Why Is the US and Israel Jumping In To Bed Together?
The three word answer to the question posed by the article is simply “The Israeli Lobby.”
John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt of Harvard University recently published a paper titled “The Israeli Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.” The controversial paper was published in the London Review in an abridged version.
The paper clearly shows the puissance of the Israeli Lobby in the US and how they have managed to promote Israel in a variety of spheres ranging from Congress to Academia. Mearsheimer and Walt define the Israeli Lobby as “…a [compromise] of American Jews who make a significant effort in their daily lives to bend U.S. foreign policy so that it advances Israel’s interests.”
Their arguments are very solid and have already stirred up controversy. In fact, the opinions expressed in the paper have had Walt announce his resignation as Chair of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. In essence, if there was any doubt that the arguments made in the paper were ‘right on’, this response in the New York Sun removes it.
In a nutshell these are the arguments made:
1) Israel is in fact a liability in the war on terror and the broader effort to deal with rogue states.
2) Israel’s past and present conduct offers no moral basis for privileging it over the Palestinians.
3) American backing of Israel is justified by the claim that Israel is a fellow democracy however the US has previously overthrown democratic governments in the past and supported dictators when it was their in self-interest.
4) The moral argument for Israel as a compensation for past crimes (i.e. the Holocaust) is fallible since the creation of Israel led to incredible crimes committed against a third innocent party – the Palestinians.
5) The Israeli Lobby’s power comes from within US ranks, members in Congress as well as pressure from Israelis.
6) The Lobby has two strategies for success:
a. It wields significant influence in Washington, pressuring both Congress and the Executive branch to support Israel down the line.
b. It strives to ensure that public discourse about Israel portrays it in a positive light, by repeating myths about Israel and its founding and by publicizing Israel’s side in the policy debates of the day. The goal is to prevent critical commentary about Israel from getting a fair hearing in the political arena. Controlling the debate is essential to guaranteeing U.S. support, because a candid discussion of U.S. Israeli relations might lead Americans to favor a different policy.
7) The Israeli Lobby influences Congress, the US Executive Branch, the Media, Think Tanks and Academia.
The paper essentially portrays a very vivid image of how difficult it would be for Israel to ‘have its way’ without the aid of the US. The US, the world’s greatest power has a plethora of countries depending on its aid, its political and economic systems as well as its soft and hard power. Thus, if the US is a friend of Israel then many countries will also be friends of Israel.
Without the Israeli Lobby, Israel would be struggling to deal with neighboring regimes that the country views as dangerous: Iraq, Iran and Syria. The US has been constantly pressured from Israel to do something about Saddam’s tyrannical regime since Sharon’s argument was that Iraq poses a common terrorist threat to both Israel and the US.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has taken its toll and the situation has been progressively exacerbating. In order for a potential peace agreement to take place, the power of the Israeli Lobby needs to be curtailed. The US needs to consider the region very carefully and refrain from making grave military mistakes (such as Iraq) or support Israel unanimously to the extent that its support instigates more
John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt of Harvard University recently published a paper titled “The Israeli Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.” The controversial paper was published in the London Review in an abridged version.
The paper clearly shows the puissance of the Israeli Lobby in the US and how they have managed to promote Israel in a variety of spheres ranging from Congress to Academia. Mearsheimer and Walt define the Israeli Lobby as “…a [compromise] of American Jews who make a significant effort in their daily lives to bend U.S. foreign policy so that it advances Israel’s interests.”
Their arguments are very solid and have already stirred up controversy. In fact, the opinions expressed in the paper have had Walt announce his resignation as Chair of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. In essence, if there was any doubt that the arguments made in the paper were ‘right on’, this response in the New York Sun removes it.
In a nutshell these are the arguments made:
1) Israel is in fact a liability in the war on terror and the broader effort to deal with rogue states.
2) Israel’s past and present conduct offers no moral basis for privileging it over the Palestinians.
3) American backing of Israel is justified by the claim that Israel is a fellow democracy however the US has previously overthrown democratic governments in the past and supported dictators when it was their in self-interest.
4) The moral argument for Israel as a compensation for past crimes (i.e. the Holocaust) is fallible since the creation of Israel led to incredible crimes committed against a third innocent party – the Palestinians.
5) The Israeli Lobby’s power comes from within US ranks, members in Congress as well as pressure from Israelis.
6) The Lobby has two strategies for success:
a. It wields significant influence in Washington, pressuring both Congress and the Executive branch to support Israel down the line.
b. It strives to ensure that public discourse about Israel portrays it in a positive light, by repeating myths about Israel and its founding and by publicizing Israel’s side in the policy debates of the day. The goal is to prevent critical commentary about Israel from getting a fair hearing in the political arena. Controlling the debate is essential to guaranteeing U.S. support, because a candid discussion of U.S. Israeli relations might lead Americans to favor a different policy.
7) The Israeli Lobby influences Congress, the US Executive Branch, the Media, Think Tanks and Academia.
The paper essentially portrays a very vivid image of how difficult it would be for Israel to ‘have its way’ without the aid of the US. The US, the world’s greatest power has a plethora of countries depending on its aid, its political and economic systems as well as its soft and hard power. Thus, if the US is a friend of Israel then many countries will also be friends of Israel.
Without the Israeli Lobby, Israel would be struggling to deal with neighboring regimes that the country views as dangerous: Iraq, Iran and Syria. The US has been constantly pressured from Israel to do something about Saddam’s tyrannical regime since Sharon’s argument was that Iraq poses a common terrorist threat to both Israel and the US.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has taken its toll and the situation has been progressively exacerbating. In order for a potential peace agreement to take place, the power of the Israeli Lobby needs to be curtailed. The US needs to consider the region very carefully and refrain from making grave military mistakes (such as Iraq) or support Israel unanimously to the extent that its support instigates more
posted by The Egyptian Observer at 3:03 PM
9 Comments:
There is no Palestinian lobby? :)
@suzanne. There certainly exists a Palestinian lobby which of course does not have the backing of the US or for that matter any other powerful first world country.
Many wealthy Palestinians around the world who had left after the invasion of 1948 are doing incredible philanthropy work but they will never be able to lobby a country like the US - which ultimately has the most political and economic power bar none.
Thus, people will never really talk of the 'Palestinian Lobby' per se because it does not entail any sort of political influence on any foreign government (even Arab governments).
@omega. That certainly is Israel's backbone in the US. This certainly forms part of the puissance behind the Israeli Lobby - it can only improve their stance and the cause they are striving for.
b.s.
@yochanan. Do you have something better to say? What's 'b.s' about this? The arguments are clear and valid, if you have a rebuttal then do offer it.
@dotblue. I am in the process of reading the response. I will write another post discussing the two articles and my thoughts on it. Thank you for directing it to me.
I think you simplify the issue, like all too many in the Islamic world.
Israel represents a democratic and Western (i.e. modern) state that the U.S. can depend on as an ally in the region. The rest of our "allies" in the region are totally repressive of human rights and on a path of destruction.
Sorry, friend, those countries must modernize and democratize (and there are varieties of democracy) or they will implode.
D. Ox
@dumb ox. Do you mean simplify or complicate the issue?
You seem to be simplifying the issue by merely saying that Israel represents a democratic and Western state and that the US can depend on it as an ally in the region.
This is a simple explanation.
Part of the general antagonism in the Arab world and other countries against the US is because of its avid support of Israel (among other reasons).
This clearly backfired as shown in 9/11 and other sporadic terrorist attacks by al-Qaeda.
It is a huge liability for the US administration (i.e. the Israeli Lobby) to ardently support Israel since it has repercussions of the US' image in the Middle East where is seeks to promote democracy etc.
If you read my previous post on democracy, I argue that the region has a lot of work to do before introducing democracy. It is not as simple as you say.
Poverty, illiteracy and old traditions have been a hindrance to the introduction of liberal thoughts and Western civility.
By the way, Israel has also been a perpatrator of Human Rights, in fact they have committed more crimes against Palestinians in order to establish their state - so is this really democracy?
Sharon has been accused of instigating the Sabre and Chatila refugee camps mass murders in the 1980s, he still remains to be Israel's official prime minister - is this really democracy that the US seeks to support?
Just some food for your thought.
@ Omega
Below you will find links to two articles by Glenn Scherer and Bill Moyers (which is a response to Scherer) that explicate the impetus for the US’ support for Israel. Both articles focus on the Evangelical impact on environmental policy, but there are some excerpts regarding the state of Israel which I will paste below the links.
Glenn Scherer:
http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2004/10/27/scherer-christian/index.html
"[Tom] DeLay is also a self-declared member of the Christian Zionists, an End-Time faction numbering 20 million Americans. Christian Zionists believe that the 1948 creation of the state of Israel marked the first event in what author Hal Lindsey calls the "countdown to Armageddon" and they are committed to making that doomsday clock tick faster, speeding Christ's return.
In 2002, DeLay visited pastor John Hagee's Cornerstone Church. Hagee preached a fiery message as simple as it was horrifying: "The war between America and Iraq is the gateway to the Apocalypse!" he said, urging his followers to support the war, perhaps in order to bring about the Second Coming. After Hagee finished, DeLay rose to second the motion. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "what has been spoken here tonight is the truth from God."
…
But the influence of theology, although less discussed, is no less significant. [Oklahoma senator and chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee James] Inhofe, like DeLay, is a Christian Zionist. While the senator has not overtly expressed his religious views in his environmental committee, he has when speaking on other issues. In a Senate foreign-policy speech, Inhofe argued that the U.S. should ally itself unconditionally with Israel "because God said so." Quoting the Bible as the divine Word of God, Inhofe cited Genesis 13:14-17 -- "for all the land which you see, to you will I give it, and to your seed forever" -- as justification for permanent Israeli occupation of the West Bank and for escalating aggression against the Palestinians.
…
So weird have the attempts to hasten the End Time become that a group of ultra-Christian Texas ranchers recently helped fundamentalist Israeli Jews breed a pure red heifer, a genetically rare beast that must be sacrificed to fulfill an apocalyptic prophecy found in the biblical Book of Numbers.
It can be difficult for environmentalists, many of whom cut their teeth on peer-reviewed science, to fathom how anyone could believe that a rust-colored calf could bring about the end of the world, or how anyone could make a coherent End-Time story (let alone national policy) out of the poetic symbolism of the Book of Revelation. But there are millions of such people in America today -- including 231 U.S. legislators who either believe dispensationalist or reconstructionist doctrine or, for political expediency, are happy to align themselves with those who do."
Bill Moyers:
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=7158
…Its outline is rather simple, if bizarre (the British writer George Monbiot recently did a brilliant dissection of it and I am indebted to him for adding to my own understanding): Once Israel has occupied the rest of its "biblical lands," legions of the antichrist will attack it, triggering a final showdown in the valley of Armageddon.
As the Jews who have not been converted are burned, the messiah will return for the rapture. True believers will be lifted out of their clothes and transported to Heaven, where, seated next to the right hand of God, they will watch their political and religious opponents suffer plagues of boils, sores, locusts and frogs during the several years of tribulation that follow.
I'm not making this up. Like Monbiot, I've read the literature. I've reported on these people, following some of them from Texas to the West Bank. They are sincere, serious and polite as they tell you they feel called to help bring the rapture on as fulfillment of biblical prophecy. That's why they have declared solidarity with Israel and the Jewish settlements and backed up their support with money and volunteers. It's why the invasion of Iraq for them was a warm-up act, predicted in the Book of Revelations where four angels "which are bound in the great river Euphrates will be released to slay the third part of man." A war with Islam in the Middle East is not something to be feared but welcomed - an essential conflagration on the road to redemption."
So Walt & Mearsheimer make some great points, but Envangelical support is a huge consideration as well, be it manifested through the Israeli lobby or not (check out the "Rapture Index" at www.raptureready.com which has categories regarding the state of Israel).
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