>From the blog of Michael A. Hoffman II, Nazi scum.
Sean McBride <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
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New "Israel Lobby" book by Mearsheimer and Walt reviewed by NY Times
via On the Contrary by Michael A. Hoffman II on 9/6/07
A Prosecutorial Brief Against the Israeli Regime and Its Supporters
Editor's Note: A review by William Grimes of John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen
M. Walt's newly published "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" appears in
today's editions of the New York Times. We have reproduced the review below,
following our commentary.
The headline of the review, "A Prosecutorial Brief Against Israel and Its
Supporters" is subtly tilted against the authors. It should have been
headlined, "A Prosecutorial Brief Against the Israeli Regime and Its
Supporters," rather than "against Israel." The Times' accords George W. Bush
the distinction of opposing the "Iranian regime" while allegedly supporting
"the Iranian people." The Times should have extended the same distinctive
benefit of the doubt to Mearsheimer and Walt.
Having said that, this initial review (the Times will publish another one by a
different and likely more jaundiced reviewer in a future edition) is something
approaching a balanced assessment. It is marred by distractions, such as the
predictive programming embedded in the reviewer's omniscient assertion that
"most Americans" are pro-Israeli. We also can't help discerning the creeping
semi-literacy that has slowly eroded the Times' once formidable use of the
English language. I refer to Grimes' use of the neologism, "unignorable," a
non-word inspired by the tech-manual scribbling of computer geeks who have
appended the suffix, "able" to hundreds of words, reflective of our growing
American intellectual laziness.
In that slothful sense Grimes' review fails in that he does not scruple to
quote one major argument of Mearsheimer and Walt. His central antidote to
their work is his suggestion that Americans have too much emotional affection
for the Israeli entity to detach from it. This is not an argument, it's a
crystal ball prognostication. Grimes also fails to observe that Mearsheimer and
Walt's antagonist, Alan Dershowitz, our nation's self-appointed Grand
Inquisitor, is fresh from his triumphant interference in the tenure process at
DePaul University, where he helped ensure the termination of Dr. Norman
Finkelstein's professorship at that institution. Grimes also damns Mearsheimer
and Walt's book with faint praise. He makes it appear cold, statistical,
academic and therefore, unappealing. To his credit, however, the Times'
reviewer briefly notes, though without naming the culprits, that the authors
have been boycotted by institutions that are supposed to be champions of free
inquiry.
Allow this writer to fill in the blanks: the City University of New York, the
Chicago Council on Foreign Affairs and three organizations in Chicago turned
down or canceled scheduled public events with the authors.
A book can't change the masses. The masses no longer read books. They are in
thrall to television, movies and talk radio. "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign
Policy" is intended to educate the current American elite and the future elite
among today's university students. While this volume will not necessarily spark
a revolution, it will gnaw, in the boardrooms, judges' chambers and among the
middle and upper classes generally, at the foundations of Israeli prestige, as
Jimmy Carter's "Peace not Apartheid" book did, and that's better than nothing.
With typical hyperbole, the hysterical Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice
chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations
compared the Mearsheimer/Walt book to "Hitler's big lie," charging that its aim
is to "intimidate Jews and silence them." Observe the Judaic mentality at work:
Hoenlein's powerhouse umbrella organization has done everything in its power
to keep the book from being published. Mearsheimer and Walt have never tried to
do anything similar to Zionist books (ADL's Abe Foxman has issued a book-length
diatribe against them), and yet they are the ones accused of silencing and
intimidating people.
The tragedy of it all is found in the question that no one is asking: where is
the Palestinian lobby in America? Answer: it doesn't exist. Hence, even if
tomorrow utopia dawned, and every American pledged to support the Palestinian
cause, there would be no political, financial or lobbying vehicle to channel
that support into legislative muscle on Capitol hill. Some of the Israeli grip
on the American ship of state is not due solely to pernicious Israeli lobbying,
it's also the fault of Arab-American torpor. Sad to say, thus far U.S. Arabs
have not approached anywhere near the energy and organizing ability of American
Judaics.
But let's see what there is to celebrate, rather than always being negative:
two courageous professors who will not back down; the Farrar, Straus & Giroux
publishing house that is printing and distributing their book and has paid them
a $750,000 advance; and the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United
States, which continues to function as protection against religious-fanatic
zealots who would, if they had the opportunity, ban Mearsheimer and Walt's
reasoned and documented dissent as "anti-semitic hate literature."
I assure you, if we are not grateful for even small victories, God will not
send us bigger ones.
Thank you, John Mearsheimer, Stephen Walt, and your allies in American
publishing and journalism, for a significant intellectual effort toward curbing
the single most destructive assault on our nation's security, and the peace of
the world: the regime that has imposed the racist, Talmudic, pirate state of
counterfeit "Israel" on the indigenous people of the Middle East.
--Michael A. Hofman II
(Hoffman is the author of "The Israeli Holocaust Against the Palestinians." He
is at work putting the finishing touches on his forthcoming book, "Judaism
Discovered").
BOOKS OF THE TIMES
A Prosecutorial Brief Against Israel and Its Supporters
By WILLIAM GRIMES
NY Times September 6, 2007
THE ISRAEL LOBBY AND U.S. FOREIGN POLICY
By John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt
484 pages. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. $26.
"The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" arrives carrying heavy baggage. John
J. Mearsheimer, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, and Stephen
M. Walt, a professor of international affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of
Government at Harvard, set off a furor last year by arguing, in an article that
appeared in The London Review of Books, that uncritical American support for
Israel, shaped by powerful lobbying organizations like the American Israel
Public Affairs Committee, does grave harm to both American and Israeli
interests.
A bitter debate has raged ever since, with accusations of anti-Semitism leveled
by, among others, Alan M. Dershowitz, the Harvard law professor, and Abraham H.
Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, one of the
principal lobbying organizations taken to task by Mr. Mearsheimer and Mr. Walt.
"The Israel Lobby," an extended, more fully argued version of the London Review
article, has done nothing to calm the waters. The authors have been barred from
making appearances by at least one university and several cultural centers to
discuss their subject, and continue to reap a whirlwind of criticism and abuse.
If they were looking for a fight, they have found it.
Slowly, deliberately and dispassionately Mr. Mearsheimer and Mr. Walt lay out
the case for a ruthlessly realistic Middle East policy that would make Israel
nothing more than one of many countries in the region. On those occasions when
Israel's interests coincide with America's, it should count on American
support, but otherwise not. What Americans fail to understand, the authors
argue, is that most of the time the two countries' interests are opposed.
The reason they do not realize this, Mr. Mearsheimer and Mr. Walt insist, can
be explained quite simply: The Israel lobby makes sure of it. Working closely
with members of Congress, public-policy organizations and journals of opinion,
energetic, well-financed groups like the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee and the American Jewish Committee, along with dozens of
political-action committees, perpetuate the myth, as the authors see it, of
Israel as an isolated, beleaguered state surrounded by enemies and in need of
America's unstinting financial and military support.
This lobby is particularly adept at stifling debate before it begins, the
authors argue. "Whether the issue is abortion, arms control, affirmative
action, gay rights, the environment, trade policy, health care, immigration or
welfare, there is almost always a lively debate on Capitol Hill," they write.
"But where Israel is concerned, potential critics fall silent and there is
hardly any debate at all."
There is nothing underhanded or devious about this, the authors say. Like the
National Rifle Association or the AARP, the Israel lobby relies on the
traditional political weapons available to any special-interest group in
pressing its agenda. It just happens to be unusually skillful and effective.
"It is simply a powerful interest group, made up of both Jews and gentiles,
whose acknowledged purpose is to press Israel's case within the United States
and influence American foreign policy in ways that its members believe will
benefit the Jewish state," they write.
The problem, Mr. Mearsheimer and Mr. Walt argue, is that Israel has become a
strategic liability with the end of the cold war and a moral pariah in its
dealings with the Palestinians and, most recently, the Lebanese. Uncritical
American support for its closest Middle East ally has damaged American
credibility in the Arab world, encouraged terrorism, stymied the search for a
solution to the Palestinian problem, and in every way made America's
international position weaker and more dangerous.
Coolly, not to say coldly, Mr. Mearsheimer and Mr. Walt mount a prosecutorial
brief against Israel's foreign and domestic policies, and against the state of
Israel itself. They describe a virtual rogue state, empowered by American
wealth and might, that blocks peace at every turn, threatens its cowering
neighbors with impunity, crushes the national aspirations of the Palestinians
and, whenever the opportunity arises, bites the hand that feeds it.
Working tirelessly in the background is the Israel lobby, playing Iago to
America's Othello, leading president after president down ever more dangerous
paths. Without intense pressure from the Israel lobby, the authors argue,
America would not have undertaken the war in Iraq.
Most American readers will bristle at the authors' characterization of Israel.
This is to be expected, Mr. Mearsheimer and Mr. Walt argue, because of the
completely false image of Israel and its history that has been manufactured by
the Israel lobby. As a result, Americans completely misinterpret the
Palestinian issue and fail to support a productive policy that would tilt away
from Israel and toward the Palestinians.
The authors state, on several occasions, their belief that Israel has a moral
and legal right to exist, but the effect of their book is to leave it dangling
by a moral and strategic thread. In essence they call for the United States to
cut Israel loose, to return more or less to American policy before the 1967
war, when the United States tried to occupy a middle ground between Israel and
its Arab neighbors. Strangely, the authors do not itemize the fabulous benefits
delivered by this approach in the 1950s and '60s.
It is a little odd that so chilly a book should generate such heat. Most of Mr.
Mearsheimer and Mr. Walt's arguments are familiar ones, and it is hardly
inflammatory to point out that the major Jewish organizations tend to take a
much tougher line on, say, a two-state solution to the Palestinian problem, the
Iraq war or settlements in the West Bank, than most American Jews favor. The
writers stand on eminently defensible ground when they argue for a more
constructive, creative American role in peace talks.
The general tone of hostility to Israel grates on the nerves, however, along
with an unignorable impression that hardheaded political realism can be subject
to its own peculiar fantasies. Israel is not simply one country among many, for
example, just as Britain is not. Americans feel strong ties of history,
religion, culture and, yes, sentiment, that the authors recognize, but only in
an airy, abstract way.
They also seem to feel that, with Israel and its lobby pushed to the side, the
desert will bloom with flowers. A peace deal with Syria would surely follow,
with a resultant end to hostile activity by Hezbollah and Hamas. Next would
come a Palestinian state, depriving Al Qaeda of its principal recruiting tool.
(The authors wave away the idea that Islamic terrorism thrives for other
reasons.) Well, yes, Iran does seem to be a problem, but the authors argue that
no one should be particularly bothered by an Iran with nuclear weapons. And on
and on.
"It is time," Mr. Mearsheimer and Mr. Walt write, "for the United States to
treat Israel not as a special case but as a normal state, and to deal with it
much as it deals with any other country." But it's not. And America won't.
That's realism.
End quote
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