Taking on the
Israel lobby

>> John J. Mearsheimer discusses
his controversial book and the
firestorm surrounding it

ATTACKED BY ALL SIDES, PRAISED BY SOME:
Mearsheimer

by PATRICK LEJTENYI

Anyone who’s ever studied international relations at university should know the names John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt. The Wendell Harrison Professor of Political Science at Chicago and the Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, respectively, authors of three books and countless peer-reviewed articles apiece, the two are giants in their field. But that hasn’t saved them from withering, often ad hominem attacks for their latest and by far most controversial work.

The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, the book form of an older article published last fall amid a barrage of condemnation, scorn and wide praise, was sure to provoke. The Israel lobby, according to Mearsheimer and Walt, is a loose coalition of groups composed of American Jews and Christian Zionists, led by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), who have consistently and effectively—though, the authors are at pains to point out, entirely legally and in a manner that has a long tradition in American political life—influenced policy makers in Washington D.C. to throw its unconditional support behind Israel, often to the U.S.’s strategic and long-term detriment.

Thanks to its unwavering support of Israel since its inception in 1948, they say, the United States has built up long simmering, and now explosive, anti-American resentment in the Arab and Muslim world. Israel, according to the two, has become “a strategic burden” and “a liability in the war on terror and the broader effort to deal with rogue states.”

The pair also says the lack of serious criticism of Israel and its policies, especially regarding illegal settlements in the West Bank, and American support in the mainstream press are due largely to a fear of the lobby’s almost legendary power. The work’s genesis lends some credence to this: It began life as a 13,000-word article published in March 2006 in the London Review of Books, but only after The Atlantic, which commissioned the article in 2002, passed as publication drew near. It languished “on a shelf,” says Mearsheimer, until a friend suggested contacting the LRB, which pounced on it. And that’s when the trouble started.

Racism and realism

Critical reaction in the United States was as swift as it was ugly. Christopher Hitchens, writing for Slate.com, said the article was “redeemed from complete dullness and mediocrity only by being slightly but unmistakably smelly;” an op-ed in The Washington Post was headlined, “Yes, It’s Anti-Semitic,” and noted the article’s endorsement by former Klansman David Duke; a Democratic representative called it “the same old anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist drivel;” The New Republic called it “malignant and dishonest;” an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal said their case was “one part laughable, one part eyebrow-raising.” Numerous speaking engagements were cancelled.

Speaking over the phone from Chicago, Mearsheimer, who will be in Montreal on Saturday, Feb. 23, says the level of outrage that greeted the article and book did not surprise him. “There is no way you could study the Israel lobby and not expect it,” he says. “The principal tactic is to smear us, and prevent us from making our case in public. If we had an open debate in the U.S. and Canada, you would see in the body politic a significant shift in how people consider the Israel lobby.” He notes that the reception they got abroad, including in Israel, has been markedly more positive.

The two strongly deny they are anti-Semitic, and point out that they never use the phrase “Jewish lobby.” But they are part of what’s known in international relations as members of the “realist school.” Realists, generally, believe that nations, operating in an anarchic system, are motivated by self-interest, meaning economic and military security, as opposed to idealism and ethics. Wikipedia’s list of historical realists include such loveable figures as Sun Tzu, Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes, Otto von Bismarck, Carl von Clausewitz and Henry Kissinger. It’s hardly a warm and fuzzy field of study.

Mearsheimer and Walt’s conclusions are consistent with this way of thinking. The United States would not have invaded Iraq, a decision Mearsheimer calls disastrous, without the Israel lobby’s prodding—although he admits that the lobby was only one influence behind the decision, albeit a major one.

Unsticking the smear

Mearsheimer and Walt are hardly celebrated figures on the left, but Mearsheimer says criticism from people like Noam Chomsky, The New Yorker’s David Remnick and Columbia professor Joseph Massad differ significantly from that coming from the staunchest pro-Israel quarters. Their critiques, he says, “are serious and respectful, and I respect that. It’s fine. We wrote the book to generate a discussion, not for people to read it and say, ‘Alright, well, that’s the end of it.’”

He shrugs off charges of anti-Semitism and scholarly sloppiness as predictable and hollow, and says he is not losing any sleep. “We’re both tenured professors, and we’re both in an excellent position to write controversial positions because we can’t lose our jobs,” he says. “We’re not in the same position as Norman Finklestein,” another American academic who was denied tenure at DePaul University, many think due to his outspoken criticism of Israel.

The accusations of poor research simply don’t hold up, he says. “I’ve been criticized often, but nobody has ever accused me of sloppy scholarship,” he says. “Do you think [publishers] Farrar, Straus and Giroux, as a serious publishing house, would allow us to do sloppy scholarship? It flies in the face of common sense. There are 106 pages of endnotes, and Steve and I paid two fact-checkers $16,000 out of our own pockets to check our facts.

“But from my perspective, the tactic that bothers me the most is misrepresentation of my work. People are saying that we’re trying to de-legitimize Israel, that we oppose the existence of a Jewish state—which we don’t. We believe the U.S. should come to the defence of Israel if it is threatened. We’re often accused of making the lobby out to be a cabal or a conspiracy, and that what we wrote is like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. But it’s the opposite. The Israel lobby is an interest group operating in a rich American tradition—it’s as American as apple pie.”

John J. Mearsheimer will speak on Saturday,
Feb. 23, at the Université de Montréal’s
Jean Lesage Auditorium
(3200 Jean-Brillant rm. B-2285,
7 p.m., $15). The event is organized by
Canadians for Justice and Peace in the
Middle East. For tickets, visit www.cpjme.ca.