes cast by all the other Security Council members together.) The US has also blocked 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 complicated 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 US are united by a shared terrorist threat has the causal relationship backwards; the US 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 US 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."
  • "Contrary to popular belief, the Zionists had larger, better equipped and better led forces during (list of wars from 1948-1967) - all of this before large-scale US aid began flowing."
  • "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

Praise

The paper was described as a "wake-up call" by Daniel Levy, 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".

Former U.S. Ambassador Edward Peck, now of the Independent Institute, 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."

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".

Tony Judt, a historian at New York University wrote in the New York Times, that " spite of provocative title, the essay draws on a wide variety of standard sources and is mostly uncontentious." He goes on to ask " 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."

Michael Scheuer, a former senior official at the CIA and now a terrorism analyst for CBS News, said to NPR that Mearsheimer and Walt are basically right. Israel, according to Scheuer, has engaged in one of the most successful campaigns to influence public opinion in the United States ever conducted by a foreign government. Scheuer said to NPR that "They 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."

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."

Praise from David Duke and response

A considerable portion of the public debate over the paper has focused on the response to the paper from former Louisiana State Representative and former leader of the Ku Klux Klan, David Duke. Duke "devoted his entire half-hour Internet radio broadcast on March 18 to the paper." On March 21, 2006, Duke praised the paper on MSNBC's Scarborough Country program. Duke has stated he is "surprised how excellent is" and claimed his views had been "vindicated" by its publication. According to Duke, "the task before us is to wrest control of America's foreign policy and critical junctures of media from the Jewish extremist Neocons". 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".

Mary-Kay Wilmers, the editor of the London Review of Books which published a version of the paper, said: "I don't want David Duke to endorse the article. It makes me feel uncomfortable. But when I re-read the piece, I did not see anything that I felt should not have been said. Maybe it is because I am Jewish, but I think I am very alert to anti-Semitism. And I do not think that criticising US foreign policy, or Israel's way of going about influencing it, is anti-Semitic. I just don't see it."

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".

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".

A Haaretz editorial 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."

According to Jefferson Morley of the Washington Post "In the international online media, has attracted largely positive coverage. By contrast, U.S. and Israeli commentators have described their findings as outrageous and scandalous."

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. "

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 US policies towards the Palestinians and the Arab world? Absolutely not."

Michelle Goldberggives 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."

Criticism

The authors of the paper who are highly respected, Mearsheimer and Walt, have been, after the publish, under severe political and academic smear campaign. The first reaction towards this paper (as with all criticism of Israel or Jews) is that they are anti-Semitic. Remember, there are huge amount of money at stake. The US aid to Israel in 2006 is 2.46 billion dollars (about 10% of total US foreign aid). Any attention to the details might put the US aid as well as Israeli-favorable US politics at stake, hence the fierce opposition to Mearsheimer and Walt. Most of the critics listed below are in fact Jewish or descendents of Jewish parent. However, the freedom of speech should not be put at stake.

A number of Harvard professors have criticized the paper. Marvin Kalb, an administrator at the Kennedy School at Harvard, said that the paper failed to meet basic quality standards for academic research. 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". 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..." Alan Dershowitz, professor of Law, wrote an extensive 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 embarrasingly weak logic is employed."

Representative 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."

The Anti-Defamation League published an analysis of the paper which described it as "amateurish and biased critique of Israel, American Jews, and American policy" and a "sloppy diatribe".

The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America published a detailed critique of the paper, saying 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".

Eliot A. Cohen, a professor at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University, argues that the paper bears all the traditional hallmarks of anti-Semitism: "obsessive and irrationally hostile beliefs about Jews", accusations of Jews of "disloyalty, subversion or treachery, of having occult powers and of participating in secret combinations that manipulate institutions and governments", as well as selection of "everything unfair, ugly or wrong about Jews as individuals or a group" and equally systematical suppression of "any exculpatory information".

Daily Mail journalist Melanie Phillips writing in her own blog called the paper a "particularly ripe example of the global Zionist conspiracy’ libel". According to Phillips, "The fundamental misrepresentations and distortions in this LRB paper are quite astonishing." For example, she dismisses the paper's assertion that Israeli citizenship "is based on the principle of blood kinship" as "totally untrue" because "Arabs and other non-Jews are Israeli citizens." Contrary to the claim by the paper's authors that critics of Israel stand "a good chance of getting labeled an antisemite", writes Phillips, "they stand instead an excellent chance of being published in the London Review of Books".

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."

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 , 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."

Jeffrey Herf, Professor of History at the University of Maryland, and Andrei S. Markovits, Karl W. Deutsch Collegiate Professor of Comparative Politics and German Studies at the University of Michigan, have written a letter which begins as follows: "Accusations of powerful Jews behind the scenes are part of the most dangerous traditions of modern anti-Semitism. So it is with dismay that we read John Mearsheimer and Steven Walt's 'The Israel Lobby.' We have known and respected John Mearsheimer for over twenty years, which makes the essay all the more unsettling. " They go on to dispute four central themes in the essay, and berate Mearsheimer and Walt for underplaying the power and import of radical Islam in international affairs.

Samuel G. Freedman, a professor of journalism at Columbia University who is referenced in the working paper, argues that the authors "misrepresent source materials to present a warped analysis beneath the veneer of scholarly detachment."

Benny Morris, 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."

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."

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."

Dennis B. Ross, former U.S. ambassador and chief peace negotiator in the Middle East, wrote: "In fact, never in the time that I led the American negotiations on the Middle East peace process did we take a step because 'the lobby' wanted us to. Nor did we shy away from one because 'the lobby' opposed it. That is not to say that AIPAC and others have no influence. They do. But they don't distort U.S. policy or undermine American interests. Republican and Democratic presidents alike have consistently believed in a special relationship with Israel because values matter in foreign policy. Policymakers know that, even if Mearsheimer and Walt do not."

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."

Aaron Friedberg, professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University, sharply criticizes the suggestion that Lobby members put the interests of a foreign country above their own. He concludes: "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. Mearsheimer and Walt have built successful careers out of advocating a rigorous, scientific approach to the study of politics. Sadly, their argument here is not only unscientific, it is inflammatory, irresponsible, and wrong."

In the blog Washington Babylon at www.harpers.org, Ken Silverstein, Washington editor of Harper's Magazine, discusses a blog of As'ad AbuKhalil, professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus. Silverstein writes: "AbuKhalil also wrote a fascinating critique of the controversial paper ' The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, ' by Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer. His analysis pointed out some of the contradictions in the paper—most notably that the authors seemed ' intent on blaming all the ills in U.S. foreign policy on the Israeli lobby. ' "

Ned 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."


A list of critiques of the paper, with links, is posted on the Engage website. .

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. 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" and stated that they are committed to academic freedom, and do not take a position on faculty conclusions and research.

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 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."

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 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."

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".

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 also finding it "a bit sloppy and one-sided (nothing here about the Arab oil lobby)".

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."

The editor of the London Review of Books, Mary-Kay Wilmers said after the LRB was accused of anti-Semitism, "one of the most upsetting things is the way it can contribute to anti-Semitism in the long run just by making so many constant appeals and preventing useful criticism of Israel."

Mearsheimer and Walt's response

Mearsheimer stated, "e fully recognised that the lobby would retaliate against us" and "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." 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."

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

  • 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 alleged lobby.
  • To the argument that oil rather than Israel drives Middle East policy, they claim that if that were so, the United States would favour the Palestinians instead of Israel, and would not have gone to war in Iraq or now be threatening Iran.

They also 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.

See Also

References

  1. ^ Mearsheimer, John J. and Walt, Stephen. The Israel Lobby, London Review of Books, Volume 28 Number 6, March 22, 2006. Accessed March 24, 2006.
  2. ^ Michelle Goldberg, Is the "Israel lobby" distorting America's Mideast policies?, Salon.com, April 18, 2006
  3. Weiss, Philip. "Ferment Over 'The Israel Lobby'", The Nation, April 27, 2006
  4. Mearsheimer, John J. and Walt, Stephen. The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, Kennedy School of Government Working Paper Number:RWP06-011, March 13, 2006.
  5. Levy, Daniel So pro-Israel that it hurts, Haaretz, March 25, 2006. Accessed March 26, 2006.
  6. Goldberg, Nicholas. Who's afraid of the 'Israel Lobby'?, The Los Angeles Times, March 26, 2006. Accessed March 26, 2006.
  7. Of Course There Is an Israel Lobby, Edward Peck, April 6 2006
  8. Cornwell, Rupert. At last, a debate on America's support for Israel, The Independent, April 7, 2006. (reg. reqd.) Reprinted: ,
  9. A Lobby, Not a Conspiracy, Tony Judt, New York Times Op-Ed, April 19, 2006
  10. ^ Paper on Israel Lobby Sparks Heated Debate, Deborah Amos, National Public Radio, April 21, 2006
  11. Zbigniew Brzezinski, A Dangerous Exemption, Foreign Policy, Jul/Aug 2006
  12. Clyne, Meghan. Kalb Upbraids Harvard Dean Over Israel, New York Sun, March 21, 2006. Accessed March 24, 2006.
  13. Guttman, Nathan. 'AIPAC study is ignorant propaganda', The Jerusalem Post, March 22, 2006. Accessed March 29, 2006.
  14. Of Israel, Harvard and David Duke, The Washington Post, March 26, 2006. Accessed March 29, 2006.
  15. Radin, Charles A. 'Israel lobby' critique roils academe, The Boston Globe, March 29, 2006. Accessed March 29, 2006
  16. 'Scarborough Country' for March 21, show transcript, MSNBC, March 21 2006. Accessed March 29, 2006
  17. ^ Lake, Eli. David Duke Claims to Be Vindicated By a Harvard Dean, New York Sun, March 20, 2006. Accessed March 28, 2006.
  18. Editor hits back over Israel row, Peter Beaumont, The Observer, April 2 2006
  19. ^ Cole, Juan. Breaking the silence, Salon.com, April 19. 2006.
  20. Hitchens, Christopher. Overstating Jewish Power: Mearsheimer and Walt give too much credit to the Israeli lobby, Slate, March 27, 2006. Accessed March 29, 2006.
  21. A warning from America, Haaretz Editorial, March 23, 2006. Accessed March 27, 2006.
  22. Morley, Jefferson. Global Divide on Israel Lobby Study, Washington Post, March 31, 2006. Accessed April 6, 2006.
  23. Eric Alterman,AIPAC's Complaint The Nation, May 1, 2006 (posted April 13, 2006)
  24. Joseph Massad, Blaming the lobby Al-Ahram Weekly, March 23-29, 2006
  25. Michael Massing, The Storm over the Israel Lobby, New York Review of Books, June 8, 2006
  26. ^ Clyne, Meghan. Harvard's Paper on Israel Called 'Trash' By Solon, New York Sun, March 22, 2006. Accessed March 24, 2006.
  27. Harvard attack on ‘Israel lobby’ is actually a targeting of American public, Wall Street Journal, March 22, 2006
  28. An unfair attack, U.S. News & World Report, April 3, 2006
  29. Dershowitz, Alan. "A reply to the Mearsheimer Walt "Working Paper"", April 6, 2006. Accessed April 6, 2006.
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  38. Benny Morris, And Now For Some Facts, The New Republic, May 8, 2006; posted April 28, 2006
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  40. Council on Foreign Relations, , May 1, 2006
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  49. ^ Borger, Julian. "US professors accused of being liars and bigots over essay on pro-Israeli lobby", The Guardian, March 31, 2006. Accessed March 31, 2006.
  50. Bhayani, Paras and Friedman, Rebecca. "Dean Attacks 'Israel Lobby'", The Harvard Crimson, March 21, 2006. Accessed March 28, 2006.
  51. Mazower, Mark. "When vigilance undermines freedom of speech" , Financial Times, April 3 2006
  52. America and Israel, The Financial Times, April 1, 2006. Copied here.
  53. Cohen, Richard "No, It's Not Anti-Semitic", The Washington Post, April 25, 2006. Accessed April 25, 2006.
  54. Molly Ivins, The Israeli lobby, CNN.com, April 26, 2006
  55. Beaumont, Peter. "Editor hits back over Israel row", The Guardian, April 2, 2006. Accessed April 6, 2006.
  56. Mekay, Emad. "Israel Lobby Dictates U.S. Policy, Study Charges", Inter Press Service News Agency, March 22, 2006. Accessed March 26, 2006.
  57. Mearsheimer, John J. and Walt, Stephen. letter to the London Review of Books, May 11, 2006.

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