Israeli Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy
by William Pfaff
April 9, 2006
PARIS - London`s Financial Times performed an American public service in its weekend edition, calling editorially for open and honest discussion of the influence of Israel on American foreign policy.
The call came amid the resounding silence in "responsible" American circles concerning the paper recently issued by two highly regarded political scholars, Stephen Walt of Harvard and John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago, discussing the "Israeli lobby" in Washington and its effect on American foreign relations.
So far as one can make out, in the mainstream American press, only United Press International, the International Herald Tribune, the Christian Science Monitor, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post have carried articles on the paper. The IHT`s was an opinion piece by Daniel Levy, a former advisor to Ehud Barak, calling for open discussion of the lobby. The UPI and the Monitor provided professionally detached news reports.
The other two papers carried attacks - in the case of the Washington Post, two of them, both featuring the news that the totally insignificant David Duke, a former head of the Ku Klux Klan, applauds the Merscheimer-Walt paper. Duke is not a figure whose views are ordinarily treated as being of national interest by the Post, and the newspaper`s linking him to the Merscheimer-Wall document was an act of character assassination by association, just like those that won Sen. Joseph McCarthy infamy in the 1950s.
The document has not otherwise lacked attention. The blogosphere is full of it, with both attacks on it and defenses and praise. The authors themselves predicted that the mainstream media would ignore or attack their argument, which is essentially that the influence of Israel on American policy has distorted it to Israel`s advantage, and sometimes to American disadvantage.
They say that Israel`s friends in the United States have succeeded in convincing Americans that Israeli and American national interests are inseparable, which they are not, and have tried and often succeeded in suppressing or punishing critical discussion of the relationship.
What are very striking are the virulence as well as the volume of the attacks being made on the authors. The Ku Klux Klan smear has been the least of it. Their paper has been compared to Nazi propaganda of the 1930s and to the czarist-era forgery, "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" (which still circulates in the Arab world).
In fact, Mearsheimer and Walt are recognized and respected political scholars in the so-called realist tradition, which regards the defense and promotion of the national interest of states as the chief purpose of foreign policy. Their paper is a responsible document of public importance.
The venom in the attacks made on it risks the opposite of its intended effect by tending to validate the claim that intense pressures are exercised on publishers, editors, writers and American universities to block criticism, intimidate critics and prevent serious discussion of the American-Israeli relationship.
In Israel itself, there has for many years been frank, cool and reasoned discussion of the subject. Leading figures, including retired officers and intelligence officials, as well as peace activists, have in the past warned that the actions of Israel`s friends in America could eventually rebound against Israel itself, with harm to Jews elsewhere.
Some also have noted that the leading U.S. lobby group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, is further to the right in its views than Israeli public opinion, and has interfered in Israeli politics through support for the Likud party and by undermining Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
The note of panic in some of the attacks on Mearsheimer and Walt contrasts with the fact that what they say is no secret in American foreign policy circles. People have for years taken for granted the informal censorship, or self-censorship, exercised in the government and the press on this issue.
It is a fact of democratic life in the United States that determined interest groups annex their own spheres of federal policy. Energy policy is run by the oil companies, and trade policy by manufacturers, exporters and importers, with an input from Wall Street.
U.S. Cuba policy is decided by the Cuban lobby in Florida, and policy on Armenia by Americans of Armenian descent. The Middle East, or at least its part of it, belongs to Israel.
However, in the Israeli case, the lobbying effort is linked to a foreign government, even if the lobbyists sometimes take a policy line not that of the government. Moreover, the lobbying involves issues of war and peace.
President George W. Bush said a few days ago that, in connection with the supposed threat of Iran, his concern is to protect Israel. Critics ask why Israel should not protect itself. The same has been asked about Iraq.
In this respect, the controversy over the Israeli lobby is potentially explosive. This is why denials, secrecy and efforts at intimidation are dangerous. David Levy is right when he says that Israel itself would be served "if the open and critical debate that takes place over here (in Israel) were exported over there," meaning the United States.
April 9, 2006
PARIS - London`s Financial Times performed an American public service in its weekend edition, calling editorially for open and honest discussion of the influence of Israel on American foreign policy.
The call came amid the resounding silence in "responsible" American circles concerning the paper recently issued by two highly regarded political scholars, Stephen Walt of Harvard and John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago, discussing the "Israeli lobby" in Washington and its effect on American foreign relations.
So far as one can make out, in the mainstream American press, only United Press International, the International Herald Tribune, the Christian Science Monitor, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post have carried articles on the paper. The IHT`s was an opinion piece by Daniel Levy, a former advisor to Ehud Barak, calling for open discussion of the lobby. The UPI and the Monitor provided professionally detached news reports.
The other two papers carried attacks - in the case of the Washington Post, two of them, both featuring the news that the totally insignificant David Duke, a former head of the Ku Klux Klan, applauds the Merscheimer-Walt paper. Duke is not a figure whose views are ordinarily treated as being of national interest by the Post, and the newspaper`s linking him to the Merscheimer-Wall document was an act of character assassination by association, just like those that won Sen. Joseph McCarthy infamy in the 1950s.
The document has not otherwise lacked attention. The blogosphere is full of it, with both attacks on it and defenses and praise. The authors themselves predicted that the mainstream media would ignore or attack their argument, which is essentially that the influence of Israel on American policy has distorted it to Israel`s advantage, and sometimes to American disadvantage.
They say that Israel`s friends in the United States have succeeded in convincing Americans that Israeli and American national interests are inseparable, which they are not, and have tried and often succeeded in suppressing or punishing critical discussion of the relationship.
What are very striking are the virulence as well as the volume of the attacks being made on the authors. The Ku Klux Klan smear has been the least of it. Their paper has been compared to Nazi propaganda of the 1930s and to the czarist-era forgery, "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" (which still circulates in the Arab world).
In fact, Mearsheimer and Walt are recognized and respected political scholars in the so-called realist tradition, which regards the defense and promotion of the national interest of states as the chief purpose of foreign policy. Their paper is a responsible document of public importance.
The venom in the attacks made on it risks the opposite of its intended effect by tending to validate the claim that intense pressures are exercised on publishers, editors, writers and American universities to block criticism, intimidate critics and prevent serious discussion of the American-Israeli relationship.
In Israel itself, there has for many years been frank, cool and reasoned discussion of the subject. Leading figures, including retired officers and intelligence officials, as well as peace activists, have in the past warned that the actions of Israel`s friends in America could eventually rebound against Israel itself, with harm to Jews elsewhere.
Some also have noted that the leading U.S. lobby group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, is further to the right in its views than Israeli public opinion, and has interfered in Israeli politics through support for the Likud party and by undermining Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
The note of panic in some of the attacks on Mearsheimer and Walt contrasts with the fact that what they say is no secret in American foreign policy circles. People have for years taken for granted the informal censorship, or self-censorship, exercised in the government and the press on this issue.
It is a fact of democratic life in the United States that determined interest groups annex their own spheres of federal policy. Energy policy is run by the oil companies, and trade policy by manufacturers, exporters and importers, with an input from Wall Street.
U.S. Cuba policy is decided by the Cuban lobby in Florida, and policy on Armenia by Americans of Armenian descent. The Middle East, or at least its part of it, belongs to Israel.
However, in the Israeli case, the lobbying effort is linked to a foreign government, even if the lobbyists sometimes take a policy line not that of the government. Moreover, the lobbying involves issues of war and peace.
President George W. Bush said a few days ago that, in connection with the supposed threat of Iran, his concern is to protect Israel. Critics ask why Israel should not protect itself. The same has been asked about Iraq.
In this respect, the controversy over the Israeli lobby is potentially explosive. This is why denials, secrecy and efforts at intimidation are dangerous. David Levy is right when he says that Israel itself would be served "if the open and critical debate that takes place over here (in Israel) were exported over there," meaning the United States.
posted by Hanan Elbadry at 1:25 PM
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