The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy

The Israel Lobby in America is one form of democracy in action. Lobbying of the congress is as American as apple pie: it is just the way Washington operates. This book argues that the Israel Lobby is simply more successful than any other lobby, and in particular, when discussing the causes of the Iraq war the authors argue (plausibly in my opinion although Dr Alan Greenspan disagrees) that oil interests had very little to do with that. The Lobby's unequalled success has been in ensuring that contrary points of view are hardly heard in America. Knowing as they do what kind of response this opinion provokes, Mearsheimer and Walt carefully deny that they are suggesting a `conspiracy' on the grounds that all the Lobby's activities are legal and unconcealed. Let us therefore avoid such a word in considering the rights and wrongs of ensuring public conformity by bombardment of dissidents with letters and emails, by public smears, by letting congresspersons, journalists and academics know what they had better not say if they know what's good for them, and by shouting down the opposition generally.

It reminds me of Churchill's note in the margin of a speech - `Argument weak: so shout.' Really, arguments are not the point. The point is that the interests of Israel, defined as whatever Israel says they are, shall be implemented rigorously. Reason is treason because it can't be trusted to stay on-message. The familiar justifications are nonsense. Democracy has nothing to do with it all: America's main support in the middle east comes from those pillars of democracy Saudi Arabia Jordan and Egypt; and where public opinion is heard at all as in Lebanon or Iraq there seems little enthusiasm for America's ideas of it. Grandiose baritone declamations that Israel and America are bound together in a united battle against terrorism are sleight of hand - local Israeli conflicts with Hamas or Hezbollah are not connected with dispersed Al Qaeda cells worldwide unless all persons called Ali or Tariq are all much the same to you, secular Shi'a Syria gave America valuable intelligence about Sunni Al Qaeda, Israel provides America with nothing in the `war on terror', but America is doing Israel's bidding in Israel's attempts to crush an ever-renewing succession of perceived threats, real, hyped or plain bogus. God is apparently not too reliable either, telling Israel they can have Palestinian land but telling jihadists something different.

In all this the book seems to me to state the obvious, and I can't see how any fair-minded person who takes the slightest trouble to consider the history of the western nations in the middle east can perceive Islamic grievances as some manifestation of irrational evil. Sure, terrorism against civilians is a crime, but it is how anti-colonial struggles are usually conducted, unless by Gandhi. American revolutionaries employed it against Britain, so did the Mau-mau in Kenya, so did the IRA in England with American money, so did Mandela in South Africa. So did Irgun in the Palestine Mandate against Britain, and it is the Jewish historian Benny Morris whom the authors quote as suggesting that it was Irgun who gave the Palestinians the idea.

Putting my own gloss on the text, I see the picture thus. During the post-Ottoman Palestine Mandate Arthur Balfour proposed a Jewish homeland in their ancestral territory. Ben-Gurion in 1937 was quite clear that this was a matter of land-seizure, as such requiring violence against civilians. The hideous atrocity of the Holocaust understandably reinforced this proposal, and Europe, which had perpetrated the Holocaust, supported the idea in a very European way, i.e. give them someone else's land, not European land. Israel's right to exist seems to me exactly the same as that of any UN member, although understandably I don't hear the Lobby using this particular argument these days. Its legitimacy is in being established by the UN (not by Jehovah), but with hindsight we ought to have seen some obvious problems. The UN resolution was pushed through against the wishes of nations in the region and of people with title-deeds to the land. At the time it might have been understandable to take the Leon Uris viewpoint - `The white-robed Arab screamed his defiance' and so forth. In 1956 Ben-Gurion in private was still perfectly clear in his mind, but it suited him to take the Exodus line for public consumption. If that was the best we could do then, there's not much excuse now for failing to see that what the UN created, in the post-colonial world, was a new colonial occupation, and a racially-based one at that. How reconciled would you be to Israel if you had lived there?

The threat to Israel in my view is real and perhaps permanent, but it's not what the Lobby likes to pretend. An Iranian nuclear threat to Israel is a threat to Palestine. How likely is that? Israel needs nuclear deterrence apparently, so how does that differ from a country whose neighbours have just been invaded and occupied, and which is menaced overtly by America? In dealing with the Lobby we are not dealing with reason but with fanaticism. The intellectual giants who brought us Chalabi exhibit their ongoing realism, even after Iraq, by suggesting they could install the son of the Shah to head a peaceful, democratic and America-leaning Iran.

The authors conclude with some hopeful suggestions for dealing with both Palestine and the Lobby. They favour the 2-state approach, but thankfully recognise that the Road Map is a busted flush, and I hope Tony Blair in his new job has as much intelligence. Maybe, but it probably needs some completely radical new thinking, and this is more likely to come from Israel than from the brass-bound dogmatic Lobby, involving serious financial compensation to Palestinians and some corresponding effort to help them from the their fair-weather Arab brethren who have not distinguished themselves in that regard. Some land, e.g. the Golan Heights, could helpfully be returned, but the example of Israel itself doesn't give me confidence in a land-apportionment solution. The Holocaust entitled its victims to restitution, to compensation, to atonement and to retribution, but I can't see that it entitled them to a square centimetre of land, and we shouldn't repeat the mistake, irreversible though it is.

As for the Lobby, and the neocon crowd in general, they have done enough damage. They are encouraging the worst elements in Israeli thinking by supposing that they can smash opposition by force, creating a spiral of new dangers. Has Iraq taught them nothing? It seems not. While the American legislature is still the helpless tool of the Lobby, the majority of Americans in general, and even of American Jews, do not seem so gung-ho. What we could do with is some determined and courageous Americans, able and inclined to face down the Lobby's bullying, to treat the Lobby's madcap mentality not with silent contempt but with vocal and articulate contempt. This book is an important and thorough attempt to restate what should not need restating, namely that we should operate by reason and not by attempted fiat. To the egregious Mr Perle, whose two words to any states which dare stand in his way are `you're next', the two words from rational people everywhere, but particularly in America, should be along the lines of `get stuffed.'

Criticism of Israels sadistic behaviour is not anti-semitic (34/52 people found this helpful)

When the Israeli army can shoot Palestinian children in the head in their own homes and foreign journalists in high visibility clothing, blow up entire Palestinian families picnicing on beaches, carpet bomb Lebanon so widely and indiscriminately that the land is not safe to tread for fear of stepping on unexploded Israeli bomblets, commit the mass theft of Palestinian homes and land for their own ends, then ghetto-ise their remaining population by witholding food and electicity, all under the 'anti-terrorism' banner, all with the express backing of the Israel Lobby in America, books like these need to be written.

If Scotland started behaving in the same way towards England, I'm pretty sure many English would be firing a few rockets over Hadrians Wall.
The bottom line is most Israelis I have heard and read think this behaviour is entirely appropriate and any criticism is met with a deliberate tactical charge of anti-semitism. I am glad books like this are finally coming to the surface and showing Israel for the sadistic, self-pitying, land grabbing bully it is.

Never say a word against Israel. (14/32 people found this helpful)

The fact that the negative nay-sayers are in uproar about this book proves only one thing: That no-one is allowed to say anything about Israel which is, in their minds detrimental.

But, the truth is that the facts speak for themselves and that is what they are trying to stifle by shouting 'anti-semitism' as soon as anyone tells the truth.

Read the book for yourself and you'll know the truth.

a real eye-opener (31/50 people found this helpful)

i originally approached this book warily, as there has been allegations of anti-semitism made against the authors, but i found that it didn't discuss the jewish faith, it rather concentrated on israeli (including non-jewish) influences on american foerign policy.
analytical and in-depth,this book is a real revelation into a lenghty international relationship that is rarely discussed, and often taboo.

About time (40/90 people found this helpful)

The authors lay out their case by trying to accomplish three tasks. U.S. Support for Israel, the Israel Lobby being a key reason for the support and that the U.S. unconditional support is not in the interests of the U.S.

The authors then go on to convince the reader of the three points above by going into great detail on areas such as U.S. support for Israel, the workings of the lobby and some of the fruits of their labours.

An excellent, well structured book. Required reading for anyone who wants to learn about the why the Middle East is The Middle East.

John J. Mearsheimer, Stephen M. Walt

Reader Reviews:

BACKING THE OVERDOG (27/45 people found this helpful)

Criticism of Israels sadistic behaviour is not anti-semitic (34/52 people found this helpful)

Never say a word against Israel. (14/32 people found this helpful)

a real eye-opener (31/50 people found this helpful)

About time (40/90 people found this helpful)

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