Nobody wants to talk about the Israel Lobby. The fear of being anti-Semitized is so great that not even small liberal blogs like Booman Tribune (with one rare exception) or My Left Wing would dare front-page a critic of Israel or of the Israel Lobby. Daily Kos, the big blog, has now sanitized itself of Israel criticism by purging over twenty antiIsrael, antiLobby, and proPalestinian diarists and/or commenters of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. So great is the fear of the Israel Lobby that it is the virtual elephant in the room in any discussion of current or recent American foreign policy in the Middle East. Not even Iraq or the projected Iran blitzkrieg is discussed in terms of Israel Lobby directives. Silence is demanded; not criticism.
Fear of being anti-Semitized, a new phobia, refers to the fear of being charged with anti-Semitism for any criticism of the Israel Lobby, the Israel government, of Israel’s occupation/colonialism of the West Bank, or of any slanted statement supporting the aspirations of the Palestinian people. Not recognizing that Palestinians are terrorists is also a good way to get you quickly anti-Semitized. I have no doubt that the American Psychiatric Association will include this phobic disorder in its next edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Why not? Everything else is. Its main symptom is silence.
In a review of the just published book, The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy, Michael F. Brown of the Institute for Middle East Understanding, risked being anti-Semitized for what he wrote on Sep 7, 2007: Brown claims that “intimidation and ugly slanders work.” Does it? Only if you permit it. It did not stop him.
The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy by professors John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt weighs in with 106 pages of endnotes. The controversial tome challenging the might of the pro-Israel lobby is nonetheless accused of “shoddy scholarship” — much as when the authors’ shorter paper on the subject in 2006 unexpectedly burst the bubble of a lobby unaccustomed to challenge and reprimand.Needless to say, Mearsheimer, the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science and the co-director of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago, and Walt, the Robert and Renee Belfer Professor of International Affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and former academic dean of the Kennedy School, did not suddenly lose their intellectual acumen in penning this well-reasoned criticism of the Israel lobby. Nor did the two expose themselves as anti-Semites as some critics have unfairly suggested.
Indeed, perhaps the most powerful section of the book is when the authors highlight cases in which significant parts of the lobby have leveled the anti-Semitism charge at individuals guilty of nothing more than challenging the human rights record of Israel. Due to such overuse, they write, “There are signs that the reflexive charge of anti-Semitism is beginning to lose its power to stifle debate.” Nevertheless, they rightly note that “If politicians know that it is risky to question Israeli policy or the United States’ unyielding support for Israel, then it will be harder for the mainstream media to locate authoritative voices that are willing to disagree with the lobby’s views.” Intimidation and ugly slanders work. This book does much to expose the unsavory practice and is intended to open space for substantive discussion regarding Israel and the lobby that reflexively backs it, right or wrong.
Mearsheimer and Walt devote the early chapters of the book to dismantling the strategic and moral arguments commonly made on Israel’s behalf. The two realists are perhaps most convincing on the moral front when they challenge the common narrative of little Israel fending off ruthless Arab states. “A good case can be made that current US policy conflicts with basic American values and that if the United States were to choose sides on the basis of moral considerations alone, it would back the Palestinians, not Israel.” To wit, they challenge the notion of shared common values by citing authoritative polls indicating that “55 percent of Israeli Jews wanted segregated entertainment facilities, while more than 75 percent said they would not live in the same building as an Israeli Arab.” This is Israel in 2007 and not the Jim Crow South of 1950. Such discriminatory beliefs translated into law, they maintain “are not consistent with America’s image of a multi-ethnic democracy in which all citizens are supposed to be treated equally regardless of their ancestry.”
With The Israel Lobby being released in the very month that State Department official Patrick Syring was exposed for having telephoned the Arab American Institute in 2006 and declared, “The only good Arab is a dead Arab,” it is disquieting to see that IDF Chief of Staff Rafael Eitan has said much the same. Such open racism generally ends careers in the United States. In Israel, as the authors illustrate, such views are all-too-frequently held at the highest level of government.
Strategically, US government action abetting the subjugation of the Palestinians has caused our country enormous harm. “Today, America’s intimate embrace of Israel — and especially its willingness to subsidize it no matter what its policies are — is not making Americans safer or more prosperous. To the contrary: unconditional support for Israel is undermining relations with other US allies, casting doubt on America’s wisdom and moral vision, helping inspire a generation of anti-American extremists, and complicating US efforts to deal with a volatile but vital region.”
But what is the Israel lobby and how does it work? Mearsheimer and Walt define the lobby as a “shorthand term for the loose coalition of individuals and organizations that actively work to shape US foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction.” Some of the most important organizations in the lobby — such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations — have moved to the right in recent years. They are out of step with the majority of Jews in the United States who are generally liberal and supportive of a two-state outcome. “Groups in the lobby employed a variety of tactics: open letters, congressional resolutions, op-eds and press releases, and direct meetings between administration officials and the leaders of influential Jewish and evangelical groups” to stymie executive branch initiatives intended to bring pressure against Israel in the effort to advance a two-state solution.
The authors cite repeated examples of the lobby undercutting the Bush administration when it displayed the slightest willingness to press Israel to respect Palestinian rights and aspirations. They stress that there is nothing illegal in the work of the pro-Israel lobby — the lobby is simply better at it than would-be opponents. They do, however, cite the expected trial later this year of former AIPAC employees Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman as well as the case from the 1980s and early 1990s of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) spying on Arab-American organizations as well as Jewish-American dissidents which was settled with ADL payments but no public admission of wrongdoing. Mearsheimer and Walt repeatedly stress that the lobby is not a cabal or conspiracy and clearly regard such talk, as they should, as anti-Semitic. The lobby’s members believe they are advancing American and Israeli interests, though they are failing on both fronts, and “have successfully convinced many Americans that American and Israeli interests are essentially identical” when, quite clearly, “they are not.”
This is a courageous book. The charge of anti-Semitism, even when clearly politicized, is one that undoubtedly will cause them personal pain. Nonetheless, they have proceeded, presumably because they are convinced Americans are increasingly seeing through such false allegations and because the stakes of American missteps in the Middle East — Israel/Palestine, Iraq, Syria, Iran, and Lebanon — are enormous.
Michael F. Brown is a former executive director of Partners for Peace and is currently employed at the Institute for Middle East Understanding.
http://imeu.net/news/article006292.shtml
Reprinted here with IMEU permission.
Silence, please!
I walked right into this when I recently resumed blogging. I had NO IDEA that AIPAC had actually infiltrated the far left. I was so surprised that no one was drawing a distinction between the Jewish faith and culture that I grew up in — and a Zionist government in the Middle East, that was sadly forced upon the Jews (and their semetic neighbors) because nobody wanted them to immigrate. Not even the United States.
My family are not semitic Jews. They crossed the Alps on foot during pogoms. They call Arabs “semitic” because of their racial characteristics. So, the whole anti-semitic thing is very confusing to them. Of course, east coast Jews are mostly very liberal and left-leaning — and very loyal to their faith and race. They have helped Israeli Jews to move to the US when they can be safe and where they would be supported by the rest of us.
This whole thing makes no sense — and I suspect it is not being driven by the Jews, at all. I am surprised at the left and the lack of tolerance for any discussion of Israel. It makes me think that there’s something terribly important there that AIPAC doesn’t want anyone to see or think about.
Your review of the circumstances is very correct in many ways. Most Jews are left leaning and liberal in all respects, and most certainly, there is an Israeli left wing, although small with respect to fair and just resolutions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But for the most part, the Israel Lobby, if represented by AIPAC and its allied associations, like ZOA and AJC, are not. They are right wing and still support the Likud project of an Israel from the Jordan River to the sea, i.e., no Palestinian state.
But look at the Kadima and Labor party solutions and you will not really find much difference: they support a Bantustan state of Palestine within a Greater Israel. Now Kadima presumes to be moderate, and Labor is the major left wing party, at least domestically, and it is still liberal-socialist in that sphere. But with respect to the Palestinians, you cannot find room for real justice in the political agendas of Kadima or Labor. There is one hope: Barak. In 2005, he proposed that Israel must withdraw tens of thousands of Israelis from the settlements behind a finalized border of Israel, perhaps something above the green line. Is he still of that mind?
As far as AIPAC is concerned, however, discussion of Palestinian aspirations is equivalent to being an antiSemite.
Dissent of course will not be tolerated, much in the same way that my views of the Satanic principles embodied in both the left and right political parties fall upon deaf ears. There is only corporate and the profit agenda.
One should be careful not to assert speculation as fact. Having had the opportunity to meet BooMan and spend some time with him at YKOS 2006 and having participated at this site since a fairly early date, I would expect that there is little that he (BooMan) is afraid to put on the front page.
If this is merely your attempt to strong-arm your way on to the front page, it is truly sad.
Irrelevant smart-ass reply to follow.
Steven front-paged him last week.
Most of my diaries do not deserve the front-page as they usually feature someone else’s work.
But there is a reluctance on left wing blogs to feature essays which are even slightly critical of Israel, and certainly none which bring notice to the plight of the Palestinians, including the topic of peace activism.
Steven did elevate one of my essays to the front page recently, as Booman stated, which was appreciated. After a period of frustration, some people just can’t take any more of the censorship and ignorance of the elephant in the room.
so, why does this diary still slam this website? There’s an edit button.
Check the “edit” above. Despite being frontpaged at least one time (and not many individuals are frontpaged) and being on the recommended list regularly, the esteemed diarist still believes that his message is being stifled at BMT. So very sad.
I’m not interested in the esteemed me, but in this important issue. It is simply avoided, in general. It is not just Booman and I didn’t single him out. The loudest frontpage slight comes from Daily Kos.
There does appear to be a reluctance to discuss the topic, as observed here and here. Yet, it also appears that change is coming. Ultimately, I guess it’s up to us to disseminate the views of those courageous enough to take the lobby on … like this, for example.
As I recall I front paged one of your IP diaries the other day here.
Just for the record.
Yes. And it was totally appreciated, if a rare topic to be found on a frontpage of the left wing blogs. I felt you were revealing some true grit to do so.