Mearsheimer Is At It Again

John Mearsheimer is at it again, recommending a new book by Avraham Berg.

According to Mearsheimer, Burg

cannot be easily dismissed as a self-hating Jew or a crank, as he comes from a prominent Israeli family and has been deeply involved in mainstream Israeli politics for much of his adult life. Moreover, he clearly loves Israel.

That would be the same Avraham Burg who

• Said that "to define the State of Israel as a Jewish state is the key to its end."
  
• Calls on Israelis to obtain a foreign passport. 
  
• Three years after leaving Israeli politics has become a citizen of France
  
• Compares Israel and Germany
  

Gee, can't get much clearer than that.

Mearsheimer approvingly quotes Burg that

the principal cause of Israel's problems is the legacy of the Holocaust, which has become omnipresent in Israeli life. "Not a day passes," he writes, "without a mention of the Shoah in the only newspaper I read, Ha'aretz."

Apparently it does not occur to either Burg or Mearsheimer that Burg should get out more.

Instead, Mearsheimer relies on Burg to come to his own conclusion in his article that

the best way to rescue Israel from its plight is not simply to get beyond the Holocaust, but to end the Occupation. Then, the need to talk incessantly about the Holocaust will be greatly reduced and Israel will be a much healthier and secure country. Sadly, there is no end in sight to the Occupation, and thus we are likely to hear more, not less, about the Holocaust in years ahead.

Putting aside the questionable basis by which Mearsheimer presumes to use the word 'occupation,' Mearsheimer uses a single source to prove an Israeli obssession with the Holocaust--interesting in light of the fact these days it seems that Ahmadinejad talks more about it than any Israeli leader that I've heard.

This is the same Mearsheimer who wrote in 1990:

We may, however, wake up one day lamenting the loss of the order that the Cold War gave to the anarchy of international relations.

...The Soviet Union and a unified Germany would likely be the most powerful states in a nuclear-free Europe. A band of small independent states in Eastern Europe would lie between them. These minor Eastern European powers would be likely to fear the Soviets as much as the Germans, and thus would probably not be disposed to cooperate with the Soviets to deter possible German aggression.

Imagine: 18 years ago Mearsheimer predicted that a unified Germany and the Soviet Union would fight for control over post-Cold War eastern Europe.

More recently, he spoke about the unwillingness of the US to have a dialog with Iran. At the beginning of the interview below, Mearsheimer claims that Iran is not at war with the US.  When the interviewer points out that Iranians provide insurgents with the weapons used to kill Americans...well, just listen to his response.

Considering what he has had to say about Europe and Iran, it is now wonder that Mearsheimer keeps coming back to talking and writing about Israel.

[Hat tip: Eric Trager]

Technorati Tag: Mearsheimer.

Mearsheimer & Walt and The Rise of Judeocentrism

Jonathan Rosenblum asks: Mearsheimer and Walt may be many things--but are they outright Anti-Semites?

Stupid, Yes; but is it Anti-Semitic

Part II [Read Part I here]

At the end of last week’s cliffhanger, we promised to answer this week the question: Is Professors Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer’s book The Israel Lobby anti-Semitic? But we have changed our minds. First of all, outside the pages of Yated Ne’eman, anti-Semite is not such a big insult anymore. Jews are not on the official list of “endangered minorities.” Moslems are, however, despite there being more than a billion of them worldwide.

Point out that Moslems pose a significant threat to virtually every Western democracy, and you might find yourself hauled before the European Court of Justice for actionable Islamophobia. But Jews are pretty much fair game.

Anti-Semites today are, in any event, generally careful to stress that they are merely anti-Israel. And even if they talk about “the Jews,” they always have a fallback position: We meant the Jewish establishment. Very rarely is anything to be gained by accusing someone of being an anti-Semite. And the charge, once made, usually ends with the accuser thrust into the role of the accused for having attempted to stifle legitimate debate with charges of anti-Semitism.

So let us just say, following Jeffrey Goldberg in The New Republic, that Walt-Mearsheimer are peculiarly Judaeocentric. They have geneology on the brain.

Thus they feel it important to inform readers that Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean is married to a Jew and his children are being raised as Jews (whatever that might mean), by way of explaining his inclusion in the pro-Israeli lobby. Timothy Rutten (not a terribly Jewish-sounding name) reviewing the book in the Los Angeles Times, noted some unpleasant odors wafting from its pages: “[R]eaders are treated to an explication of the religious affiliations of various Bush administration officials that reads like it was inspired by the Nuremberg Laws. The fact of the matter is, however, that the figure most responsible for pushing the attack on Iraq – Vice President Dick Cheney – is not Jewish, nor even ideologically neo-conservative. He is a card-carrying member of the oil industry elite, however, and names like Halliburton and ExxonMobile never seem to make their way into these pages.”

David Remmick, editor of New Yorker, noted that Walt-Mearsheimer have undertaken to provide Americans distraught about the war in Iraq with a scapegoat: the Israel lobby. “They 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.” Remmick labels the book “sinister.”

No doubt the two professors have Jewish friends, perhaps even many of them. (That itself should have alerted to them to the weakness in their working premise that American Jews are all enlisted in the Israel lobby, and that they are far and away the most influential element of that lobby.) But as one friend who attended a book signing by Mearsheimer put it, they have certainly made the world a happier place for unabashed anti-Semites. Ex-Klu Klux Klan leader David Duke, for instance, was in ecstasy over The Israel Lobby, which he claims confirms everything he has been saying for years.

Walt-Mearsheimer may not be anti-Semites, but they have written, in the words of Walter Russell Mead of the Council on Foreign Relations, “a book anti-Semites will love.” Jeffrey Goldberg made a foray into Amazon.com, and discovered that purchasers of the book were also likely to purchase other works with names like The Power of Israel in the United States; Beyond Chutzpah: on the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History; They Dare Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel’s Lobby, and, of course, Jimmy Carter’s Palestine: Peace not Apartheid.

The very concept of a Israel lobby has unpleasant associations with all the various alleged Jewish cabals in history, including the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The accusation of Jews secretly wielding power on behalf of their co-religionists in other lands and to the detriment of their home country is an ancient one. And sadly Walt-Mearsheimer’s treatment of the Israel lobby does not prove itself to have sufficient analytical rigor or explanatory power to free it from those historical associations.

Mead clears Walt-Mearsheimer of the charge of being anti-Semites, but acknowledges that they have done “what anti-Semites have always done: they overstate the power of Jews. . . . [T]he picture they paint calls up some of the ugliest stereotypes of anti-Semitic discourse. The Zionist octopus they conjure – stirring up the Iraq war, manipulating both U.S. political parties, shaping the media, punishing the courageous minority of professors and politicians who dare to tell the truth – is depressingly familiar.”

For one thing, they grossly overestimate the power of the “lobby” to bring American policy into congruence with Israel’s bidding. Thus the various sales of the most advanced armaments to Saudi Arabia, which aroused great anxiety in Israel, are scarcely mentioned. Nor are the pressures brought to bear on Israel by Henry Kissinger to spare the Egyptian Third Army in 1973 or the American arms embargo at the outset of the Yom Kippur War or Israel’s failure to secure Jonathan Pollard’s release. Walt-Mearsheimer do not compare the power of pro-Israel groups with that of other powerful lobbies, like the NRA or the farm lobby, which has managed to maintain high farm subsidies with virtually no debate for over half a century, despite the enormous daily cost to American consumers.

The evidence that they cite to prove the existence of an all-powerful Israel lobby is frequently laughable. They take at face value, for instance, AIPAC’s self-serving claims of its own influence because it supports their case of an all-powerful Israel lobby. They obsess over the pro-Israel money Hillary Clinton raised for her 2006 Senate campaign, without noting that it was less than 1% of the total, and less than one-tenth of that contributed by lawyers and law firms.

Moreover, the Israeli lobby in their treatment is highly amorphous concept. With respect to their treatment of the Iraq War, their focus is almost exclusively on a small group of Jews – Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, Scooter Libby – who in Walt-Mearsheimer’s view are virtually card-carrying Likud party members. In the process, they turn the president, vice president, secretary of defense, and secretary of state into mere ciphers helplessly manipulated by their Jewish subalterns. That portrayal, as Jeffrey Goldberg pointed out in The New Republic, echoes “the ancient idea . . . that Jews, operating in the shadows, manipulate gentile leaders to unknowingly advance Jewish interests.”

If the Israel lobby is synonymous with neo-conservatives, however, the vast majority of American Jews are not part of the Israel lobby. No group in the United States opposed the war in Iraq in higher percentages than American Jews. Nor are most American Jews supportive of Israeli settlements or the Likud. They loved Bill Clinton, and they supported both the Oslo process and the last failed attempt to rescue it at Camp David.

But when Walt-Mearsheimer expand the definition of the Israel lobby to include everything from Michael Lerner’s Tikkun to the Zionist Organization of America, they quickly descend into incoherence. The organizations, individuals, and newspapers – including remarkably The New York Times – that they lump together under the rubric the Israel lobby are at bitter loggerheads over virtually every aspect of internal Israeli policy and over American foreign policy as well, including American policy to Israel.

How can one assess the strength of the lobby, when every possible American policy is identified with the lobby, from Bill Clinton’s approach at Camp David to President Bush’s subsequent rejection of the Clinton approach in favor of a long period of benign neglect towards Middle East peacemaking? Mead tartly observes: True, the Israel lobby always wins, but only in the way that a person who bets on every square always wins at roulette.

If supporting Israel’s right to exist – about the only point upon which most American Jews agree – constitutes membership in the Israel lobby, then almost every American belongs, including Walt-Mearsheimer, who assure their readers that they support Israel’s right to exist.

ONE OF THE REASONS that Walt-Mearsheimer are so convinced that only the existence of a super-powerful Israel lobby can explain the allegedly “uncritical and unconditional support” for Israel from the American government is that they take such a low view of Israel. In their view, there is no plausible strategic or moral argument that can be advanced in favor of U.S. support for Israel. It beggars belief that their fellow Americans could possibly support Israel to the extent they do absent the manipulation of the lobby. For that reason, they consistently downplay Christian support for Israel and its significance on American foreign policy.

But how, then, do they explain that some of the strongest support for Israel in the U.S. Congress comes from rural states in which there are few Jews and The New York Times is not the paper of record? How can they explain that Republicans, according to every poll, support Israel at higher rates than Democrats, though Jews overwhelmingly vote Democrat and contribute to Democrats.

Of course, the picture they paint of Israel rivals in its one-sided presentation that of Jimmy Carter, to whom Mearsheimer has served as an advisor. Whenever there are two possible interpretations, Walt-Mearsheimer invariably adopt the one unfavorable to Israel, no matter how wildly implausible. They believe, for instance, that Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip to bring about a Hamas takeover and with it an end the “peace process.” A perfect example, no doubt, of the diabolical cleverness of the Jews.

Walt-Mearsheimer, like Carter, reject the account of former president Bill Clinton, Dennis Ross, and just about everybody who present at Camp David and subsequently at Taba, of what Israel offered. They accept the Palestinian claim that they were offered non-contiguous Bantustans. Yet they offer no explanation for their rejection of Clinton’s account. (They do manage to quote a Palestinian participant who commented of Ross’s participation that he felt he was negotiating with two Israeli teams – one sitting with an Israeli flag and the other sitting with an American flag.)

Again like Carter, Walt-Mearsheimer consistently downplay or ignore Palestinian terrorism in analyzing Israeli policy decisions. They write, for instance, that the impact of terrorism on the Israeli economy has been minimal. That statement is roughly on par with saying that 9/11 had minimal impact on the United States, as evidenced by the fact that the Dow-Jones is higher today than at the time of the attack.

The settlements are portrayed as the major source of Arab animosity towards Israel. But no mention is made of the Arab League’s “three no’s” at Khartoum, in response to Israel’s offer to return the territories after the Six Day War. Walt-Mearsheimer even deny that the Arabs sought to destroy Israeli in 1967, despite the chanting mobs in Cairo and Damascus calling of the blood of the Jews.

And when they do mention terrorism at all, they invariably treat it as the only alternative left to downtrodden Palestinians. It never occurs to them that the Palestinians could have done what Ben-Gurion did in 1948 – i.e., accept the state offered to them and show their worthiness of statehood. Nor does it occur to them that the Palestinians bear any responsibility for their own situation, and that the tens of billions of dollars in aid showered upon them by the international community could have been used to build a decent Palestinian society rather than padding the bank accounts of Arafat and his cronies and maintaining massive security forces.

Walt-Mearsheimer’s undisguised distaste for Israel comes through in their statement that it is “impossible to argue that the United States took the side of Israel [against Hezbollah] “because it was the morally correct policy choice.” Impossible to make such an argument? Why? Did Israel cross the Lebanese border and kidnap Hezbollah fighters? Did it fire unprovoked on Lebanese cities? Their statement is a curious one for another reason as well. As self-professed realists, surely they can understand the United States’ vital interest in the defeat of Iran’s leading proxy.

In Walt-Mearsheimer’s telling, there is no significant threat to the United States today that would not disappear if Israel were to disappear tomorrow – not Islamic jihad, not a nuclear Iran. A world without Israel would be a virtual Elysium. Ira Stoll remarked drily in the New York Sun that a reader of Walt-Mearsheimer could gain the impression that Osama bin Laden would return to the family construction business if it were not for Israel.

Walt-Mearsheimer point to Europe as an exampled of the more “balanced” view of Israel that would prevail in America were it not for the nefarious Israel lobby. That would be the Europe in which it is commonplace to describe Israel as having engaged in genocide against the Palestinians since 1967, despite the rapid Palestinian population growth, decline in infant mortality, dramatic increase in life expectancy, and jump in literacy under Israeli rule, the Europe in which polls list Israel as the greatest threat to the world peace.

Walt-Mearsheimer lament the absence of truth-telling journalists in America like Patrick Seale, Hafez al-Assad’s court biographer, and Robert Fiske, who has of late lent his name to various conspiracy theories as to who was really behind 9/11.

EVEN IF WALT-MEARSHEIMER are not anti-Semites, they are certainly anti-anti anti-Semites. In the manner of the anti anti-Communists of the ‘50s, who viewed the excesses of the anti-Communists as far more threatening than Communism itself, they worry more about those who focus on anti-Semitism than about anti-Semitism itself. In their view, Jews complain far too much about anti-Semitism and blow its extent out of all proportion.

They systematically downplay the alleged threats to both Israel and Jews, as part of their rhetorical strategy. For if Jews overstate the threats they face, does that not suggest that they do so deliberately in order to immunize themselves to criticism and silence their critics.

Walt-Mearsheimer, for instance, claim that Ahmadinejad never threatened to wipe Israel off the face of the map. In their telling, he simply expressed the hope that Israel will gently disappear from the pages of history. Jeffrey Goldberg points out that among the media outlets describing Ahmadinejad as having called for Israel’s destruction are Al Jazeera and the official Iranian broadcast service, neither of which are known to be under Zionist control. And Ahmadinejad’s personal website quotes him predicting that the new wave of confrontations in Palestine would soon wipe Israel away.

Walt-Mearsheimer similarly minimize European anti-Semitism, and attribute most of what there is to understandable Moslem anger over Israeli actions. But a British parliamentary report on anti-Semitism in England found that anti-Jewish incitement had reached crisis levels. And the author of that report wrote recently, “Europe is reawakening its old demons, but today there is a difference. The old anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism have morphed into something more dangerous.”

The rate of French Jews leaving their native land for Israel has doubled in recent years in response to a long string of violent anti-Semitic incidents. Perhaps French Jews are being hysterical (though they have a considerably closer view of the scene than Walt-Mearsheimer), but they are not making up their fears. People do not generally flee their homes in order to gain a debating advantage over their adversaries.

Part of the reason that Walt-Mearsheimer do not perceive the rising anti-Semitism in Europe is due to their stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. If the routine European equation of Israel with Nazi Germany and Israeli leaders with Hitler does not strike one as off-the-wall, then there is no reason to consider Israel to be the victim of a double-standard deriving from anti-Semitism.

Walt-Mearsheimer’s intent is to confront Jews with the tar baby problem: The more they seek to confront their accusers the more ammunition they provide for the charge that they are stifling all debate. That tactic, as Mead notes, is also of ancient provenance: “The authors also end up adopting a widely used tactic that has a special history in anti-Semitic literature. When anti-Semitic writers and politician make vicious attacks, Jews are in a double bind: refrain from responding with outrage and the charge becomes accepted as fact, express utter loathing at the charge and give anti-Semite the opportunity to pose as the victims of a slander campaign by venomous Jews.”

The best-seller status of The Israel Lobby and Jimmy Carter’s Palestine: Peace not Apartheid is the best proof, if any were needed, that there exists no Israel lobby in America capable of stifling debate on Israel. But by prophylactically predicting that Jews will attempt to silence them and others like them with the charge of anti-Semitism, Walt-Mearsheimer have written, in Goldberg’s words, a “book [that] is not an act of scholarship, but an act of intimidation.”

The proper question is not: Are Walt-Mearsheimer anti-Semites? But rather: What difference would it make if they were?

You can read all of Jonathan Rosenblum's articles on Jewish Media Resources.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Israel Lobby and Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt.

CONFIRMATION THAT ISRAEL ADVISED AGAINST INVADING IRAQ. The confirmation comes from an unlikely source:

A senior official at the US State Department has said that political, diplomatic and military officials in Israel warned the United States against invading Iraq even before the American forces entered the country, the Inter Press Service news agency reported over the weekend.

According to the official, Israel tried to convince the Bush administration that the main problem in the region was Iran, not Iraq.

The man, Lawrence Wilkerson, was a member of the US State Department's policy planning staff and later chief of staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell.

In an interview with the news agency, he said that "the Israelis were telling us Iraq is not the enemy - Iran is the enemy."

According to Wilkerson, different sources in Israel explained to senior US officials that "if you are going to destabilize the balance of power, do it against the main enemy."

Wilkerson noted that the main point of their communications was not that the US should immediately attack Iran, but that "it should not be distracted by Iraq and Saddam Hussein" from a focus on the threat from Iran.

Why is Wilkerson an unlikely source? He appears in a German documentary about the Israel Lobby (mostly in English) where while he tries to straddle the fence, he does agree with Mearsheimer and Walt that America's interests are negated by the inability of the US to abandon Israel because of the "Jewish Lobby" which influences US policy through Dick Cheney. He fits in well with Tony Judt and Kenneth Roth.

If Wilkerson knew that Israel saw Iran as the bigger threat, why did he wait till now to say anything? Why did he not mention it in the documentary? Considering the animus he has against the Bush administration, his obvious bias suggests he could just be looking for another way to make Bush look bad.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Lawrence Wilkerson and Israel Lobby.

NOT RESPONDING TO MEARSHEIMER AND WALT. The Jerusalem Post reports that Israel and AIPAC will not be responding to the new book: Israel doesn't want to help promote sales of the book; AIPAC doesn't want to get into the distraction of a mud-slinging contest.

So what should be done?

The position advocated in the book, [former Israeli ambassador to the US, Danny] Ayalon said, remains on the fringes of American society. He said rather than reacting to books such as this or Jimmy Carter's Palestine: Peace not Apartheid, Israel and Jewish groups in the US should undertake a comprehensive proactive campaign on university campuses to introduce Israel and to counter the Middle East Studies departments funded by the Saudis and Gulf states on many campuses.

All well and good, but Ayalon's suggestion is something that should be going on in any case, considering the challenges facing Jews on university campuses.

Abraham Foxman of the ADL has written a book in response to M&W's book: The Deadliest Lies: The Israel Lobby and the Myth of Jewish Control--it remains to be seen how it does.

After writing a paper and a book, hopefully M&W won't follow Jimmy Carter's lead and make a movie:

Jonathan Demme's Jimmy Carter: Man From Plains has been picked up by Sony Pictures Classic for distribution in North America. According to Variety, the documentary will premier at the upcoming Venice Film Festival.

The film follows ex-president Jimmy Carter on his recent book tour touting the controversial tome Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. Demme and his camera crew filmed Carter as he delt [sic] with the negativity that met his book while he visited different parts of the country.

Considering the age of self-indulgent 'scholarship' we live in, anything is possible.
After all, Oliver Stone will be making a move about Ahmadinejad, after all.

Technorati Tag: Mearsheimer and Walt.

MEARSHEIMER & WALT: OLD WHINE, NEW BOTTLE. In an editorial, The Forward delineates what is becoming a familiar pattern:

Step one: Publish your views in as provocative a manner as possible. Use words like “apartheid,” as Jimmy Carter did in his book, or paint Jewish lobbying efforts in darkly conspiratorial terms, as Walt and Mearsheimer did in a paper published last year. Step two: Dare the Jewish community to lash out at you, then whine about being victimized by bullies. Step three: Implore fair-minded liberals to line up behind you, forcing them to choose between endorsing your vision — however skewed — or becoming part of the censorship juggernaut.

But even old familiar patterns can add new twists.

We ourselves didn’t realize there was a Step Four — until this past week, when the two ratcheted up their efforts. As part of the advance marketing campaign, the scholars asked to appear before a variety of Jewish audiences, including synagogues and a Jewish community center. They were, predictably, turned down.

Then the Forward was approached. We were asked to sponsor a program at which the professors would present their views, unopposed. Noting that we hadn’t thought much of the paper when it came out, we were assured that the authors had now incorporated last year’s criticisms. We asked to see a copy of the book, but we found it as sloppy as the original paper and decided not to endorse it. All of which played right into their hands, enabling them to argue that the Lobby is still working to suppress their views — with the Forward as Exhibit A.

The Forward’s opinion of their work could not have come as a surprise to them. We published our critique last year in a front-page editorial, the longest editorial in the newspaper’s history.

Read the entire article.

According to The Forward, Mearsheimer and Walt--not surprisingly--were more interested in the marketing than the debate which The Forward offered.

Come September, get ready for the same old whine.

[Hat tip: Powerline]

Technorati Tag: Israel Lobby and Mearsheimer and Walt and The Forward.

BATTLE OF THE BOOKS OVER THE ISRAEL LOBBY. The book form of Mearsheimer's and Walt's paper on The Israel Lobby is coming out--but critics are ready with a book in response: The Deadliest Lies: The Israel Lobby and the Myth of Jewish Control by Abraham H. Foxman (introduction by George Schultz).

The New York Times already has an article on the controversy being stirred up:

The subject will certainly prompt furious debate, though not at the Center for the Humanities at the Graduate Center at the City University of New York, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, a Jewish cultural center in Washington and three organizations in Chicago. They have all turned down or canceled events with the authors, mentioning unease with the controversy or the format.

Both books are coming out September 4th.

If you have not seen it yet, there was a debate about the original paper, hosted by the London Review of Books back in October 2006--you can view it online at ScribeMedia.org
There is also a transcript of that debate here.

Looks like the summer will not end quietly.

Technorati Tag: Israel and The Israel Lobby and John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt.

WALT AND MEARSHEIMER RETURN. Media Backspin reports that the book version of their book "The Israel Lobby" is due out in September. Mondoweiss has a post, quoting a couple of opinions on whether the book will just be a hardcopy of the paper or will add anything--and whether there is reason to be concerned.

In either case, the Media Backspin has links to various refutations of W&M's claims from last year.

Time to dust them off.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Israel Lobby and Walt and Mearsheimer.

3 Trends in the Use of the "Israel Lobby" Diatribe

Playing the "Israel Lobby" card isn't just for 'academics' anymore

Following the most recent airing of the accusation of the excessive power of the "Israel Lobby" by Mearsheimer and Walt, the same them has been struck in 3 very different circumstances recently. This may signal the seepage of the idea into mainstream discourse. At the very least, it signals that claims about the exaggerated influence of the "Israel Lobby" has become a weapon that people are less and less bashful about using--whether an ex-president in the LA Times, a defense attorney defending a terrorist, or a Jewish liberal.

Jimmy Carter of course, claiming that he was merely Speaking frankly about Israel and Palestine when he claimed:

For the last 30 years, I have witnessed and experienced the severe restraints on any free and balanced discussion of the facts. This reluctance to criticize any policies of the Israeli government is because of the extraordinary lobbying efforts of the American-Israel Political Action Committee and the absence of any significant contrary voices.

Obviously, Carter has never heard of Noam Chomsky or read Alexander Cockburn and The Nation. He has not read They Dare To Speak Out-People and Institution Confront Israel's Lobby by Paul Findley, published in 1985. Perhaps he is not aware of Senator William Fulbright's open criticism of Israel back in 1963 or Hedrick Smith's criticism of AIPAC in his 1990 book The Power Game: How Washington Works.

You can argue about the amount of influence that the "Israel Lobby" in general and AIPAC in particular has, but to claim that there is an "absence of any significant contrary voices" just doesn't fly. Carter's accusation of the power of the "Israel Lobby" is as a private citizen writing an editorial in a newspaper, as opposed to writing a 'scholarly' piece or politician and introduces the idea into the general public.

A very different use of the claim of the power of the "Israel Lobby" is in a court case in Illinois where Mohammed Salah is accused of having served as a high-ranking operative of Hamas, which the US considers a terrorist organization. The defense has claimed that Hamas is a political party and not a terrorist group by virtue of having won democratic elections. However, the defense has gone further, pointing to Israel's influence in the case in order to

prove that the criminal case is the product of "the joint venture, cooperation, and partnership" between the American and Israeli governments.

...A defense lawyer, Michael Deutsch, described a "longstanding and profound political military and law enforcement relationship" between Israel and America. One authority he cited is an academic paper published in March, "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy." The hotly disputed treatise by a political science professor at the University of Chicago, John Mearsheimer, and the academic dean at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, Stephen Walt, argues that pro-Israel elements have effective control over American strategy in the Middle East.

Mr. Deutsch also asked to present evidence about the role of the Anti-Defamation League as a "conduit and facilitator" between Israeli and American authorities.

If Deborah Libstadt had not won her court case in David Irving's libel suit in 2000, the result would have been an important boost to Holocaust deniers around the world. Likewise, if Salah's lawyers were to be successful in court in using the claim of "Israel Lobby" influence, it would give the claim an aura of validity that would make it possible to undercut the US-Israel relationship.

The third example of the exploitation of the "Israel Lobby" claim is by Rabbi Michael Lerner of Tikkun. In a recent article, Lerner defends Jimmy Carter's latest book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, going so far as to claim that "Jimmy Carter was the best friend the Jews ever had as president of the United States." Lerner goes on to decry those who oppose his view of the way to peace between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs:

Unfortunately, this peace is impeded by the powerful voices of AIPAC and the mainstream of the organized Jewish community, who manage to terrify even the most liberal elected officials into blind support of whatever policy the current government of Israel advocates. Ironically, this blind support has had the consequence of pushing many morally sensitive Christians and Jews to distance themselves from the Jewish world, which makes blind support for Israeli policies the litmus test of anti-Semitism. Younger Jews cannot safely express criticisms of Israeli policy without being told that they are disloyal or “self-hating,” and elected officials tell me privately that they agree with Tikkun’s more balanced “progressive Middle Path” which is both pro-Israel and pro-Palestine.

Lerner takes advantage of the rhetoric of those who accuse the "Israel Lobby" of having too much control in the US and gives it added life, claiming that the same situation occurs within the Jewish community itself. By using the claim himself, he gives the claim added weight.

The "Israel Lobby" claim is being voiced once again--and as more than just a criticism of Israel and its influence in the US. It is also being used as a tool: by Carter to deflect charges of plagiarism, by a lawyers to defend terrorists, and by a Jewish liberal to support his version of a peace plan for Israel.

We will be hearing the phrase "Israel Lobby" a lot more.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Israel Lobby and Jimmy Carter and Michael Lerner and Mohammed Salah .

Martin Kramer's Rebuttal of Mearsheimer and Walt: Is It A Worse Approach?

Martin Kramer points out 2 basic arguments for saying that Israel is an asset to the US:

1. The Holocaust and Jewish persecution creates a moral obligation that the civilized world owes Israel.
2. Israel is an outpost of democracy in the Middle East.

But there are downsides provided by those very same arguments:
1. An obligation can be a liability as well as an asset.
2. A non-democratic state, such as Saudi Arabia, can be an asset--assuring the flow of oil. By the same token, the PA and Iran are more democratic than Saudi Arabia, yet have not been assets to the US.

Those 2 arguments are nevertheless sufficient for most people.

But everywhere in the West, there is a sliver of elite opinion that is not satisfied with these rationales. It includes policymakers and analysts, journalists, and academics. By habit and by preference, they have a tendency to view any consensus with skepticism. In their opinion, the American people cannot possibly be wiser than them -- after all, look whom they elect -- and so they deliberately take a contrary position on issues around which there is broad agreement. In this spirit, many of them view U.S. support for Israel as a prime focal point for skepticism.

Take for instance John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, and their paper “The Israel Lobby: Israel in U.S. Foreign Policy.” As proponents of the Realist approach, they find issues of historical oblication and an ally's respect for human rights to be irrelevant. Instead, US support for Israel is a liability, the interests of 5 million American Jews alienating the US from a billion Moslems--and AIPAC, the epitome of the Israel Lobby, blinding the US to the problem.

As a result of the Israel Lobby, the US has unwisely gotten involved in an invasion of Iraq and an unnecessarily antagonistic opposition to Iran's pursuit of nuclear power.

So what is Kramer's alternative to the classic moral obligation/democratic ally argument:

My answer, to anticipate my conclusion, is this: United States support for Israel is not primarily the result of Holocaust guilt or shared democratic values; nor is it produced by the machinations of the “Israel Lobby.” American support for Israel -- indeed, the illusion of its unconditionality – underpins the pax Americana in the eastern Mediterranean. It has compelled Israel’s key Arab neighbors to reach peace with Israel and to enter the American orbit. The fact that there has not been a general Arab-Israeli war since 1973 is proof that this pax Americana, based on the United States-Israel alliance, has been a success. From a realist point of view, supporting Israel has been a low-cost way of keeping order in part of the Middle East, managed by the United States from offshore and without the commitment of any force. It is, simply, the ideal realist alliance.

In contrast, the problems the United States faces in the Persian Gulf stem from the fact that it does not have an Israel equivalent there, and so it must massively deploy its own force at tremendous cost. Since no one in the Gulf is sure that the United States has the staying power to maintain such a presence over time, the Gulf keeps producing defiers of America, from Khomeini to Saddam to Bin Laden to Ahmadinejad. The United States has to counter them, not in the interests of Israel, but to keep the world’s great reserves of oil out of the grip of the West’s sworn enemies.

But there is a problem with the approach that the US has benefitted from Israel as a lever by which to acquire concessions from the Arab World--concessions which it would not have been able to otherwise. Kramer's approach implies a level of manipulation that cannot always be assumed to be in Israel's interest:

In a paradoxical way, the United States has been a major beneficiary of the Israeli occupation of Arab territories: Arab leaders who wish to regain lost territory must pass an American test. When they do, the United States rewards them, and the result has been a network of American-endorsed agreements based on American-mediated Israeli concessions.

Very nice, but by rewarding the Arab leaders each time, the US has taught those leaders that they need not suffer the consequences of their actions and may thereby even encourage their attacks, knowing that land lost is easily regained. If the peace treaty with Egypt is an example of one of those "American-endorsed agreements based on American-mediated Israeli concessions," one could easily make the argument that given the minimal requirements made upon Egypt and the continued vilification of both Israel and the US in the Egyptian press, combined with the enormous amount of American aid with no clear gain in return--makes the suggested American benefit suspect.

When Kramer's refers to Israel as an ally, it is not in the sense of a country with whom the US associates or cooperates with such as Great Britain or Australia, but more as a "an interest" which is manipulated to serves the goals of the US. Middle East allies are apparently different.

Reduced in her stature as an ally in this way, Kramer criticizes the Disengagement as an attempt for Israel to do something that only the US should be doing--giving Israeli land to her enemies:

That Israel looms so large as a valuable ally and asset, in a Middle East of failed and failing states, is an achievement in which Israel can rightly take pride. But it must never be taken for granted. Israel has come perilously close to doing so in recent years, by unilaterally evacuating occupied territory -- first in Lebanon, but more importantly in Gaza. Whatever the merits of “disengagement” in its various forms, it effectively cuts out the United States as a broker, and has created the impression that Arabs can regain territory by force, outside the framework of the pax Americana.

The problem, according to Kramer, is not that by personally giving back land to her enemies Israel encourages them and absolves them of the consequences of aggression; it is that Israel thereby deprives the US of the political benefit of such actions.

And then Kramer finally says plainly what he has meant all along:

If Israel is to preserve its value as a client, its territorial concessions must appear to be made in Washington.

Israel is a client, a country under the patronage of, and dependent on, the US--not an ally.

The manipulation becomes more obvious:

In Israel, by contrast, the United States is allied to a militarily adept, economically vibrant state that keeps its part of the Middle East in balance. The United States has to help maintain that balance with military aid, peace plans, and diplomatic initiatives.

To keep that "balance," Israel by definition will never be allowed by the US to be too strong or the Arab enemies threatening her allowed to become too weak. Seen in this way, a Palestinian state is the natural result of the search for balance, a check on Israel. The utilitarian pragmatic Realist approach is a success because of American lives and resources saved:

...according to the realist model, a policy that upholds American interests without the dispatch of American troops is a success by definition. American support of Israel has achieved precisely that.

To tell you the truth, I'm not sure that I'm all that much happier with Martin Kramer's interpretation of Israel's relationship with the US over Mearsheimer's and Walt's.

Crossposted at Israpundit

Technorati Tag: Israel and Martin Kramer and John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt and Israel Lobby.

Mearsheimer and Walt Sign On With Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Vital Perspective notes that the Forward reports that Mearsheimer and Walt have been busy. They wrote a paper on the influence of the Israel Lobby. They then gave a talk sponsored by CAIR, a group about which Daniel Pipes noted last year: "five persons associated with CAIR have been convicted, listed as an unindicted co-conspirator, or deported on terrorism-related charges."

Now the Forward reports that Farrar, Straus and Giroux is going to publish a book length version of their findings.

According to Wikipedia:

FSG is considered one of the last of the old-fashioned literary publishers and is widely celebrated for its renowned lines of literary fiction, narrative nonfiction, poetry, and children's literature.

Which category do Mearsheimer and Walt fit?
It isn't obvious, is it?

Technorati Tag: Israel and Mearsheimer and Walt.

Actual Study Disputes CAIR-Bears Mearsheimer and Walt

At The Corner, Michael Rubin asks How Important is the Israel Lobby?

And the answer falls short of what CAIR Bears Mearsheimer and Walt claim:

In the academy today, politics of research are more important than the supporting evidence. John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt became academic pop stars when they used the internet to research and produce, under Harvard’s banner, a polemic blaming the Israel Lobby for skewing American policy away from Washington’s natural interests.

Now David Verbeeten has done research, not on internet blog, but rather in libraries and archives (imagine that!), and looked at U.S. policy going back to the Eisenhower administration. He shows how the White House and State Department played realpolitik and sought to align U.S. policy with the more numerous and oil-rich Arab states but, over time, successive administrations learned the hard way that Israel was a truer ally.

What’s really sad is that people will take a second mortgage to send their kids to Harvard or Chicago and, so long as their politics are correct for the academy, professors needn’t bother to do their homework.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Israel Lobby and Mearsheimer and Walt.

Mearsheimer and Walt Was Just the Beginning

I suppose this was inevitable:

In a case in Illinois of a man on trial for channeling millions of dollars to Hamas, the defense lawyers are asking a federal judge to hold a hearing to examine connections between the persecution and Israel

In a motion filed yesterday, attorneys for Muhammad Salah asked to call witnesses and present other evidence to prove that the criminal case is the product of "the joint venture, cooperation, and partnership" between the American and Israeli governments. The defense lawyers said Israel should be compelled to turn over evidence favorable to Mr. Salah because the Israeli and American governments have acted in lockstep in the case.

...A defense lawyer, Michael Deutsch, described a "longstanding and profound political military and law enforcement relationship" between Israel and America. One authority he cited is an academic paper published in March, "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy." The hotly disputed treatise by a political science professor at the University of Chicago, John Mearsheimer, and the academic dean at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, Stephen Walt, argues that pro-Israel elements have effective control over American strategy in the Middle East.

Mr. Deutsch also asked to present evidence about the role of the Anti-Defamation League as a "conduit and facilitator" between Israeli and American authorities.

Personally, I think there should be a panel similar to the one CAIR hosted for Mearsheimer and Walt--to look at the influence of the Islamic lobby in general, and CAIR in particular.

And I would love to have a judge look at the role of CAIR as a "conduit and facilitator" for terrorists.

Actually, there have been judges looking at the connection between CAIR and terrorists--and indicting CAIR officials and Board members.

According to Anti-CAIR:

CAIR Employees And Officials Support Terror

Senior CAIR employee Randall Todd Royer, a/k/a "Ismail" Royer, pled guilty and was sentenced to twenty years in prison 0for participating in a network of militant jihadists centered in Northern Virginia. He admitted to aiding and abetting three persons who sought training in a terrorist camp in Pakistan for the purpose of waging jihad against American troops in Afghanistan. Royer's illegal actions occurred while he was employed with CAIR.

CAIR's Director of Community Relations, Bassem Khafagi , was arrested by the United States due to his ties with a terror-financing front group. Khafagi pled guilty to charges of visa and bank fraud, and agreed to be deported to Egypt. Khafagi's illegal actions occurred while he was employed by CAIR.

On December 18, 2002, Ghassan Elashi , founding board member of CAIR-Texas, a founder of the Holy Land Foundation, and a brother-in-law of Musa Abu Marzook , was arrested by the United States and charged with, among other things, making false statements on export declarations, dealing in the property of a designated terrorist organization, conspiracy and money laundering. Ghassan Elashi committed his crimes while working at CAIR, and was found Guilty.

CAIR Board Member Imam Siraj Wahaj, an un-indicted co-conspirator in the first World Trade Center bombing, has called for replacing the American government with an Islamic caliphate, and warned that America will crumble unless it accepts Islam.

Rabih Haddad served as a CAIR Fundraiser. Haddad was co-founder of the Global Relief Foundation ("GRF"). GRF was designated by the US Treasury Department for financing the Al Qaida and other terrorist organizations and its assets were frozen by the US Government on December 14, 2001.

Also, Daniel Pipes notes that:

A class action lawsuit in the name of John P. O'Neill, Sr., stemming from the 9/11 atrocity, has named the Council on American-Islamic Relations [CAIR] as a defendant.

Funny how those who express concern about undue influence on America studiously ignore the obvious.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Mearsheimer and CAIR and Hamas.

Mearsheimer and Walt Meet CAIR

Here we have two guys who have written about the Israel Lobby and how it has inordinate control over the US, which sacrifices its own interests for those of Israel--and who do these two great scholars go speak in front of?

CAIR-DC: 'Israel Lobby' Press Club Panel 'Sold Out'

Mearsheimer, Walt to discuss lobby's impact on U.S. response to Lebanon war

DC: 'ISRAEL LOBBY' PRESS CLUB PANEL 'SOLD OUT'

(WASHINGTON, D.C., 8/22/06) - The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) announced today that all the available spaces for a panel discussion on "The Israel Lobby and the U.S. Response to the War in Lebanon" at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., have been reserved.

The panel will feature Professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, authors of a recent Harvard University paper titled "The Israel Lobby."

If Mearsheimer and Walt need a proper introduction to CAIR, they couldn't do any better than take a look at the Anti-CAIR site: the one that CAIR sued--and then dropped their suit.

After hearing the claims that Mearsheimer and Walt made, and then to see them go and address CAIR--who epitomize everything that the two of them have claimed to be opposed to--is as good an indication as any of the emptiness of their claims.

While looking around, I noticed that Judeosphere has already dealt with the implications of this meeting of the minds in a post on his blog.

I'll just add my own too cents on the absurdity of Mearsheimer's and Walt's paper in light of who they like to associate with.

According to Anti-CAIR:

Sept. 2003 Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security U.S. Senator Richard Durbin said, "[CAIR is] unusual in its extreme rhetoric and its associations with groups that are suspect" whule U.S. Senator Charles Schumer has stated that "we know [CAIR] has ties to terrorism" and "intimate links with Hamas"

On its home page, Anti-CAIR also notes:

Since its founding in 1994, the Council on American-Islamic Relations and its employees have combined, conspired, and agreed with third parties, including, but not limited to, the Islamic Association for Palestine ("IAP"), the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development ("HLF"), the Global Relief Foundation ("GRF "), and foreign nationals hostile to the interests of the United States, to provide material support to known terrorist organizations, to advance the Hamas agenda, and to propagate radical Islam. The Council on American-Islamic Relations, and certain of its officers, directors, and employees, have acted in support of, and in furtherance of, this conspiracy.

On that last point, Anti-CAIR give the specifics on five employees and officers of CAIR--not just members--who have supported terror.

Meanwhile, Daniel Pipes has information on a class action lawsuit in the name of John P. O'Neill, Sr., stemming from 9/11 which has named the Council on American-Islamic Relations as a defendant.

Hey, if Mearsheimer and Walt want to give credibility to CAIR, no one is going to stop them. But by showing what they are really made of, Mearsheimer and Walt have lost whatever credibility they may have still had.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Mearsheimer and CAIR.

Links Early Wednesday Morning...

I'm sitting here in the basement wishing I had an idea for something to write about, but I had less than 3 hours sleep last night. Nothing is coming to me right now--but fortuantely I happen to know 2 or 3...dozen people personally (by pen name, no less) who scribble, scribe, and scriven...

AbbaGav presents Internecine Palestinian Squabble, Blow by Blow, With Pictures (and captions)

Soccer Dad finds some pictures that are not quite so funny.

Adloyada shows no mercy as she compares the Foreign Minister of the PA with...Dan Quayle.

A Simple Jew has a photo essay: Remembering Dov Gruner

Boker Tov, Boulder's dog had a sock surgically removed...and Wednesday is her 3rd Blogiversary. Mazel Tov!

ConservaJew writes about a different kind of divestment.

Crossing the Rubicon writes about Israelis in Iran...helping to rebuild.

Elder of Ziyon writes about The Holocaust in the New York Times of 1942-43

Treppenwitz shares the special story of Fred Basci

The Hashmonean writes about Israel's successful satellite launch.

Heichal HaNegina reminds us that this past Sunday was the 130th Yahrzeit of Rebbe Chaim Halberstam of Sanz

The Ignoble Experiment links to what others have written about Yom HaShoah and adds her own thoughts.

I'm Haaretz, Ph.D notes the burial of the Satmar Rebbe tz"l and the unusual eulogy given at the burial of the previous Satmar Rebbe tz"l.

Israel Perspectives presents A Tale of Two Cities - Israel Edition

Israel Matzav covers some of the ongoing back and forth on whether the Walt-Mearsheimer paper is Anti-Semitic.

Random Thoughts has some thoughts about Yom HaShoah in the context of statements by the leader of Iran.

Judeopundit notes that the President of Iran slams EU anti-Semitism

Le Mont de Sisyphe notes the need to remember some lessons of history

Letters of Thought explains the Post Pesach Pizza Syndrome

Life of Rubin writes about deciding on a policy about listening to music during Sefirah.

me-ander is now carrying Kosher Cooking Carnival #5

Mere Rhetoric Notes how Palestinians "shoot through" bureaucratatic red tape.

Mirty's Place writes about the Joy of Bread.

Perspectives of a Nomad writes about Penn State and Free Speech

SerandEz writes about the difficulty of connecting with Yom HaShoah.

Shiloh tries to keep a sense of humor

Smooth Stone writes about the Moslem rally outside of the Israeli Consulate in NY.

The Sunken Synagogue proposes some new ministerial positions for Olmert's new government.

WestBankBlog recommends an article about the Jewish Partisans

Meryl Yourish celebrated her 5th Blogiversary at the end of last week. Mazel Tov!

Technorati Tag: Blogs and Israel and Judaism.

The Israel Lobby: An Antechamber To Debate

On October 18, 2004, Honest Reporting had a piece entitled Israel-bashing in Medical Journals, which noted:

o In The British Medical Journal, Dr. Derrick Summerfield wrote

The Israeli army, with utter impunity, has killed more unarmed Palestinian civilians since September 2000 than the number of people who died on September 11, 2001.

and

Clearly, soldiers are routinely authorised to shoot to kill children in situations of minimal or no threat.

o In June 2004 the Diabetes Voice, a quarterly publication of the International Diabetes Federation, had a report on the Gaza Strip, with the following abstract:

The year 2003 marked the 55th anniversary of the Nakba (cataclysm) of the Palestinian people. In 1948, according to the United Nations Conciliation Commission, 760,000 Palestinians were evicted from their cities and villages, hundreds of which were razed to the ground. What remains of the Palestinian people's land is now split between the West Bank of the river Jordan and Qita Ghazzah (Gaza Strip), and remains occupied by Israeli military forces and settlers. In 2003, the second uprising, or Al-Aqsa Intifada against this occupation entered its third year. Panagiotis Tsapogas, Medical Co-ordinator of the Greek section of Mdecins Sans Frontires (Doctors Without Borders) in Gaza, 2002-2003, reports on the difficulties faced by Palestinian people with diabetes in Gaza, and makes a call for the provision of improved diabetes care in the region.

Fast forward to June 17, 2005, when Dana Milbank wrote Democrats Play House To Rally Against the War in the Washington Post, describing how some Democrats conducted a mock-Judiciary Committee hearing about the Iraqi war:

...The session took an awkward turn when witness Ray McGovern, a former intelligence analyst, declared that the United States went to war in Iraq for oil, Israel and military bases craved by administration "neocons" so "the United States and Israel could dominate that part of the world." He said that Israel should not be considered an ally and that Bush was doing the bidding of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

"Israel is not allowed to be brought up in polite conversation," McGovern said. "The last time I did this, the previous director of Central Intelligence called me anti-Semitic."

Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), who prompted the question by wondering whether the true war motive was Iraq's threat to Israel, thanked McGovern for his "candid answer."

At Democratic headquarters, where an overflow crowd watched the hearing on television, activists handed out documents repeating two accusations -- that an Israeli company had warning of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and that there was an "insider trading scam" on 9/11 -- that previously has been used to suggest Israel was behind the attacks.

Howard Dean later condemned the Anti-Semitic literature handed out and the anti-Israel accusations.

Now John Mearsheimer, Professor of Political Science at Chicago, and Stephen Walt, Professor of International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard have written a paper The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy:

For the past several decades, and especially since the Six-Day War in 1967, the centrepiece of US Middle Eastern policy has been its relationship with Israel. The combination of unwavering support for Israel and the related effort to spread 'democracy' throughout the region has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardised not only US security but that of much of the rest of the world. This situation has no equal in American political history. Why has the US been willing to set aside its own security and that of many of its allies in order to advance the interests of another state? One might assume that the bond between the two countries was based on shared strategic interests or compelling moral imperatives, but neither explanation can account for the remarkable level of material and diplomatic support that the US provides.

A number of blogs have addressed a number of the points that the paper attempts to make. The Elder of Ziyon pinpoints another of issues in the paper, noting parallels with Denmark, the problem of the danger of automatically assigning intellectual honesty to intellectuals, and some sloppiness with the truth. Meanwhile, The American Thinker, James Taranto, Powerline, and CAMERA--among many others take the arguments offered and rebut, critque, and reveal the many flaws in the paper.

This is not surprising. For every Juan Cole who writes:

According to the September 11 Commission report, al-Qaeda conceived 9/11 in some large part as a punishment on the US for supporting Ariel Sharon's iron fist policies toward the Palestinians. Bin Laden had wanted to move the operation up in response to Sharon's threatening visit to the Temple Mount, and again in response to the Israeli attack on the Jenin refugee camp, which left 4,000 persons homeless. Khalid Shaikh Muhammad argued in each case that the operation just was not ready.

there is a Martin Kramer who will answer:

Did Cole read the same 9/11 report as the rest of us? There's not a single passage in the 9/11 report mentioning Sharon's (or Israel's) policies, and I challenge him to produce one. Cole just made it up. And in point of fact, the report's narrative definitively contradicts him. The report makes it clear that 9/11 was conceived well before Sharon became prime minister of Israel in March 2001. Chapter 5, section 2 (p. 153) says the following, based on the interrogation of Khalid Shaikh Muhammad (KSM), the 9/11 mastermind:

According to KSM, he started to think about attacking the United States after [Ramzi] Yousef returned to Pakistan following the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.... He maintains that he and Yousef...speculated about striking the World Trade Center and CIA headquarters as early as 1995.

The idea was fully hatched by early 1999 (p. 154):

KSM acknowledges formally joining al Qaeda in late 1998 or 1999, and states that soon afterward Bin Ladin also made the decision to support his proposal to attack the United States using commercial airplanes as weapons.... Bin Ladin summoned KSM to Kandahar in March or April 1999 to tell him that al Qaeda would support his proposal. The plot was now referred to within al Qaeda as the "planes operation."

The selection of Ehud Barak as Israeli prime minister in May 1999 didn't put a crimp in the planning. To the contrary: preparations proceeded apace, and Bin Laden pushed even harder for the operation, which wasn't quite ready. Bin Laden did so again after Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount. But that visit took place on September 28, 2000, when Sharon was leader of the opposition. He only became prime minister five months later.

In short, the 9/11 operation could hardly have been "conceived" as a response to U.S. support for Sharon's "iron fist policies." It was conceived, its operatives were selected, and it was put in motion, long before Sharon took the helm. "

The report makes it clear that 9/11 was conceived well before Sharon became prime minister of Israel in March 2001.

...And what of Cole's claim that Bin Laden wanted to launch the attacks "in response to the Israeli attack on the Jenin refugee camp, which left 4,000 persons homeless"? The Jenin operation took place in April 2002, seven months after 9/11. Apparently, in the bizarre universe of the Colesque, Sharon's horrid deeds are always at fault for 9/11, even if he committed them after the event.

But the articles, comments, and accusations come from increasingly respectable places--from medical journals, mainstream political parties, and academia. We're not even talking about Columbia University, where such material is expected.

More disconcerting is the apparent response of an pro-Israel group to the paper:

An official with a pro-Israel organization in Washington said that the authors' disagreement "is not with America's pro-Israel lobby, but with the American people, who overwhelmingly support our relationship with Israel, and with Democrats and Republicans in successive administrations and Congress, who so strongly and consistently support the special relationship between the United States and Israel.

This official misses the point that what is under attack in the paper is not merely American policy, the pro-Israel lobby, or the pro-Israel opinion of the average American. Mearsheimer and Walt attempt to rewrite the events of the 1948 Israeli War of Independence, reinterpret the nature of Israel's democracy and attacks Israel's moral standing.

The American Thinker warned back in February 2005 of this growing trend:

Frank Luntz, a pollster, says there is great danger ahead, because American elite opinion is not sympathetic to Israel, and it is getting worse. Elites view Israel as aggressive and warlike and Palestinians as victims. Academia is the community that is the least sympathetic to Israel, since lefty radicals from the 60s run the faculty at most schools. Columbia University is one of the worst offenders, particularly its Middle Eastern Studies Department, now chaired by former University of Chicago Professor Rashid Khalidi. This has happened despite the fact that Columbia gets 50% of its contributions from Jewish alumni, and more than a quarter of its students are Jewish. Jewish intellectuals, such as Tony Judt writing in the New York Review of Books, have given up on Israel. It has just become too difficult for the spineless and witless to defend Israel at cocktail parties.

Elites are very angry – at President Bush, at Republicans, at evangelicals. A lot of it revolves around the Iraq war. They blame “neocons,” shorthand for the Jews, for promoting the Iraq war, and for controlling Bush. This is just one more justification for their anti-Israel venom.

Let's recognize the paper for what it is and what it does--and where it fits in a growing list of similar writing.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Israel Lobby.