Taylor Marsh – TaylorMarsh.com – News, Opinion and Weblog on Progressive Politics

It’s one of the most important conversations we can have and one of the most important
books you can read. In “Breaking
the Silence,” Juan Cole summed it up earlier this year: In
fact, Mearsheimer and Walt are at pains to make clear that there is no “cabal,”
and that the pro-Israel lobby is a lobby like any other (although more powerful
and sacrosanct than most.) No doubt Alan Dershowitz got heartburn when
he read it.

The outraged and dismissive reaction to Mearsheimer and Walt’s paper illustrates their thesis. The United States faces severe challenges in the Middle East, including issues having to do with Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, al-Qaida and what to do about the Israeli-Palestinian situation now that Hamas has won the Palestinian elections. A debate about the best policies to achieve American interests is being made difficult or impossible by the tactics of intimidation deployed on both sides of the Atlantic. With a possible war against Iran being floated by the Bush administration, the stakes are far too high not to have the full and open discussion we never had before Iraq. When Ben Franklin exited the Constitutional Convention, he was asked what kind of government the United States would have. “A republic, if you can keep it,” he is said to have replied. If we cannot even discuss the shape of U.S. foreign policy toward the Middle East without a lynch mob forming, we won’t be able to keep it.

The Israel Lobby is the book version of the 2006 paper
done for the London Review of Books to which Juan Cole refers above. There is also a
video of the Israel lobby debate available as well. NPR has a more recent interview. All will give you an
idea of the power of the discussion revealed fully in the book written by John
Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt.

Alan Dershowitz (through a 40-page response) provides the fury. He got labeled an “intellectual vigilante” by Philip Weiss for his troubles.

TPM’s M.J. Rosenberg talked about it recently as well:

… Walt and Mearsheimer mostly limit themselves to exploring whether all this is good for the United States (and to a lesser extent, Israel). The question I ask today, and not for the first time, is whether this type of behavior is good for Israel. Forty years after the Six Day War, the occupation continues, the resistance to it intensifies, and Israelis in increasing numbers question whether they have a future in the Jewish state. Has “pro-Israel” advocacy consistently produced “pro-Israel” ends? At several critical moments, it most certainly has not. Was it pro-Israel to lobby the Nixon administration in 1971 to support Israel’s rejection of Anwar Sadat’s offer of peace in exchange for a three mile pullback from the banks of the Suez Canal? Nixon capitulated to the pressure and backed off, leaving Israel free to reject Sadat’s offer. Two years later, Sadat attacked and Israel lost 3000 soldiers in a war that acceptance of the Sadat initiative would have prevented. Israel gained nothing in that war, and ended up giving Sadat all the territory he sought in 1971, and much more. Was it pro-Israel to urge the Reagan administration to back Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982? That war, and its bloody aftermath, lasted for 18 years with the last Israeli soldier not leaving Lebanon until 2000 — after a thousand soldiers were killed. Just days after Israel’s invasion, Lebanese Christian forces massacred almost a thousand Palestinians at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camp. And 241 United States Marines, serving as post-war peace keepers, were killed (the most on any single day since Iwo Jima) when Hezbollah blew up their barracks. In the end, the war accomplished nothing and Israel withdrew unconditionally. Was it pro-Israel to press Congress to attach so many onerous conditions to aid to President Abbas’s Palestinian Authority that Abbas was unable to demonstrate to his people that a moderate President, who fully accepted Israel, would produce benefits that they would not achieve by choosing Hamas. The US (and Israeli) policies of all sticks and no carrots led predictably to Abbas’s defeat by Hamas and a Hamas-controlled Gaza which has resumed its attacks on Israeli towns. Was it pro-Israel to prevent the Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II administration’s from insisting on a permanent freeze on settlements or, at the very least, the immediate removal of the illegal settlements? Wouldn’t Israel be infinitely better off if the United States had used friendly persuasion to end the settlement enterprise right from the get-go? After all, the vast majority of Israelis consider the settlements to be impediments to peace and so has every President since the first settlement was erected. … ..

Mr.
Rosenberg goes on to say similar things that I
said yesterday about the importance of this debate to the presidential election,
as well as to American foreign policy and what it means to both of our countries.
It doesn’t do anyone any good to compete on who
can be more pro Israel while actually doing nothing for either Israel or
the United States.

John F. Kennedy got it started. Walt and Mearsheimer make that point up front.

U.S.-Israeli relations had warmed by the late 1950s, but it was the Kennedy administration that made the first tangible U.S. commitment to Israel’s military security. In December 1962, in fact, Kennedy told Israeli Foreign Minister Golda Meir that the United States “has a special relationship with Israel in the Middle East really comparable to that which it has with Britain over a wide range of world affairs,” adding that “I think it is quite clear that in case of an invasion the United States would come to the support of Israel. We have that capacity and it is growing.” Kennedy soon thereafter authorized the first major sale of U.S. weaponry–Hawk antiaircraft missiles–to Israel in 1963. The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt (pg. 27)

Israel is the largest recipient of foreign aid, now receiving $3 billion per
year. What are the results of this aid? What has it done to U.S. foreign policy
in the Middle East? How has Israel benefited from the military largesse? Are
they any safer; are we? More peaceful? What about the Israel – Iran – U.S. triangle?

It’s here I should write the obligatory statement about the importance of our
relationship to Israel. After all these years is that actually necessary? When talking about subjects I mention here it’s the minimum required. The charge of being anti-Semitic is never far behind.

The truth is that it’s long past time we re-evaluated what it means to be “pro-Israel,”
as well as what will be the outcome for continuing on our current course, which
isn’t manifesting peace or allies for either Israel or the United States. In
fact, our current course makes the citizenry of both countries less safe; the world a much more perilous place.

Given the furor over this book and even what happens when I write on this subject,
I’ve got to wonder how the discussion will turn out. Look what happened to Jimmy Carter. Walt and Mearsheimer discuss that, too. Anyone brave enough to broach the subject of Israel, the Palestinians, the Israel lobby and U.S. foreign policy goes through hot fire. Ironically, it’s actually the first time in my life I’ve related in any way at all to the former Democratic president.

Mearsheimer and Walt have started the most important discussion. It remains to be seen if there are enough grown ups around to engage in it without coming to blows beyond words.

Michael Scheuer, talking about the book, reminds me of why I gave Edwards credit for drawing out the Saudis yesterday.

“They should be credited for the courage they have had to actually present a paper on the subject,” Scheuer says. “I hope they move on and do the Saudi lobby, which is probably more dangerous to the United States than the Israeli lobby.”

But it’s Larry Wilkerson who offers my favorite quote on the subject.

“I think it contains a lot of what I call the blinding flashes of the obvious,” Wilkerson says. “But that said, [they are] blinding flashes of the obvious that people whispered in corners, not said out loud at cocktail parties, where someone else could hear you.”

Tags: Israel, John F. Kennedy, Middle East, Palestinians, Saudi Arabia