http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041306A.shtml
The Lobby and the Bulldozer: Mearsheimer, Walt and Corrie
by Norman Solomon
Weeks after a British magazine published a long article by two
American professors titled "The Israel Lobby," the outrage continued to howl
through mainstream U.S. media.
A Los Angeles Times op-ed article by Council on Foreign Relations
senior fellow Max Boot helped to set a common tone. He condemned a working
paper by professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt that was excerpted
last month in the London Review of Books.
The working paper, Boot proclaimed, is "nutty." And he strongly
implied that the two professors -- Mearsheimer at the University of Chicago
and Walt at Harvard -- are anti-Semitic.
Many who went on the media attack did more than imply. On April 3, for
instance, the same day that the Philadelphia Inquirer reprinted Boot's piece
from the L.A. Times, a notably similar op-ed appeared in the Boston Herald
under the headline "Anti-Semitic Paranoia at Harvard."
And so it goes in the national media echo chamber. When a Johns
Hopkins University professor weighed in last week on the op-ed page of the
Washington Post, the headline was blunt: "Yes, It's Anti-Semitic." The piece
flatly called the Mearsheimer-Walt essay "kooky academic work" -- and
"anti-Semitic."
But nothing in the essay is anti-Semitic.
Some of the analysis from Mearsheimer and Walt is arguable. A number
of major factors affect Uncle Sam's Middle East policies in addition to
pro-Israel pressures. But no one can credibly deny that the American Israel
Public Affairs Committee is one of the most powerful lobbying groups in
Washington, where politicians know that they can criticize Israel only at
their political peril.
Overall, the Mearsheimer-Walt essay makes many solid points about
destructive aspects of U.S. support for the Israeli government. Their
assessments deserve serious consideration.
For several decades, to the present moment, Israel's treatment of
Palestinian people has amounted to methodical and despicable violations of
human rights. Yet criticism of those policies from anyone (including
American Jews such as myself) routinely results in accusations of
anti-Jewish bigotry.
The U.S. media reaction to the essay by professors Mearsheimer and
Walt provides just another bit of evidence that they were absolutely correct
when they wrote: "Anyone who criticizes Israel's actions or argues that
pro-Israel groups have significant influence over U.S. Middle Eastern
policy -- an influence AIPAC celebrates -- stands a good chance of being
labeled an anti-Semite. Indeed, anyone who merely claims that there is an
Israel Lobby runs the risk of being charged with anti-Semitism, even though
the Israeli media refer to America's 'Jewish Lobby.' In other words, the
Lobby first boasts of its influence and then attacks anyone who calls
attention to it. It's a very effective tactic: anti-Semitism is something no
one wants to be accused of."
Sadly, few media outlets in the United States are willing to confront
this "very effective tactic." Yet it must be challenged. As the London-based
Financial Times editorialized on the first day of this month: "Moral
blackmail -- the fear that any criticism of Israeli policy and U.S. support
for it will lead to charges of anti-Semitism -- is a powerful disincentive
to publish dissenting views. It is also leading to the silencing of policy
debate on American university campuses, partly as the result of targeted
campaigns against the dissenters."
The Financial Times editorial noted: "Reflexes that ordinarily spring
automatically to the defense of open debate and free enquiry shut down -- at
least among much of America's political elite -- once the subject turns to
Israel, and above all the pro-Israel lobby's role in shaping U.S. foreign
policy."
The U.S. government's policies toward Israel should be considered on
their merits. As it happens, that's one of the many valid points made by
Mearsheimer and Walt in their much-vilified essay: "Open debate will expose
the limits of the strategic and moral case for one-sided U.S. support and
could move the U.S. to a position more consistent with its own national
interest, with the interests of the other states in the region, and with
Israel's long-term interests as well."
But without open debate, no significant change in those policies can
happen. That inertia -- stultifying the blood of the body politic by
constricting the flow of information and ideas -- is antithetical to the
kind of democratic discourse that we deserve.
Few other American academics have been willing to expose themselves to
the kind of professional risks that John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt took
by releasing their provocative paper. And few other American activists have
been willing to expose themselves to the kind of risks that Rachel Corrie
took when she sat between a Palestinian home and a Caterpillar bulldozer in
Gaza three years ago.
The bulldozer, driven by an Israeli army soldier on assignment to
demolish the home, rolled over Corrie, who was 23 years old. She had taken a
nonviolent position for human rights; she lost her life as a result. But she
was rarely praised in the same U.S. media outlets that had gone into
raptures over the image of a solitary unarmed man standing in front of
Chinese tanks at the time of the Tiananmen Square massacre.
In sharp contrast to the high-tech killers who run the Israeli
military apparatus and the low-tech killers who engage in suicide bombings,
Rachel Corrie put her beliefs into practice with militant nonviolence
instead of carnage. She exemplified the best of the human spirit in action;
she was killed with an American-brand bulldozer in the service of a
U.S.-backed government.
As her parents, Cindy and Craig Corrie, said in a statement on her
birthday a few weeks after she died: "Rachel wanted to bring attention to
the plight of the Palestinian people in the Occupied Territories, a people
she felt were largely invisible to most Americans."
In the United States, the nonstop pro-Israel media siege aims to keep
them scarcely visible.
Norman Solomon's latest book is "War Made Easy: How Presidents and
Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death." For information, go to:
www.WarMadeEasy.com
***
Press release
By Luisa Morgantini, MEP GUE/NGL, Chair of the EP Development Committee on
behalf of the MEPs Delegation to Israel and Palestine, 9/13 April 2006.
EU risks turning Palestine crisis into catastrophe
Jerusalem, 13 April 2006
'Crisis in Palestine risks turning into catastrophe as a result of the EU
decision to suspend payments to the Palestinian Authority', an all-party
group of MEPs has warned from Jerusalem today.
But the seven European Parliament members, the first politicians to meet
with newly elected Palestinian Authority representatives who belong to the
Change and Reform List (Hamas) say that they are convinced that EU demands
'can be met through diplomacy'.
EU Foreign Ministers agreed to suspend payments until the new Hamas-led
government agreed to recognise the State of Israel, renounce violence, and
accept previous agreements.
But 'Hamas representatives told us clearly that they are prepared to
recognize 1967 borders and the PLO as legitimate Representative of
Palestinian People, which implies recognition of Israel. They have respected
the cease-fire for more than 18 months and they are ready to continue, which
amounts to non-violence, they also say enough of bloodshed. In the same time
they ask for reciprocity; Israel has to do the same. Our diplomacy can
bridge the gap', said Luisa Morgantini as Chair of the MEPs delegation.
'To suggest, as the European Council does, that they can draw a neat line
between aid to the people of Palestine and aid to the Government, which the
Palestinian people have recently elected in an internationally approved
election process, is not only political nonsense, it is dangerous nonsense.
The impact of the inability of the Palestinian Authority to pay the security
services, teachers, civil service etc, will not only deepen poverty but also
risks a collapse of the Institutions and consequent chaos', she added.
Luisa Morgantini, on behalf of the delegation, also denounced that:
'The route of the Wall cuts deeply the West Bank into 64 separate areas
controlled by 740 Israeli checkpoints and seeks to annex most of Jerusalem
and the Jordan Valley, besides the expansion of settler colonies and the
building of separate road networks, makes it clear that a 'cantonization' of
the West Bank territory is well advanced and seeks to prevent the
establishment of a viable, independent Palestinian State'.
Furthermore the MEPs delegation agreed that:
'while condemning the firing of rockets by extremist Palestinian groups as
wrong and completely counter productive'. They also strongly condemned 'the
shocking killing and injuring of Palestinian civilians including children by
non-stop Israel shelling of the Gaza Strip, where the population is
strangled by the closure and on the verge of famine. This disproportionate
response must be condemned by the international community including the EU.
The fact that no penalties are proposed which would pressure Israel into
complying with international law on these issues, raises the question of
whether in fact Europe is serious about the implementation of the Road Map
as a basis for a sustainable peace.
The EU must speak up for justice and take steps at the same time to insist
that Israel join in the Road Map process and put an end to unilateral steps.
It must oblige Israel to abide by international law and to enter into
dialogue with the new Palestinian government, that is the only way to avoid
disaster'.
Finally, the MEPs delegation 'call on the European Council to urgently
review its decision, in order not to be responsible of collective punishment
of an already punished Palestinian population and listen to the appeal
coming from Gush Shalom, an Israeli courageous group, which asks Europe to
cancel its decision. Review cannot be deferred as the situation is such that
it may be too late in a month's time'.
On their return to the European Parliament, the MEPs delegation will demand
a meeting with Commissioner Ferrero-Waldner, High Representative for the
Common Foreign and Security Policy, Javier Solana, EU special representative
for Middle East peace process, Marc Otte, and European Parliament President,
Josep Borrell, to press upon them the urgency of a review of the European
Union's recent decision and a balanced approach to the Israel/Palestine
conflict with initiatives to get negotiations under way.
For further information please contact the MEPs:
Luisa Morgantini (GUE/NGL, Italy) +972.547.271.742 Pal- +39.348. 392.1465
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Chris Davies (ALDE, UK) +44.77.87.50.45.16
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Andre Brie (GUE/NGL, Germany) +49.172.87.00.765
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
David Hammerstein Mintz (GREENS/EFA, Spain) +34.60.02.66.743
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Veronique Mathieu (PPE-ED, France) +33.6.81.94.61.40
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Proinsias De Rossa (PES, Ireland) +353.87.25.44.644
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Margrete Auken (GREENS/EFA, Denmark) +45.27.26.53.27
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Note to the editor
The all-party delegation met with the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas,
as well as with Representatives of Change and Reform list (Hamas), Fateh,
Third way, Palestinian National Initiative and Independent members of the
Palestinian Legislative Council, beside meetings with groups of Israeli and
Palestinian civil societies and peace movements, diplomats and
representatives of European Commission and EU Member States, writers,
journalists, businessmen and women association.
One of the most important and hopeful events in which the delegation
participated was the launch of a new organization, known as 'Combatants for
Peace'. These are people who were formerly involved in military activity as
Israeli soldiers and Palestinian resistance fighters, who have seen the
futility of violence as a means of finding peace. They are intent not only
on building bridges between both peoples but in promoting peaceful
initiatives which will help both sides come to the negotiating table as
quickly as possible and end the occupation.
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