Michael Oren: an American in DC

So is Israeli Ambassador to the US Michael Oren going to address the J Street convention? It's not clear. Kishkushim had high hopes for American Jewish/Israeli relations upon his appointment. I can't say that I am terribly informed about what this organization represents, amounts to, how it functions. But a quick glance at their website gives the impression that it's an organization that positions itself as an alternative source of power to the demonized Israel Lobby of "K Street." Hence the name. They have a political action committee (PAC) to support their own candidates. It looks like the real thing. The positions? I haven't gone through the policy papers, but I would be interested to know if there is one in there that really pisses Oren off. What these guys seem to be is the mainstream of American Jewry: a lot of the secular, the Reform leadership, some of the intellectuals (see Michael Chabon), the part of the Obama crowd that's tuned into the Middle East. So it's a real limiting case for the Israeli representation in Washington. To what extent are they going to assuage the concerns of an American Jewish public that is largely skeptical if not outright contemptuous of the status quo in the territories? Bibi thinks that the status quo is safe -- and you can hear Oren saying that too in the Ha'aretz piece. However indignant the Israeli leadership is about J Street, they should hold their noses, if they must, and deal. It's the right thing to do.

AIPAC Case to be Dropped

The JTA is reporting that the charges against former American Israel Public Affairs (AIPAC) staffers Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman have been dropped. The espionage accusation against the two have been a gift to the self-appointed regulators of the "Israel Lobby." When you read someone like Juan Cole, you'd think the case against them was air-tight the moment the indictments were first announced. But for Cole and his gang, this will be just another piece of evidence for the suffocating power of AIPAC over American foreign policy. One hopes that they might be a tad less gleeful though.

A Jewish State

Theodor Herzl's 1896 work The Jewish State (or the "State of the Jews")

Most Jewish Israelis and most Jews living in the diaspora take it for granted that Israel is "a Jewish state." This particular description does not elicit a great deal of controversy for them; it seems obvious and relatively unproblematic. For many Arabs, whether Christian, Muslim, or atheist, and for many Muslims living outside the Middle East, however, the phrase seems unacceptable, and usually provokes an exclamation of disbelief that such a thing should be possible. To them it seems prima facie racist. Likewise, while most Jews see Zionism as the political expression of a belief in Jewish self-determination, dating to the late 19th and early 20th centuries, for many Arabs and Muslims it is a fascist, genocidal, and/or racist ideology with none of the legitimacy granted to other nationalist movements, including Pan-Arabism.

To me, this discord invites two different lines of inquiry.

1. Of course, arguments must be made for and against. Indeed, I myself have been forced to engage in such arguments ad nauseam, a fact that at this point in my life tends to fill me with resentment as soon as I hear yet another person challenging me to resist their conversionary or enlightening zeal.


2. However, a different line of inquiry would proceed more phenomenologically (I think). It would ask: what do all these different people mean when they talk about a "Jewish state"? Further, it would try to investigate why some people sees this self-description as unproblematic, while others vigorously oppose it; it would, moreover, ask the same thing about the desire of many Jews (in Israel and elsewhere) to have the Palestinians as well as others accept the definition of Israel as a Jewish state. This would be a study of fears, hopes, and their consequences.

To kick things off on the first line of inquiry, I will cite the remarks of John Mearsheimer, made at a lecture delivered at UC Berkeley in late October 2006, which succinctly characterize the realist position when it comes to this question. So as not to be accused of taking things out of context, I have included the entire paragraph of remarks:

We think that the fact that there’s a Jewish state is a good thing given the history of antisemitism and our understanding of how the world works. Here in the US, we have a melting pot society. This is not a Christian or Anglo-Saxon state. It’s a liberal state. There is no one ethnic or religious group that dominates; it’s a melting pot. I don’t like the idea of living in state dominated by one culture. But around world, there are lots of states where people identify themselves largely in terms of culture – take Japan: most people there consider themselves to be Japanese. Same is true with Israel – it’s a Jewish state; the same is true for Germany. It’s not the way I like to do business; but it’s perfectly legitimate way to do it in the international system today. I believe in national self-determination. Zionism is a form of nationalism and perfectly legitimate one. There is nothing wrong with having a Jewish state. We are arguing that Palestinians are also entitled to have a state of their own. If there’s national self-determination for the Jews, it should also exist for the Palestinians. The principal obstacle to establishing Palestinian state at this time is Israel. Israel is interested in colonizing the West Bank and giving the Palestinians nothing more than a few enclaves, keeping them disconnected, controlling borders, air and water. As long as that’s the case, the Palestinians won't have a viable state. The same logic that leads us to support a Jewish state leads us to support a Palestinian state.

Mearsheimer and Walt at Berkeley

What follows is my paraphrase transcript of today's Berkeley Teach-Ins Against the War (BTIAW) discussion featuring Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer on their recently published book, The Israel Lobby (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, September 2007). I do not have time here to offer an analysis, which I hope will emerge from discussion of the event in future posts. As some of our veteran readers will recall, some of the earliest posts on this blog concerned the original article on the "Israel Lobby" published by Mearsheimer and Walt in 2006. That study, in my opinion, was riddled with small mistakes and careless assertions. The Walt and Mearsheimer that I saw in Berkeley earlier today - especially the Walt - were far more polished and careful than this original study. Walt in particular struck me as very persuasive and as an excellent teacher. Overall, I was very impressed by the level and civility of the discussion. Unlike the previous BTIAW that I attended, this was, for the most part, a model of what our universities should be about.

Needless to say, I continue to have serious disagreements with the claims advanced by Walt and Mearsheimer respectively, although there is also much in this latest version of their thinking that seems indisputable. Briefly, I found least convincing the arguments for

1. a causative link between "the Lobby's" aims and the Iraq war (as Noah K. pointed out, the extent of the connection they postulate is always qualified; M&W spoke of "marked influence," for example)
2. a STRONG connection between American foreign policy toward Israel and the 9/11 attacks (as Asaf pointed out, perhaps speaking about other aspects of their talk, M&W seemed to conflate US policy toward Israel with US policy toward the entire Middle East; I believe that it is the latter, far more than the former, which served as a motivating factor for al-Qaeda). Dan over at The Green Line has previously blogged on this.

I also remain unpersuaded that there is such a "huge gap" between what the American people want and what American foreign policy toward Israel is - a gap, that the authors argue, is explained by the activities of the Lobby.

In reading through this transcript, I think it is worth paying attention to the differences that exist between Walt and Mearsheimer - in substance and form. Mearsheimer was definitely less guarded than Walt. Nevertheless, both were clearly unwilling to endorse the positions articulated by George Bisharat, the discussant, as well as in the question and answer period.

Stephen Walt

Two main questions

1. Is there a powerful, pro-Israel lobby in the US? How does it work?
2. Is its influence positive or negative for US, and positive or negative for Israel?

The Taboo

I want to acknowledge how difficult it is to raise this subject in the U.S. If we were talking about energy or gun control or Indian-American nuclear agreement, it wouldn’t be controversial to talk about oil lobbies, NRA, various Indian-American groups.

Reasons for the Taboo

But with Middle East, when you talk about Israel lobby groups you are grabbing the third rail. This is in part because of the historical experience of the Jewish people – a history which includes the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and accusations of undue influence. It is a history that has to be respected and which requires us to be cautious..

Rejection of Antisemitic Conspiracy Theories

Some may think that we’re saying there’s some kind of secret conspiracy to control American policy, the military, or economy. We reject these antisemitic conspiracy theories. The Israel Lobby is an interest group like lots of other ones. Most of its activities are entirely appropriate. We don’t question Israel’s legitimacy. We believe the US should come to Israel’s aid if its survival were ever in jeopardy. But we ought to be able to talk about the influence of the Israel Lobby in the same way as we might talk about any other groups.

Usual Rationales for US Support for Israel

Rabin: US support for Israel beyond compare in modern history – largest recipient of military aid. Israel’s GDP/capita is 29^th in world. Israel builds settlements. US gives consistent backing to Israel in the UN. Almost always take its side in regional conflicts. Israel is rarely if ever criticized by officials nor anyone who aspires to high office .

The usual rationale given for this support is that Israel is democracy and a strategic asset. Israel may have been a strategic asset during the Cold War; but is it today? Giving Israel unconditional support is one of reasons we have a terrorism problem and makes it harder to address many problems in Middle East. Problems wouldn’t disappear if we had normal relationship. US gets some benefits. But it’s hard to argue that giving Israel so much and unconditional help is making Americans safer. It’s a strategic liability.

True, Israel is a vibrant democracy – but there are many other democratic countries. Further, Israel’s treatments of own Arab citizens and Palestinian subjects is sharply at odds with democratic values. Israel’s behavior no better than that of the Palestinians. Neither side owns moral high ground. Israel hasn’t acted substantially better than other countries. Its behavior isn’t exemplary to justify special treatment.

We think there’s a strong moral case for Israel’s existence, based on the history of antisemitism. But today, Israel’s existence is not in jeopardy.

The Lobby is Behind Israel's Privileged Position

What explains Israel’s privileged position? In our view, the Israel Lobby. Organizations such as AIPAC, ADL, Christians United for Israel, Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, Washington Institute for Near East Policy; Weekly Standard and New Republic. Most special interest groups in US have a number of different components. Environmental movement = research organizations, local chapters, academics, journalists. It’s not a centralized organization. Not everyone agrees. It’s not a cabal or conspiracy that controls US foreign policy. Rather, powerful interest group whose actions are as American as apple-pie.

The lobby is not synonymous with Jewish Americans. Between one quarter to one third don’t care about Israel; some of the organizations aren’t Jewish. Lobby is defined by political positions it favors. We include only those who are actively working to influence US policy.

Small interest groups can sometimes wield strong influence – narrow topic that doesn’t interest so many people. Lobby works in Beltway – giving politicians clear incentives to embrace its positions. AIPAC works 24/7 to convince politicians to follow their views. Annual budget is $50 million – drafting legislation, publishing talking points. Very energetic grassroots base. It doesn’t give money directly to candidates, but it does help steer contributions from individuals. Pro-Israel political action committees gave $55 million to politicians from 1992-2006. Have driven some people from office. Lobby doesn’t control every election, but every Congressman and presidential candidate knows that they’re playing with fire if you question support for Israel.

The second strategy is try to shape public discourse on Middle East and Israel so that the country is viewed very favorable by mainstream Americans. US coverage is very pro-Israel – cf. Europe and Israel. No one like Robert Fisk and Patrick Seale, Akiva Elder, Gideon Levi, Amira Hass. It’s not the former are always right – the point is that critical voices like theirs are almost completely absent from US media. Even so, watchdog groups such as ADL and Camera mount boycotts, Campus Watch monitors universities. When Jimmy Carter published his book, ADL and Camera took out ads with publisher’s phone number. Pressure on CNN advertisers.

Efforts to stifle critical commentary often includes smearing critics by calling them antisemitic. Marty Peretz: Carter will go down in history as a Jew-hater. Distracts people from main issue – American policy. Deters people from criticizing the Lobby. Marginalizes people in the public arena.

It’s obvious to virtually everyone that America’s Middle East policy has gone off the rails but we don’t debate. It’s often argued that US policy is due to broad support for Israel. This is not persuasive. Americans in part do have a favorable image of Israel; but they don’t think US should give Israel one-sided and unconditional support. Recent survey: 70%+ Americans: be balanced. 87% of Jewish Americans want a two-state solution. Gap between what people want and American policy is due to influence of lobby.

Mearsheimer

The Negative Influence of the Lobby on American and Israeli Policy

Its influence has been largely negative. The Lobby, working with Israel itself, has pushed Israel’s Middle East policy that are not in US’s interest and not in Israel’s. US support for Israel’s policies in occupied territories has helped fuel terrorism against US; role of Lobby in run-up to Iraq war; US policy toward Iran, Syria, and during Lebanon War of 2006 (will not talk about last 3 in this presentation).

Hatred for US is due to Support for Israel

Conventional wisdom among Israel’s supporters: treatment of Palestinians has little to do with US’s terrorism problem and why US is so hated. In fact, Israel = valuable ally. This is wrong. Survey data shows that US support for Israel’s brutal treatment of Palestinians and to colonize these territories angers huge numbers of people in the Arab and Muslim worlds. Citizens in these countries are genuinely distressed at plight of Palestinians and perceived role of US. I’m not saying this is only cause of our terrorism problem but a major cause: motivates some individuals to attack the US. It serves as powerful recruitment tool for terrorist organizations. Since LBJ every president has opposed building of settlements.

Critically important issue when talking about America’s terrorism problem: 9/11’s relation to brutal treatment of Palestinians. It’s common-place to hear people say that Bin Laden didn’t care much about Palestinians until recently; events had nothing to do with Israel; those involved in attack hated us because of who were not our Middle East policy. It is clear from the historical record that Bin Laden has been deeply concerned about plight of Palestinians since he was a young man; reflected in public statements throughout 1990s. Max Rodenbeck, in Economist review of 2 books about Bin Laden: of all the themes the notion of payback for injustices suffered by Palestinians is perhaps most powerfully recurrent in speeches. Major motivating factor of attacks: support for Israel. Bin Laden wanted bombers to attack Congress specifically; move up date in response to events in Israel. Principal architect of attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed: animus stems from violent disagreement with US foreign policy favoring Israel (9/11 Commission Report). Hard to imagine more compelling evidence for role that US support for Israel played in inspiring attacks. Present relationship between Israel & US is provoking terrorism problem.

Israel and the Lobby were Main Driving Forces Behind Decision to Invade Iraq

Iraq War = one of greatest blunders in American history. Israel and Lobby were two of the main driving forces behind decision to invade Iraq. Hard to imagine that war happening in their absence. Israel was only country where both government and majority of population favored the war. Israeli government pushed Bush administration hard to make sure it didn’t lose its nerve in months before invasion. Barak and Netanyahu also implored US to take down Saddam Hussein. Israel was pushing so hard for war that its allies in US warned them to damp down rhetoric lest it be seen as war for Israel. President Clinton said in 2006: every Israeli politician I knew thought that Saddam was so great a threat that he should be removed even if Iraq didn’t have WMD. 77% of Israelis said they wanted US to attack Iran in month before war.

There is no question that in early 2002 when Israelis first got wind of Bush administration’s thoughts to attack Iraq that key officials went to Washington to make it clear that IRAN was greater enemy. Important to emphasize, however, that Israel wasn’t opposed to US toppling regimes in Iraq or Syria. Israel simply wanted US to deal with Iran first. But once Israelis realized that war party intended to deal with Iran after finishing job in Iraq, it enthusiastically embraced idea of invading Iraq. Israelis put significant pressure on Bush administration to choose war over diplomacy, while reminding US to deal with Iran after. No evidence that Israel warned US that Iraq would be a quagmire; they thought it would be a cake-walk.

Now that war has gone south, common-place to hear Israel’s supporters say that main organizations in Lobby didn’t push for war. May 2004 editorial in The Forward. As President Bush attempted to sell war in Iraq, America’s important Jewish organizations rallied to his defense – community leaders stressed need to rid world of Saddam and his WMD. Concern for Israel rightly factored in.

Hard evidence that AIPAC lobbied for the war. Its executive director, Howard Kohr, told NY Sun in January 2003: one of AIPAC’s successes for past year = quietly lobbying Congress to approve use of force in Iraq. Neo-cons were main driving force behind war. They initiated idea of toppling Saddam by force; especially after 9/11, they pushed relentlessly for war against Iraq. No other group or institution in US was as seriously committed to invading Iraq. Even after 9/11, there was significant opposition in State Department, uniformed military. Neo-cons are deeply committed to Israel; many are connected to key organizations in the Lobby. Our argument is not that the neo-cons or the leaders of the principal Lobby organizations were pushing a war that was in Israel’s national interest. On contrary, they believed that invading Iraq was in both the American and Israeli national interest. For them, what is good for Israel is good for the US. It was the events of 9/11 that created circumstances to help them convince that invading Iraq was smart idea.

Without Bush or Cheney onboard, there wouldn’t have been a war. If Al Gore had been elected, there would not have been a war. The neo-cons were necessary to have the war but by themselves couldn’t have made the war happen.

We’re sometimes accused of making argument that Iraq war = Jewish war. Polls taken before the war show that American Jews were 10% less supportive of war than general American public. War was due in large part to Israel Lobby, especially the neo-cons within it; not the American Jewish community. Lobby is defined by its political agenda.

What Should the US-Israel Relationship Look Like?

What we think US-Israel relationship should look like. US should treat Israel as a normal country; how it treats other democracies around the world – England, France, Italy, and India. When Israel is acting in ways consistent with American interest, Washington should back the state. When it harms US interests, America should get Israel to change its behavior. US should act as honest broker in Israeli-Palestinian conflict. US should make it clear to Israel that it must abandon occupied territories. Jerusalem should be told that US will oppose Israel’s colonial expansion in the West Bank. US should defend Israel’s right to exist within its pre-1967 borders with some minor modifications. Most importantly, if Israel’s survival is threatened, US should come to its aid.

George Bisharat

Some Adulation and Non Sequiturs

It is an important book because it is about a pivotal, consequential conflict that has emanations and consequences that affect us here within the US. Relationship between the conflict and the war in Iraq. If you think about the domestic dimensions of the so-called “War on Terror” – price of diminished civil liberties – this is another consequence of this conflict that affects each and every one of us in this country. It’s a book about an issue that’s very poorly understood. Lack of understanding is produced, manufactured, maintained – not by control but by substantial influence – over media, public discourse in universities and variety of other places.

Most importantly, the professor have broken a taboo and opened debate on this critical issue. From personal experience, the reality is that people who attempt to speak out on this issue face substantial forms of dissuasion – shall we say. What you have done, professors, was an act of intellectual courage that few people in the American academic community have shown.

No Shout-Out to People who Celebrate Hanukah (or Kwanzaa - NK)

I urge you all to buy the book, give it to your family and friends for Christmas.

Critique of Pivotal Assumptions about Israel's Right to Exist

Some questions: the professors repeatedly state throughout book that history of Christian European antisemitism provides a strong moral basis for Israel’s founding and continued existence. At same time, they argue that Israel’s establishment necessarily entailed crimes (term they use) against the Palestinians, including expulsion of approximately 750,000 Palestinians in 1948, seizure of homes. They also show in some detail that maintaining Israel’s character as a Jewish state requires continuing denial of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes. It also entails de jure and de facto discrimination against the Palesitnian citizens of Israel today. They speak of 1992 Basic Law of Human Dignity and Freedom – the professors point out that it does not contain an equality principle (14^th Amendment); such a clause was specifically excluded. Laws that prevent Palestinian Israeli citizens from transferring citizenship to non-citizens whom they marry. How can there be moral justification? Is it appropriate for US to condition aid to Israel on its passage of an equal rights amendment – if not, why not?

Questions by Bisharat

At a number of points in the book, the professors state that it’s not antisemitic to criticize Israeli policies. It’s not clear whether you believe it’s antisemitic to criticize founding principles of the Israeli state, including the ones that dedicate it to being a state to one people and not of all of its citizens. Is there anything antisemitic about criticizing Zionism, establishing a state based on exclusivist ethnic criteria?

You state that Israeli Lobby acts in ways counter to Israel’s interest. Raises question about relationship between Israeli government and Lobby? Is the Lobby running amok? Or is the Israeli government acting in ways that run counter to long-term interests of its citizens?

I read with great interest section of the book that deals with prescriptions of how to make things better. You clearly state support for a two-state solution to problem. Book claims that other alternatives are undesirable.

How to deal with Lobby? They evaluate weakening it through financing regulations. Look at possibility that Lobby might be countered – they directly note that neither Arab nor Muslim-American community are likely to pose a significant challenge to Lobby. Possibility of transforming the Lobby, making it less maximalist and hardline – they rate it as plausible. The real hope they offer is in opening up public discourse and education. Silent majority is out there, amenable to what they say. But I worry because the Lobby is working overtime; professors were disinvited from prominent forum in Mearsheimer’s hometown. Program of colonization on the ground in Israel is not stopping either.

One of the alternatives they’ve offered to two-state solution: development of apartheid-like solution. Will political power ever be marshaled here or in Israel to stop this colonizing juggernaut? Is there not a point at which we have to admit that repartition of Palestine has become impossible. There is one effective sovereign as we speak; question will be about political principles on which that system should operate. Will it be a system based on equal rights and fundamental human dignity of both peoples.

Questions and Answers

Responses to Bisharat

Mearsheimer

We think that fact there’s a Jewish state is a good thing given history of antisemitism and our understanding of how the world works. Here in the US, we have a melting pot society. This is not a Christian or Anglo-Saxon state. It’s a liberal state. There is no one ethnic or religious group that dominates; it’s a melting pot. I don’t like idea of living in state dominated by one culture. But around world, there are lots of states where people identify themselves largely in terms of culture – Japan: most people consider themselves to be Japanese. Same is true with Israel – it’s a Jewish state; same true for Germany. It’s not the way I like to do business; but it’s perfectly legitimate way to do it in international system today. I believe in national self-determination. Zionism is a form of nationalism and perfectly legitimate one. There is nothing wrong with having a Jewish state. We are arguing that Palestinians are also entitled to have a state of their own. If there’s national self-determination for the Jews, it should also exist for the Palestinians. Principal obstacle to establishing Palesitnian state at this time is Israel. Israel is interested in colonizing the West Bank and giving the Palestinians nothing more than a few enclaves, keeping them disconnected, controlling borders, air and water. As long as that’s the case, Palestinians wont’ have viable state. Same logic that leads us to support Jewish state leads us to support Palestinians State.

Walt

Relationship between Israeli government and Lobby. Impact of Lobby has been unintentionally quite harmful to Israel. There’s nothing unique about that. Governments and special interest groups do stupid things; every government does things contrary to its own interest. 3 examples: many Israelis today would argue that entire settlement project was a “strategic and moral disaster of tragic proportions” (Wieseltier). Immensely costly.

Iraq was a blunder not just for US but also for Israel. It created a failed state in Israel’s neighborhood. Strengthened Iran’s position. Bush didn’t think it was a blunder to go into Iraq; neither did the Israelis. War in Lebanon in 2006 – Hizbullah was a problem, Israel had right to respond; but strategy that Israel adopted by trying to eliminate it from the air, trying to punish from the air – it was boneheaded. Not good for Israel. Aided and abetted by Israel Lobby here.

Some of Israel’s most ardent supporters in US have done it great harm.

Where do we go from here? Look down road where this is all leading. You can imagine expelling all the Palestinians. If you’re of ethnic cleansing, please raise your hands. You can have a binational democracy [strong applause, Walt says: I don’t agree with this] – if you favor that, you don’t favor having a Jewish state. Or you can have apartheid. That has many negative consequences for the Jewish state. Do you want that? If you’re pro-Israel, you should get behind a two-state solution with as much force as you can.

Mearsheimer interjects:

there is significant opposition in Israel to giving Palestinians a state. Most Israelis don’t have a viable state in mind. Very little support in Israel for the Clinton parameters. That means that US has to lean heavily on Israel. All this is heading for apartheid state, if this doesn’t happen. That’s why so much uproar over Jimmy Carter book.

Questions from the Floor - First Round

1. Ideology. Is it worthwhile to pursue notion that Zionism has an effect within substantial part of American Jewish population similar to effect that Stalinism had on Communists?

2. Statistical extrapolations that Arab population will outnumber Jewish one in Israel.

3. How will change in US foreign policy be sparked?

Mearsheimer

1. I think there is hardly any similarity between the two. Zionism is nationalism: Jews should have state of their own. Got started in Europe in late 19^th when nationalism was a very powerful force. There’s nothing unusual about it. It was good old-fashioned European nationalism. Just happened to be that group pushing it was Jewish. Stalinism is an ideology associated with one man and his murderous policies; it has nothing to do with nationalism. Russian and Ukrainian nationalism is roughly equivalent to Zionism. With regard to Zionism’s role in US – there’s large body of literature is that religious part of Judaism no longer very attractive to them; large portions of American Jewish community see Israel as central part of Jewish identity. That’s due in large part to fact that religion isn’t a strong glue anymore. It’s not surprising that inside American Jewish population today there’s substantial support for Israel. Public opinion polls on American Jewish community, 35 or younger, much less identification with Israel.

Walt

2. Changing demographic balance? Israelis are well-aware of this. Explains why Sharon eventually woke up to fact that creating situation that wasn’t sustainable in long term. There’s also shifting demographic balance within Israel.

3. We are under no illusions that Lobby can be turned around instantly. Some cause for optimism: the costs of such a one-sided policy are becoming obvious. Our screwed-up relation with Middle East, our problems, are making people think – of course Israel and Lobby aren’t only source of this. Two: it’s hard to see how policy changes once you change the conversation, shift the discourse. This is why groups in the Lobby have been so energetic in trying to squelch conversation about elephant in the room. Case for unconditional support for Israel is incredibly weak.

Questions from Floor - Second Round

4. Egypt doesn’t have much of Lobby at all. Why are they second in aid?

5. Book explains political and financial aspects. Speaking as Darwinist: isn't this a war between superstitious primitives?

6. Itamar Haritan asked an excellent question which I couldn't get down verbatim - if you are reading this, please correct this very inadequate (and possibly wrong) paraphrase. Itamar asked whether American foreign policy in East Asia, Southeast Asia, and Latin America during the Cold War could also be explained with reference to the activities of "the Lobby." He wondered whether it might not be more accurate to see US foreign policy in the Middle East today as related to the structures of American imperialism, including such factors as the power of the military industrial complex.

Addendum: This is from Itamar - an elaboration of what he asked at the lecture:

Many people in this room share your concern about US imperialism and would like to understand it so as to end it. Frequently in our social science classes we draw parallels between US behavior during the Cold War and US behavior today, drawing the conclusion that despite differences between the War on Terror and the War on Communism, the two serve the same purpose of mobilizing America for war, masking its economic interests abroad, and serving the Other through which politicians scare the American people to support their policies. Doesn't your analysis contradict comparisons to previous analyses of American imperialism by saying that this latest wave of aggression is explainable, in large part, by a group of organizations? What of the comparisons that many people see between the US-Israel relationship and US policies toward client states, and between its invasions of Vietnam, Korea, etc. as compared with Iraq? What about the military industrial complex?

Mearsheimer

4. It’s true that Egypt is #2 recipient of US foreign aid, and Jordan is #3. Why are they #2 and #3? After Egypt signed peace treaty with Israel in late 1970s, we greatly increased our aid. Bribe money. Money designed to keep Egypt and Israel on a peaceful footing. Jordan’s aid also shot up after signing peace agreement with Israel. Keep Hashemites in power in Jordan and to make sure that there are good relations with Israel and Jordan over long term. Israel would have had a peace deal with Syria if it had not walked out of it in 2000. Saudis have been pushing peace inititive since 2002.

6. History of American imperialism and how America acted in Cold War in Vietnam. Israel Lobby had virtually nothing to do with it. Our argument is not that US acts in benign and responsible way every place in the world and that it’s only in Middle East that it acts in foolish ways because of Israel Lobby. US has behaved like rogue elephant at different times in different places in world. Nothing to do with Israel Lobby. But if you look at Middle East policy today and you think about what forces are pushing US to pursue the policies in that region you see that Israel Lobby has had marked influence on that policy. Contrary to what one might think, the oil lobby and military-industrial complex and oil-producing states in that region have had nowhere same influence. We are both realists; we have vested interested in discovering that war in Iraq was all about geopolitics and oil because it would support our basic theories of how world works. What we’ve written is a direct contradiction of the theories we’ve spent most of our lives developing. We began to look very closely at Middle East policy and began to understand that our theories didn’t apply very well. We had to admit that domestic politics were playing a key role in shaping Middle East policy. I’m not saying Israel Lobby is principal driving force; but in Middle East last 3 decades, power of Lobby is not to be underestimated.

Walt

5. For some of the inhabitants of region, religious beliefs greatly complicate efforts to solve problems – you see this very closely with Holy Sites in Jerusalem. But I don’t believe that religious convictions determine people’s political stance on this question. You can be Jewish and pro-peace.

Questions from the Floor - Third Round

7. You compare, in your book, terrorist attacks of Zionist groups and Palestinians [...].

8. Don’t you think characterization of Zionism as “good old-fashioned nationalism” would be more accurately rephrased “good old-fashioned European colonialism”?

9. What specifically should US condition its military aid to Israel on?

Mearsheimer

7. Differences in terrorism: there’s rich literature on Zionist terrorism. It’s quite clear that the Zionists indiscriminately killed civilians and idea that they never attempted to kill them and always warned them is not borne out by historical record. The truth is there isn’t a lot of difference between what Zionists did against British and what Palestinians are doing vis-à-vis Israelis. Terrorism is weapon of the weak. They wanted to get the “occupiers” [his quotation marks] out. The Palestinians are doing the same thing. I’m not condoning terrorism here. What the Palestinians are doing today is largely the same thing as what the Zionists did.

8. Person who made that point (about colonialism) is essentially correct [applause]. If you think about situation in Palestine ca. 1900 – there were very few Jews and lots of Palestinians. There was no way that large numbers of Jews or Zionists coming out of Pale of Settlement could enter Palestine without behaving way that European powers behaved around world. It’s hard not to do that. How was US created? White men colonized North America. Same thing is true in Israel. Many American Jews find this hard to understand. You have to do terrible things to local population. Defense has to be: it was absolutely essential for the Jews to create state of their own given what was happening in Europe at that time. It’s too bad from Jews’ point of view that they didn’t have a state earlier, in 1933, because then there wouldn’t have been a Holocaust. This is one of the principal reasons that the Zionists went to the Middle East. But to create that state there is no question that they had to expel large numbers of Palestinians.

Walt

9. I’m uncomfortable conditioning aid on attaching human rights clause to constitution. I don’t think it’s our business to tell Israel that it must have a constitution or what’s in it. We should of course be pressing them to improve the status of Israeli Arabs within Israel = 2^nd class citizens. Most obvious thing we should be conditioning aid on is occupation itself and settlement constructions. Money is fungible – money given as military aid can be used for other purposes. As a practical matter, any peace deal that comes about will involve a substantial amount of money from the US – to Palestinians and to Israelis. EU will also have to pay; given that Europeans had large part in creating this problem, they should pay.

Fourth Round of Questions

10. Set up an Internet-based discussion group; then crazy talk about 9/11 (commission?) lies.

11. Given that you think main players are neo-cons and evangelicals, have you thought of using a different term than "Israel Lobby"?

CORRECTION from Peggy: the questioner offered LEN ("Likudniks, Evangelicals, and neo-cons") as a substitute for "Israel Lobby."

12. Some have argued that Israel wanted Iraq war in order to destabilize entire Middle East to embroil Arabs in inter-tribal warfare. What do you think about this [the questioner seemed to think that was a good explanation].

Walt

10. We actually have regular jobs [so we don't have time for your stupid internet newsgroups].

11. Why did we call it “Israel Lobby” – that is the simplest label for it since what unites all the groups in the Lobby is desire to maintain special relationship between US and Israel, keep US providing large amounts of support. There are disagreements among them on whole range of policy issues. They didn’t all support the Iraq war, but they all agree on special relationship. That would include more moderate or left orientations. Other labels you suggest wouldn’t capture phenomenon accurately. Lobby is defined by political agenda it’s pushing.

Mearsheimer

12. Question whether pro-Israel forces wanted to destabilize entire region – i.e., sort of what we’ve been watching happening in Iraq. Two points for why that’s not case. There is no evidence that neo-cons, who were main driving force behind war, were thinking along those lines. In fact, they were remarkably idealistic when they imagined how they thought it would play out. Walt & I were two of the most outspoken opponents of the Iraq war. We had a big debate on Council on Foreign Relations. We ran up against neo-cons on many occasions before war. Basic story they told about how we would live happily ever after in Iraq was to say that we would see situation in Iraq and elsewhere in Middle East that resembles Europe in 1989. We have tryant in control in Iraq; remove him and democracy will bubble up from the bottom. It was reasonably easy argument to counter over half-hour but not over a few minutes; it did look like history moving in that direction post-1989. They were genuinely shocked, especially Paul Wolfowitz – a very idealistic man, though simplistic in his worldviews, a powerful belief in democracy as an inevitable force. Second reason you’re wrong: no way they could do Syria and Iran and all the other countries on hit list if they got bogged down in Iraq. For neo-con strategy to work, they had to be able to “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” Go in, knock off regime in Iraq, have democracy quickly sprout, then go after Iran, and then Syria. Believed that everyone in region would get message and jump on American bandwagon. If we did what you described, we’d end up stuck there with 100,000s troops. General Shinseki was asked how many troops necessary to occupy – he said couple 100,000 – Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld went ballistic about this, because they knew this meant they wouldn’t be able to deal with other countries on the hit list. They believed that democracy would break out. They pooh-poohed State’s extensive plans for occupying Iraq.

Tom Segev on the Jewish Lobby, Jimmy Carter, and Berkeley

"Ugly Fountain," Berkeley (May 2007)

In the question and answer session at a lecture that Jimmy Carter gave here in Berkeley on May 2, the moderator [thanks, Yaman] of the Q&A session mentioned a conversation that he had had with Tom Segev earlier that day. He quoted the Israeli journalist and historian as having told him that "it's a very healthy thing for friends of Israel not to feel as if they can't criticize the occupation."

Segev repeated these remarks during the question and answer session of his own lecture on May 8. In response to the question, "In this century, how much do you think the Israeli lobby in the U.S. has succeeded in influencing [indistinct], particularly the Republican right," which to me seemed like a total non sequitur given the subject of the lecture, Segev first asked for clarification of the term, and - unless I misinterpreted the exchange that followed - accepted the redefinition of "Israeli lobby" as "Jewish lobby," without flinching. He then said that

One relatively new development in American society is that for first time I hear an argument about that. This is a new subject [applause from the audience]. This is what I found interesting about Carter’s speech and his book. You have to rethink the meaning of friendship. You will no longer believe that friendship with Israel means supporting the Israeli government, but rather make a distinction between the government and the country. This tendency to reformulate what it means to be friends with Israel is very interesting and encouraging.

As you can see, Segev did not really engage the question. Maybe he didn't understand it or perhaps he simply chose to ignore its ugly tone. In either case, I am stunned by the indifference to American Jewish concerns and debates that his non-response betrayed. I am not in principle about what Segev said here; I am simply amazed that he failed to connect this question to some of the ugly tendencies that we saw in the wake of the Mearsheimer and Walt article as well as the Jimmy Carter book. This kind of myopia and lack of interest in the concerns of American Jewry are, however, quite typical of people on the Israeli left.


The next question was equally astounding: "What do you propose Israel do with Jerusalem, in light of Carter’s speech?"

Segev's response: "I don't think there is anything that we need to do in light of Carter's speech." He then went on to share his own impressions of Carter's book and the man himself:

Carter doesn’t really say much. What he says in his book, is that if Israelis and Palestinians are nice to each other there will be no war. The story is very complicated. Jerusalem has been a problem without a solution for 3,000 years. It may remain a problem like this. The challenge is managing this problem. Barak was once caught reading a book on “300 solutions to the problem of Jerusalem.” If a problem has that many "solutions," this might mean that there is no real solution. I was struck by how a former president of the United States could come up with a plan ... that the best thing you can say about it is that it is so naïve. It is only one of many other plans. I actually had a chance to tell him that – this is one of the great Berkeley moments that I was thinking of earlier. I was introduced to him, and I told him this.

For Segev, one of the other highlights of spending the semester at Berkeley was the "absolutely thrilling experience" of teaching his seminar on "1967." He said that it was clear to him that he was meeting some of America's brightest students, who were extremely passionate about what they believed should happen to Israel, "even though most of them know almost nothing about the country." He also spoke fondly of his meetings with Salim Tamari from Birzeit University, a visiting professor in Berkeley's Department of History, whose lecture was the subject of an earlier post.

Another view of the I-House

Assorted Other Remarks

Segev on differences between his generation and young Israelis today:

The main difference between us and the younger generation is that the latter no longer believes in peace. The geopolitical situation has changed. The conflict has become deeper, more violent, more difficult to solve. My generation, including the Israeli peace movement, deserves very little praise. The new generation is a more realistic generation, less idealistic. They don’t believe in grand solutions but in conflict management. Peace may not be attained in the foreseeable future. But perhaps this generation will manage conflict in a more rational manner – this is the most optimistic thought I can share with you.

Segev on the conflict between memory and historiography:

Everything that happened in the region since the 6-day war has occurred in its shadow. This puts 1967 somewhere between history and memory. There is always someone in the audience who tells me, “why do you even bother going to the archives, I can tell you all about the war.” Of course, a soldier in a tank never knows anything about the general picture of the war. I would not be able to convince him that anything was different from how he remembers it. Documents will always be trumped by memory. 1967, furthermore, is not quite easy to document.

On sources:

Israel has a relatively liberal policy on opening archives. But there are some things that we just don’t know. We don’t know if Israel in 1967 already had an atomic bomb. This makes a big difference – did any cabinet minister know? Did it play a role? Much of Israel’s foreign policy was conducted by the Mossad, which doesn’t open its archives. Much of what was done in the territories was conducted by the Shin Bet, which also doesn’t open its archives.
[...]
Fortunately, Israeli officials have the commendable habit of taking home documents and not bringing them back. Much of the more significant information comes from records that are “private papers.” An important factor in the success of Israeli historians is their ability to talk to widows of important politicians. I spent many days in the kitchen of Miri Eshkol ...

In response to the question, "Is there any truth to the rumor about plans to trade villages inhabited by Israeli Arabs in Israel proper for settlements in the W. Bank?"

This is an idea that even voicing it should be made illegal. These people are Israeli citizens, they enjoy every right, and they have no wish to be anything else. If you want an indication of how far Israel has come from its original values that it once cherished - it’s possible to say things today that a few years ago no one would have dared to say. Everything is in the open today. I think this is a very dangerous idea. Fortunately very few Israeli Jews and Arabs would go for it.

Mearsheimer and Walt Land Book Deal, and Cooper Union Stages Tense Debate

Crowd Favorite Rashid Khalidi

Mearsheimer and Walt simply refuse to lose. The Jewish Daily Forward reported last week that the two political scientists have signed a deal with the prestigious American publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux to expand their controversial article "The Israel Lobby," which first appeared in March in the London Review of Books, to book length. “I think there’s a lot of interest in these ideas,” said Philip Weiss, who has covered the debate surrounding the article for The NY Observer and The Nation. “The conversation’s just begun.” And this from Sam Freedman of Columbia U.'s journalism school:

The imprimatur of being published by FSG is hard to match... When a publishing house with its credibility and its reputation acquires a conspiracy theory, it can’t help but make that conspiracy theory look more valid than it deserves to look.

Contrary to Amos's post from Thursday on the "Tony Judt Affair," Walt and Mearsheimer have not withdrawn their biggest claims. Yesterday I watched a video of Mearsheimer defending all the original theses at a public debate dedicated to the question of the Israel lobby and its influence, held three weeks ago (Sept. 28) at Cooper Union in Manhattan and sponsored by the London Review of Books. The event doesn't seem to have been covered in the New York Times, but it definitely appeared in the Jewish papers The Forward and The Sun. I encourage everyone who has the time and interest to watch the video webcast of the two-hour debate, which I liken to an academic equivalent of a heavyweight boxing match. It was an open, passionate, balanced and well-moderated discussion, more reminiscent of events I used to attend at Columbia than the farce I was witness to on Sept. 7 at the "teach-in against war" at UC Berkeley--correctly described in the pages of Kishkushim as a "sickening exercise in group-think" (the very opposite of the open discourse its speakers purported to support, I might add). I guess it's not entirely fair to compare the two events at all, given that the latter was not an open exchange of ideas but rather, with little exception, a convention of students and teachers congratulating themselves for opposing Israel. For those of you willing to trust my reportage, what follows is a digest of what happened; I've tried to be as objective as possible in my analysis.

Officiated by Anne-Marie Slaughter, dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton, the contenders included:

• Shlomo Ben-Ami, former Israeli foreign and security minister, a self-described follower of Yitzhak Rabin, author of the recently-published Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: The Israeli-Arab Tragedy
• Martin Indyk, former U.S. ambassador to Israel (1995-97; 2000-01) and director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy and Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution
• Tony Judt, professor of history and director of the Remarque Institute at New York University (who is not as strange-looking in person as the unflattering picture included in previous posts suggests...)
• Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies and director of the Middle East Institute at Columbia University
• Dennis Ross, former envoy and negotiator in the Middle East under Bill Clinton, currently of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP)
• and of course the man of the day, John Mearsheimer, professor of political science and co-director of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago.

Bizarrely, the panelists were introduced like athletes--or contestants before a game show, as Slaughter said--as they walked on stage to take their seats on the panel. Rashid Khalidi, who after Edward Said's death a few years ago took over the mantle of most prominent advocate of the Palestinian cause in American academia, garnered the loudest cheers from a very participatory audience.

Slaughter opened with a question for Mearsheimer that's been the touchstone of much of the discussion since March: "Do you think your article was antisemitic?" Mearsheimer obviously denied it. Indyk offered that it "is, rises--or lowers--itself to the level of antisemitism" by defining the pro-Israel "lobby" in America as a "loosely aligned group" of anyone who at one time or another has supported Israel, amounting to a sort of "cabal." Dennis Ross essentially agreed with Indyk on this point. Ben-Ami, consistently the most reasoned voice on the panel, said that M&W's article "lends itself to the accusation" of antisemitism by presenting a "single-cause explanation" for American foreign policy blunders.

The last two to speak on the first question were Tony Judt and Khalidi, who sounded similar notes throughout the debate, namely, what they've been writing in New York Times op-eds and in other publications: that American public discourse on Israel is stifled and even censored. Khalidi said, “If you believe that there are two sides to the debate in this country on this issue, then you are out of your mind.” Judt recounted an anecdote about the famous Stalinist-turned-anticommunist Hungarian-turned-British-Jewish writer Arthur Koestler, speaking 60 years ago in Manhattan about the danger of the emerging Soviet bloc, when he was accused by an audience-member of fueling Nixonism (later known as McCarthyism); according to Judt he responded by saying, "You cannot help it if idiots and bigots share your views for their reasons. That doesn't mean that you can be tarred with their views." He worried that when an article like Mearsheimer's appears, American intellectuals immediately rush to assess whether or not it is "antisemitic" instead of dealing with its actual content. I agree with Judt that efforts by people like Abe Foxman, who "tar" Mearsheimer with the names of David Duke and Pat Buchanan, can and do stifle open discourse. It should also be noted, however, that Judt went the rest of the night without so much as one peep regarding the actual content of the Mearsheimer article. Perhaps he felt that others on the panel would do it for him? Or maybe he just didn't want to jeapordise his position as the voice of the "left"? Either way, I found it somewhat hypocritical, intellectually and politically irresponsible. (Let me go on record saying that otherwise I have the highest regard for Tony Judt's scholarship.)

After the first round of answers, the battle lines were drawn. There was a clear divide between the agendas of the speakers. The political scientists and establishment figures--Ben-Ami, Ross, and Indyk--wanted to keep the debate to the topic of Mearsheimer's article in order to expose its errors and bury it once and for all; the non-establishment professors--Judt and Khalidi--clearly thought the panel should be about how censored and one-sided the "discourse" around Israel is in the U.S. The tension resulting from these divergent agendas (not to mention views!) made for some nasty exchanges and probably could have degenerated into an actual fist fight had the speakers been 30 years younger and hadn't been held in check by Slaughter. It didn't help that Ross, the current director of a think-tank Khalidi once called "the fiercest of the enemies of the Arabs and the Muslims" and "the most important Zionist propaganda tool in the United States," was seated directly next to him. [Kudos to whoever orchestrated that.] As if it were planned, about midway through Ross's microphone failed, and Khalidi gave Ross his and said, "You mean, this is the first case of a Palestinian giving permission to narrate?" The audience roared joyously at this quip. Ross had some disappointing comeback about his having always tried to empower Palestinians, but he stood no chance against the crowd favorite.

To the accusation of having created the impression of a Jewish cabal, Mearsheimer replied that the Israel lobby was not secretive, thus not a cabal. He repeated his typical argument that interest-group politics are completely legitimate and normal in a democracy, and then proceeded to quote a passage from "Chutzpah," the 1991 best-seller by Alan Dershowitz (whose name drew spiteful laughter from the audience): "My generation of Jews became part of what is perhaps the most effective lobbying and fundraising effort in the history of democracy. We did a truly great job as far as we were allowed ourselves and were allowed to go." Mearsheimer used this to show that the very Dershowitz who came out most vociferously against the M&W paper admitted the Lobby's power. Indyk rebutted that what M. lumps together as the "Lobby" is actually a fractious group of people and organizations that often differ wildly on policy issues; for example, Indyk himself was branded by AIPAC as "anti-Israel" when he pushed the Netanyahu government to work toward peace. Furthermore, Indyk continued, M.'s use of words like "distort" and "bend" (as in, the Israel Lobby distorts and bends American foreign policy) and "ubiquitous" implies a sort of Jewish conspiracy.

Judt then intervened: "If I can just shift the angle of the conversation..."

Slaughter: "Maybe."

"Okay, try me." Judt went on to say that it is the nature of lobby groups to "distort" -- just as the NRA distorts foreign policy. "This is the crucial point about the Israel lobby--or group of lobbies, or whatever you want to say: there are hundreds of distorting lobbies. It's one of the ways in which our political system is defective. This is the only significant lobby I know of which not only acts to advance the interests of its cause but acts constantly and very effectively to silence criticism of its cause. This is not the case with other lobbies."

[RAUCOUS hollers and applause]

Ross: "[...] Tony maybe you haven't paid a whole lot of attention to the NRA. I think they're pretty good in terms of trying to silence their critics [...]."

Khalidi jumped in at this point, in a way only a professor would. "I think there are several problems with the whole discussion that's preceded," he said. To my surprise, unlike Judt Khalidi did actually voice his disagreement with Mearsheimer on the issue of the the Israel lobby's influence over American foreign policy - in particular its influence over the decision to invade Iraq, which Mearsheimer believes would not have been made without it. [Note: at one point in the debate, when M. said, "[...] in [the Lobby's] absence, we probably would not have had a war," the crowd erupted in hoots and hollers applauding him.] But if M. overestimated the lobby's influence in that regard, Khalidi claimed, he UNDERESTIMATED it with regard to domestic legislation and "public discourse" in the U.S. Khalidi then made several vague and cryptic remarks that seemed, at least to this observer and to at least one audience-member who asked about it in the Q&A session afterwards, to imply a type of Jewish domination over Congress and American media. What bothered me was that he never came out and said it; instead he danced around the issue, protecting himself in a cloud of ambiguity - but his point was fairly clear. Slaughter correctly recognized that Khalidi's argument about the power of the Israel lobby was "actually far broader than Mearsheimer's." In essence, he was saying that Mearsheimer had identified the culprit but mistaken the crime: The Israel Lobby wasn't responsible for the Iraq war (thanks, Rashid!), but it WAS guilty for post-9/11 legislation limiting civil liberties and for the stifling of "public discourse" on the Middle East. Again, he never actually said the words, but to me there was no mistaking the implication.

Indyk drew hisses when he claimed that there had been no censorship on discussion of the Mearsheimer article since March, and loud "boos" when he said that "if [the article] wasn't published in America, it was probably because it was such a dreadful piece of scholarship." [Indyk was the audience's clear choice for villain of the debate.] Judt replied on the question of censorship that when he submitted an op-ed to a "very well known North American newspaper" (most likely the NY Times, where he published this on the M&W debate), the editorial page editor asked him whether or not he was Jewish. "But they published it!" Indyk said. Judt responded, "I told them I was Jewish!"

Finally, after the Khalidi-Judt tag-team intervention, Slaughter directed the speakers back to the content of the M&W article. Ben-Ami, insisting again and again that the Israel lobby should not be scapegoated, had some great lines. For example, "You [Americans] have elected, twice, a president who is a political theologian without Jewish votes. [The war] is an American responsibility... [The Bush administration] doesn't NEED a Jewish lobby to do the things that it does." He also made the important point that the government of Israel is almost entirely absent from Mearsheimer's account. Israel as an entity is in common dialogue with the U.S. administration as a major ally. On the issue of Israeli settlements in the occupied zones [Ben-Ami is an outspoken opponent of them], Ben-Ami said that we must hold Knesset politicians responsible, not the American Israel lobby. Various geopolitical factors, not AIPAC, prevent the United States from "imposing peace" on the region or pressuring its ally to force out settlers. Indyk concurred, adding that sometimes, you can't get sovereign countries to do what you want them to do. Judt, like Gideon Levy (see Amos's recent post) a vocal advocate of U.S. "strong-arming" in Israel, predictably countered that most of the time the U.S. can get what it wants.

At another point in the debate, Judt, raconteur par excellence, told another story about a party in the 1960s given for the outgoing Israeli ambassador to the United States. Amos Elon, senior Ha'aretz editor, was overheard asking the unnamed ambassador [Avraham Harman?] off the record what his greatest achievement during his time here was, to which the latter answered, "to convince American politicians that anti-Zionism equals antisemitism." It brought to my mind a speech that Martin Luther King, Jr. gave at Harvard in 1968 equating those two things. "We need to unravel this connection," Judt said. But Judt never explained what he meant by "anti-Zionism"; he remained narrowly focused on how inhospitable a place America is to have a conversation about Israel.

Regulation period ended with a final word from Ben-Ami, then it was on to the audience Q&A session (15 minutes). The first question was for Khalidi:

"You have said that the influence of the lobby is far greater than Mearsheimer said. This reminds me of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion [boos and hollering from the crowd]--other people here who believe in freedom of speech will allow me to finish my question!--How would you distinguish your views from the Protocols, which are very popular in Muslim countries? How great is the Jewish domination of America?"

Khalidi smugly replied that the question demonstrated part of the problem in this country. The impact of the Lobby--for him it seems to be a capital-L--is "both greater and less" than Mearsheimer holds. Less on foreign policy, but more on domestic legislation and public discourse. I found it horrifying and cowardly, though not entirely surprising, that he could suggest such a thing without backing it up with even a shred of evidence.

The rest of the final period passed fairly uneventfully, with the usual combination of students and crackpot conspiracy theorists lining up at the mic. The undisputed question of the night came from a man who claimed to report for the venerable American Free Press, a copy of which he held prominently to his chest (these types never miss the opportunity for a plug!). His question was, "Don't you feel that one of the factors in the drift toward war is the growing British influence in this country?" And it was directed to Tony Judt, of all people!

The panelists were granted the opportunity for brief final statements. Indyk took one last jab at Mearsheimer: Now that we've had an open and vigorous debate about his article, M. can no longer play the underdog, he said. When they neglected to discuss the Arab lobby in the U.S., and in particular the oil lobby coming from countries like Saudi Arabia, and its infuence on American foreign policy, Walt and Mearsheimer proved their approach to be unbalanced. This drew some applause but an equal amount of boos from the audience.

Khalidi retained his title as crowd favorite, receiving loud, extended applause. Slaughter thanked the participants, the audience, and the London Review of Books, and the meeting was adjourned.

Walt & Mearsheimer Make a Comeback

This morning I listened to an interview with professors Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, authors of the controversial political science paper "The Israel Lobby." Brian Lehrer had them on public radio. Many Kishkushim readers will remember the active discussion we had in these pages over Walt and Mearsheimer's arguments, which, put briefly, amount to the following two propositions: 1) that the United States acts against its national interest when it sides unequivocally with Israeli policy; and 2) that it is the pro-Israel lobby (mainly AIPAC) that exercises a disproportionate amount of influence over decision-makers in the U.S. to achieve that uncritical solidarity. The theory that undergirds their arguments is what they call "realism," which is just a clever name for the basic tenets of realpolitik: states should act in the international arena only after a realistic appraisal of national interest, making sure not to allow ideology or idealism to fool politicians. Realism also holds that states normally do act out of national interest, but that occasionally, domestic opinion and special interests pressure them into acting against it.

That paper caused a stir, and for good reason, because it bore more than superficial resemblance to antisemitic theories that conceive of Jews as the "string pullers" of government. (To be fair, W&M's Jewish string-pullers are public, not secretive, but still.) But after much ado, critics were able to point out the numerous errors in factual documentation and analysis of which W&M were guilty, to the extent that "The Israel Lobby" lost all pretention to being a respectable piece of scholarly literature.

However, the relevance of their question is in the process of being resurrected by subsequent political events, namely, the unequivocal and uncritical support that the United States - and only the United States - has lent to Israel's counter-aggression. Condy and W.'s lone championing of the cause has made us examine, once again, why the U.S. has chosen to become what many perceive to be the rubber stamp for Israeli decisions. I'd like to direct our readers to two interesting articles, one that sheds light and another that makes an argument.

The first, revealing, piece, in the New York Times today, shows that Bush Senior took a much more even-handed stance in Middle Eastern affairs than his son has, and that our own Bush Junior consciously reacted against that neutrality when he took office in March 2001. (Nor has the structural similarity between W.'s pledge to support Israel and his pledge to finish the job that his father refused during the Gulf War been lost on commentators.) The article suggests that, far from it being the influence of the "Israel lobby," it is the personal attachment that W. and his 70 million evangelical zionists friends in the U.S. that initially signalled the shift from neutrality to unequivocal support. Obviously, 9/11 solidified the relationship, as Israel was seen as an ally against the war on terrorism.

The second article, in Ha'aretz, written by the left-wing journalist Tom Segev (and one of my role models), regards the role of Europe in all this business. Despite tinges of sexism in the first line of the piece - calling Miri Regev and Condy "annoying starlets"?! - he makes an argument I have been pointing toward (though not expressing as well!) in previous posts.

[As a side note, Mearsheimer came off as a real loony bin in this interview. Asked by Lehrer if the Israel lobby was more decisive than the oil lobby in influencing the U.S. to invade Iraq, he basically said yes - at least, he weaseled his way out of the question by denying the significance of the oil lobby.]

After Walt and Mearsheimer

It's great to see Benny Morris take such a public stance. I thought he would stay on the sidelines and not get involved. I met him recently, on May 7, but we didn't talk politics. Seems like the sabbatical at the U of Maryland, College Park gave him the time, energy and motivation to step into the debate.

My question now is where we go from here. W&M's response to the polemic in which they are now engaged was not ludicrous and they seemed to come out stronger, not weaker. In their eyes, their main claim, that one cannot engage in sincere, honest debate about Israel-America relations without coming under scurillious attack from the "Israel Lobby", has been vindicated by the responses they received. I think it's important that, as Noah pointed out, someone from the military/policy establishment provide an alternative view on the strategic relationship between America and Israel.

I would also like to hear a little about W&M's exact prescriptions for American policy in the Middle East. What exactly do they want? The dismantlement of Israel as a Jewish state? The imposition of what they consider to be a "just" settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on Israel? Cuts in military aid to Israel? If they'd come out and say what they're after, perhaps it would be easier to nail them.

One thing that really bugs me in W&M's message is their accusation that "the lobby" is constantly working to silence honest debate about the Israel-US relationship. Here's a sample from their follow-up in the London Review of Books:

But we believe 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. Diplomats and military officers are also affected by this distorted public discourse, but many of them can see through the rhetoric. They keep silent, however, because they fear that groups like AIPAC will damage their careers if they speak out. The fact is that if there were no AIPAC, Americans would have a more critical view of Israel and US policy in the Middle East would look different.

The problem with these kinds of allegations is that they're quite hard to counter. It's so easy to say that people are being muzzled without offering any proof. My first instinct would be to say: let those who feel they are being silenced step up and speak up. But that could be pretty disastrous: I mean, it would open the floor to any nut who thinks they were somehow stymied by Jewish power.

In any case, W&M reveal a tendency to portray pro-Israel advocates as bullies in the foreign policy debate, rather than as other voices. For some reason, W&M are convinced that "the lobby" is concealing some dark truth about Israel from the public. It's as if they're saying that the Jews are keeping Americans from seeing the "real" Israel and that that is the reason why no one is questioning US-Israel ties. Does the American public not read newspapers (hmm, I guess most actually don't and many certainly skip the international section)? Among those people who follow international affairs, how many people really get their news from AIPAC's website?

The "bully accusation" is also evident from the way they talk about CampusWatch in their reply to Daniel Pipes's lampooning of their original piece. First, they say that Pipes misrepresented their view of "the lobby" by asserting that he falsely accuses them of depicting it as some secret cabal. Then, however, they add this little bit:

Readers will also note that Pipes does not deny that his organisation, Campus Watch, was created in order to monitor what academics say, write and teach, so as to discourage them from engaging in open discourse about the Middle East.

That is a really objectionable claim, but I see it made way too often. All the maligning of CampusWatch is such rubbish. Since when is it forbidden to critique what academics say? I've read some really good pieces on CampusWatch by Martin Kramer and they were entirely legitimate critiques about scholarship on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I can't think of any other outlet for this kind of critical writing. If demonstrators are allowed to randomly harass Israeli academics just for their being Israeli, if people are allowed to picket Daniel Pipes lectures, if activists can trash Bernard Lewis, why can't those on the other side of the academic "divide" respond by writing a few articles?

Mearsheimer and Walt Respond

Mearsheimer and Walt have responded in the London Review of Books. So, after you've seen Benny Morris wipe the floor with their work, it might be amusing to look at their pathetic "rebuttal." I am only going to excerpt a small part, because I think it is quite representative of their response as a whole. This is what Mearsheimer and Walt write in their defense:

Finally, a few critics claim that some of our facts, references or quotations are mistaken. For example, Dershowitz challenges our claim that Israel was ‘explicitly founded as a Jewish state and citizenship is based on the principle of blood kinship’. Israel was founded as a Jewish state (a fact Dershowitz does not challenge), and our reference to citizenship was obviously to Israel’s Jewish citizens, whose identity is ordinarily based on ancestry. We stated that Israel has a sizeable number of non-Jewish citizens (primarily Arabs), and our main point was that many of them are relegated to a second-class status in a predominantly Jewish society.

It's pretty interesting first of all that the fact alone that Israel was founded "as a Jewish state" is a problem for them. But what exactly is their excuse? Doesn't the fact that their claim applies only to Israel's Jewish citizens (in fact, not even that!) completely negate their claim? Maybe I am missing something, but if you acknowledge that Arabs (Muslims, Christians, Druze) are Israeli citizens, doesn't that mean that citizenship is in fact NOT based on "blood kinship"?

Just as a reminder, here is what they said in their original piece (p. 9, in a section titled "Aiding a Fellow Democracy?"):

By contrast, Israel was explicitly founded as a Jewish state and citizenship is based on the principle of blood kinship. Given this conception of citizenship, it is not surprising that Israel's 1.3 million Arabs are treated as second-class cititzens ...

They told an OBVIOUS lie. Their attempt to cover their tracks is pure equivocation and cowardice.

This is what Benny Morris told them:

On page 9, Mearsheimer and Walt write that "citizenship [of Israel] is based on the principle of blood kinship." This is an outrageous assertion, with the worst possible echoes. The truth is that since the state's inception, 15 to 20 percent of Israel's citizens have been Muslim and Christian Arabs. In 1948-1949, citizenship was granted to all persons living in the country, regardless of race or religion, and it is granted by law after five years of residency and the satisfaction of various qualifications (as in all western democracies) to applicants today regardless of race or religion--though it is true that Jewish immigrants can and do receive citizenship upon arrival in Israel, and it is also true that Israel is a Jewish state, as France is (and, I hope, will remain) a French state and Britain is a British state.

The Jewish Think Tanks

Here is the latest apology for Mearsheimer & Walt, this time published in The Nation by Philip Weiss. Weiss faults the American "liberal intelligentsia" for overemphasizing the oil lobby (!), ignoring the neoconservative obsession with Zionism, stifling debate over Israel, and failing to understand the importance of political culture in Washington, by which he means Washington's reliance on think tanks. These policy-making machines USED to be dominated by the WASPs, Weiss says, but now that's changed. So the think tanks are where the Jews are REALLY asserting their influence over U.S. foreign policy!

Who knew that The Nation would ever publish an article that calls for left-wingers and liberals to ally with the likes of Francis Fukuyama! But that is precisely what Weiss does here, supporting the "realists" against the neocon "idealists." Both camps are unattractive to me politically -- the former abandoning the idea of human rights in favor of unabashed promotion of national interests, the latter cynically using the language of human rights to achieve those same interests. What worries me in general however is that we've heard very little from "realists" defending a position that the U.S. DOES have a strategic interest in supporting Israel in a post-Cold War era. It seems necessary at this point for someone other than Alan Dershowitz to come out and explain in clear and forceful terms why the U.S. has a stake in Israel's strength in the region. Its self-evidence is clearly no longer self-evident to everybody. The ideas of M&W have taken hold despite the acknowledged poverty of their article's scholarship.

Martin Kramer on Walt and Mearsheimer

I finally remembered to check out what Martin Kramer had to say about Walt and Mearsheimer's piece. To look up his strong response, go to the Kramer website. He reprinted an old response that he wrote after being challenged to rebutt Walt's claim that Israel was a liability to the US.

http://www.geocities.com/martinkramerorg/2006_03_17.htm

Kramer's piece is the type of good, measured response that I like to see to this kind of stuff. It appeals both to popular sentiment and to the intellect, so that it makes a good counter-punch to the "Lobby Paper".

Kramer's approach is to put the close relations between America and the US, ties that are so often maligned by American Arabists and so-called progressives, into historical context. The fact is that many people overlook the Cold War roots of the American-Israeli alliance. By ignoring the fact that Egypt was in the Soviet Camp until the mid-1970s, people can get away with depicting the Israeli-American relationship as the result of some frightening domestic hocus-pocus courtesy of the "Jewish Lobby". The "revolutionary" Arab regimes that arose in the 1950s chose to align themselves with the Soviet Union, because it was viewed as a more convenient and stronger ally and as a way to keep Washington at bay. As Kramer shows, Arab hostility to the US had nothing to do with American support for Israel. In fact, as Kramer notes, and here he might be overstating a little, the State Department was busy keeping its distance from Israel. Most of Israel's weapons deals in this period were with the French (mirage jets and armoured vehicles, I believe), the Brits and, earlier, in 1947-48, with the Czechoslovaks (rifles).

Kramer goes on to show how American policy-makers came to the realization, as a result of the Israeli victory over the Soviet supplied Arab armies, that Israel could be an asset to America in the region. Kramer's argument is that Israel, by being a kind of bad cop in the region, allowed America to set itself up as a more attractive arbiter than the Soviet Union. Here, I think he's right on. After all, Egypt decided to ditch the Soviet Union, because Sadat viewed the United States as the 'good cop' who would help him get the Sinai back from Israel and throw in more economic and military aid than the Soviets. Nowadays, the significance of this move is probably lost on most people. But in the Cold War, in 1979, before the fall of the Soviet Union, before anyone knew knew that it would begin to collapse in another 10 years, having a large Arab country like Egypt move into the American camp was a big deal.

The main theme that Kramer is getting at here is that Israel was and continues to be a tool/asset in the American quest to impose a "Pax Americana" in the Levant. It's too bad that he doesn't spell out what that means, exactly. Protecting Jordan against Syrian moves as happened in 1970? Or does it all boil down to Egypt, the strongest military power in the Levant area? I think these arguments are effective for explaining the Cold War origins of the US-Israel alliance, but less salient for today.

Kramer also explains that Israel without America as an allies would be more dangerous and less restrained. He says that if left alone, Israel would not hesitate to start another war should it feel isolated or insecure. This is a good, realistic argument. They only problem is that it might not convince a sceptical American public, because it seems to say that Israel has to be paid off in order not to cause trouble.

A more convincing argument, which Kramer doesn't spend enough time on, is an argument I read once in Dennis Ross's memoirs, I believe in the introduction. Ross said that if it weren't for America's continuing, enduring support for Israel after 1967, the Arabs would never have given up their hopes of wiping Israel off the map. America was the reason why Sadat made peace with Israel. The desire of Assad Sr. to get American dollars for his stagnant country was the reason why he entered into talks with Barak in 2000. American support for Israel has made it a undeniable fact for most Middle Eastern heads of state (except for Ahmadinejad). The big problem is that the public hasn't caught on. Many Arab publics still seem to harbour hopes of getting rid of Israel, reversing existing peace agreements with it and even going to war against Israel.

Walt and Mearsheimer want to win over that public and their hopes of doing so are laudable. It would indeed serve American interests if the Arab public started to love America or to feel towards it the same admiring and positive way that the average Israeli views it. The only problem is that W & M don't elaborate on how they want to conquer the hearts of the Arab street.

The keep dangling all kinds of possibilities, but they don't seem to have invested any real thought in it. If W & M were in charge of America's Middle East policy, would they withdraw support from Israel entirely? Would they force Israel to accept a "just" peace (whatever that means) and to assent to the return of Palestinian refugees? Or would they force Israel to dismantle itself and become a bi-national state, including the Palestinian territories?

Frankly, I don't think that anything less than the elimination of Israel as a Jewish state will pacify those elements of Arab public opinion that Walt and Mearsheimer are trying to court. Even the most wide-reaching, paper-based Israeli peace proposal, the Geneva Initiative, was rejectedby radical Palestinians and by many Arabs, not to mention the ideas formulated at Camp David (2000) and at Taba. I doubt that even the Saudi initiative and Beirut Summit Resolution (2002), which proposed a complete withdrawal of Israel to the pre-1967 armistice lines, the establishment of a Palestinian state with [East] Jerusalem as it capital and a "just resolution of the refugee problem consistent with resolution 194" would be enough.

But let's just say that the US were to get serious about the Saudi Initiative and the subsequent Beirut Summit and were to embark on imposing it on Israel. Where are the guarantees for Israel that it would be secure in the future? What, other than force, will compel Israel to accept an agreement without negotiations? How will Israeli leaders convince their public to give up all control of Jewish sites in East Jerusalem? And how will Israel be persuaded to agree to allow the return of refugees, and probably their children, grand children and great grand children to its territory?

W & M don't go into the details, probably because they don't know enough and have other goals. They malign Camp David, which they depict almost like a conspiracy by Clinton and [the Jews] Dennis Ross and Aaron Miller to force the Palestinians to accept an Israeli peace proposal. But what do W & M want???