Commenter Miriam Reik points out a significant hole in my reporting from Newport yesterday:
I wish Weiss had reported the answer given to the Lt. Commander’s question about “how the Palestinians can combat the Israelis’ foreign influence in the United States.” Maybe it wasn’t answered, but it is a key question that needs to be engaged if US foreign policy is to return to normal and a healthy relationship with the Arab/Muslim world.
The answer given at the War College by Harvard professor Stephen Walt:
I’ll just say that our article on the Israel lobby emphasized that this is a group or coalition of groups and individuals that operates in the standard interest group traditions of the United States. They organize, they mobilize, they lobby. They do all the things that all interest groups do. So if Palestinians or Arab-Americans want to reduce that influence, they’re going to have to essentially follow the same practices…As we see lots of other groups doing in the United States. Whether it’s corporate groups or other ethnic groups. Last week there was a front page article in the New York Times on the Indian-American diaspora, and how they have started to organize political action groups of various kinds, which are currently lobbying very hard to get the Indian-American nuclear deal through congress. Again, this is the way that American politics works and I think that’s the only domestic political strategy available.
I’m not sure I agree entirely. Some of the process, from my standpoint, involves a showdown in the wake of Iraq within the left-liberal American Democratic community over the hijacking of policymaking. When Democratic congressmen like Tom Lantos of California—with great political effectiveness—justified the invasion of Iraq because the United States failed to take action against Hitler when it had a chance to save millions, and when this argument was essentially echoed by Paul Berman, in Terror and Liberalism, a book that absolutely refused to condemn the Israeli occupation of Arab lands, it is a sign of just how misguided the thinking has been within “liberal” ranks over Middle East policy. And why, lo and behold, we are now occupying Arab land with a very similar experience to Israel’s in its catastrophic occupation.
Speaking of which, here is the erudite Walt again, on the perils of occupation for powerful nations:
I want to underscore the importance of nationalism. One of the limits of power is that people are usually willing to fight with great tenacity to defend what they see as their own homeland, their territory. Even when they are materially outgunned, they turn out to be very very difficult adversaries, as tthe Austro-Hungarians learned, the Russians learned, the Ottomans learned, the British learned, the French learned. And as we are now learning [in Iraq]. The basic soundbite I always use here is that nobody—nobody likes taking orders from a well-armed foreigner in their neighborhood, speaking a different language. It just generates enormous amounts of resentment.
"I'll just say that our article on the Israel lobby emphasized that this is a group or coalition of groups and individuals that operates in the standard interest group traditions of the United States. They organize, they mobilize, they lobby. They do all the things that all interest groups do. So if Palestinians or Arab-Americans want to reduce that influence, they're going to have to essentially follow the same practices…As we see lots of other groups doing in the United States. Whether it's corporate groups or other ethnic groups. Last week there was a front page article in the New York Times on the Indian-American diaspora, and how they have started to organize political action groups of various kinds, which are currently lobbying very hard to get the Indian-American nuclear deal through congress. Again, this is the way that American politics works and I think that's the only domestic political strategy available."
This is the crux of their article. That the Israel lobby is effective, legal and the way American politics works.
If you don't like it- go contribute the the Saudi Arabian or Syrian lobby.
When this central point was made in the original article, it was laced with a reference to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a patently false, anti-Semitic work which fueled 20th century anti-Semitism. This reference breached all academic standards and demonstrated the true nature of the authors values.
This Joey is shameless – there is no appeal to the Protocols in Walt and Mearsheimer's essay except the statement "The Lobby's activities are not the sort of conspiracy depicted in anti-Semitic tracts like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion."- is he assuming we haven't read the thing?
I said that "it was laced with a reference to" not that there was an "appeal to".
Why refer to it at all? Academics don't usually make references to false information.
The Israel lobby is effective, legal and the way American politics works. This is the crux of the article.
The Israel Lobby has help American businesses and consumers by building an economy of dynamic technologists that have delivered the design and production of the most widely used Pentium processor, the unmanned aircraft (UAV), R&D centers for Microsoft, Google, IBM and Intel, the MRI (body scanner), and countless pharmaceutical and medical discoveries.
Just like the "Indian Lobby" brings you gambling, The Israel Lobby serves you and most of our fellow American citizens very well.
The fact that we Jews are often genetically cleverer than non-Jews may well manifest itself in 'dynamic technologists', Mr Joey, but that has nothing to do with subverting foreign policy or indeed with subjugating persons who may be less clever. Perhaps a little humility would not go amiss?
For better or worse, America does not care about the poor, disenfranchised masses. Come on over and take a look. America cares about the voting constituencies of the middle and upper classes and these interests are served by the Israeli lobby.
America subjugates 40 million of it's citizens to life without health care and all without affordable child care.
It would be wonderful if America was a country of humility, it has a long way to go.
The Israel Lobby is supported by Jews and non-Jews. It's legal and is "the way American politics works" (W-M).
People are free to spend their money and exert their influence as they choose.
Unfortunately, Arabs are not in America's best interests and Arabs with money and power do not care enought about their fellow Arab Palestinians to spend money and exert thier influnce to help them.
Hmmm..,. on a previous point of yours. The Protocols of the Elders Of Zion may have been a forgery but was not so 'patently false' as you have stated. If you have read it, which I guess you have, you will know that it reflected a body of opinion at that time and many of its allegations would have been hard to disprove.
Go have a drink and beat up some Germans…
"This is the crux of their article. That the Israel lobby is effective, legal and the way American politics works.
If you don't like it- go contribute the the Saudi Arabian or Syrian lobby."
This is the crux of the matter. Why do Americans, from Anglicans and Presbyterians to Blacks to Italians to Hispanics, have to rely on Middle-Eastern peoples to protect their interests. How about an "American" lobby? I'll tell you why. Because an "American" lobby is perceived to have no self interest and hence must be anti-Semitic. How do we solve that?
Start by looking within: Americans should start taking care of their own poor and less fortunate: health care, child care and education would be the places to start.
Then, start worrying about the Arabs that do nothing but drain the US economy with oil sales.
Start by looking within: Americans should start taking care of their own poor and less fortunate: health care, child care and education would be the places to start.
Then, start worrying about the Arabs that do nothing but drain the US economy with oil sales.