Dana Milbank in the Washington Post today attacks Walt and Mearsheimer’s appearance in D.C. yesterday on racialist grounds, saying that they are blue-eyed and have Germanic names, and he wonders about their motivation for saying what they do about the Israel lobby. He also says they have no idea how Washington works, then dismisses the idea that the attachment among Jews to Israel is a significant factor in policymaking, because while yes, Elliott Abrams and Douglas Feith care about Israel, Bush and Cheney are fervently behind Israel, too.
I also watched Mearsheimer and Walt yesterday, speaking before the Council on American-Islamic Relations, on C-Span. I saw two smart guys sincerely engaging very difficult issues, at considerable personal risk. When Milbank argues—in an underhanded, not direct way— that talking about the Israel lobby’s effects on policy is antisemitic nonsense, I wonder, Is he being sincere? Is he doing what a journalist should do, and tell us what he knows about important issues? No. He’s being obfuscatory. He should take M-W’s argument on genuinely, and tell us, as the big Washington insider he announces he is, just how little power he seems to believe the lobby exercises, and why.
Milbank’s attack is upsetting to some who share my views. It’s so snarky, so backhanded. Well, I see great progress. These issues weren’t discussed a year ago. Now, thanks to M-W, the seal is broken. Many have quietly lined up behind these dudes. Who knows who else will show a little unMilbankian courage….
Milbank clearly demonstrates why he should be added to the rolls of the Israel Lobby.
Don
My real name isn't Charles but I saw the show on Cspan last night and watched the rerun this morning. I saw Milbanks in the audience because he was showed on camera. I thought it was a well thought out discussion. Backed with good information and should be starting point of a debate about the influence of lobby groups. They did not sound anti-semitic to me. But this is America and ANY criticism of Isreal is anti-semitice by definition.
I think those guys said what a lot of people are thinking and it seems the Isreal lobby is very proud of their power and influence. AS they should be since they have labored hard for it.
When you think about it I can't recall any good investigative reporting about lobby groups and how they really operate in DC. Shouldn't we wonder why it took a local CA reporter to notice Duke Cunningham was living a lifestyle outside of what his income should have allowed. Why didn't the DC reporters notice that????????????
Even reporting on Abramhoff was after the fact.
Milbank often criticizes AIPAC. And, if I know anything about how they work (I do, used to work there) they are on his case
continuously. Calling him. Calling his editors.
So Milbank decided to give them one. M&W gave him the ammo and he used it. Now he's okay with AIPAC for awhile.
The line about M&W's Germanic surnames and blue eyes was incredible. Even more so was his dismissal of the idea that Douglas Feith pushed this war because of his right-of-Likud agenda. That is fact; he did write the famous paper urging both Clinton and Netanyahu to go to war with Iraq to "secure the realm." W&M should never conflate Feith and Wolfowitz.
Wolfowitz was wrong but he pushed the war out of a misguided view of America's interests (he is no Likudnik). Feith has no interest in US interests. Never has. His life has been dedicated to securing the West Bank for Israel and bringing down Israelis who want accomodation (Rabin, for one). How in God's name did he get a security clearance in the first place? But he's no lover of Israel per se. He is a lover of a rightist version of Israel.
I admire Walt's and Meirsheimer's efforts
But when they throw around the term "pro-Israel," when talking about politicians, they weaken their arguments for open debate about Israeli policies.
If W and M are committed to Israel's right to exist, as so many of its critics unfortunately are not, they would do well to choose their words more carefully.
The Likud has got also some
sane people. I am impressed
by Yuval Steinitz.
The Israel Lobby must
include some sane elements, too.
I do not know a whole
lot about them.
The M-W report was a useful analysis.
Part correct – part probably
exaggerated imagination.
The best thing is to check
the matters on the ground
like Phil did on his trip.
The priority is to help
the neglected Palestinian
population, because they
are not represented by anybody, or eventually
only by the wrong people.
For example, CAIR is a
very mixed bag. I would
like to see how
Enlightened CAIR people
are when you ask them
about Islam? The conservative
Islamic forces are
rejecting the ideals of
the Enlightenment, and
will not grant equal rights
to non-Muslims.
This is the problem, and
needs urgent remedy.
Glasnost is my best
medicine for the
rigid believers,
Muslims, Christians,
Jews, all.
Unf*cking believable!
They hate our freedom and democracy?
Some freedom and democracy…when Americans of German decent (or any blue-eyed Euro Americans for that matter) can�t criticize the Israel Lobby!!
�part probably exaggerated imagination�
Right, it�s always a malicious myth�
SOme subjects drive people crazy: pyramids, ufos, jfk, masons, templars, and above all Jews.
Tired of the topic. Does that make me anti?
M and W only state the obvious. The US congress is apparently bought and paid for by the Israeli lobby. The proof is the silence from the hill as Israel used American munitions to level huge areas of civilian neigboorhoods in south Beirut. Rep Chris Van Hollen took a political whipping when he wrote that Israeli actions were not in US interests. The conclusion is that American political power is rooted in Tel Aviv.
M&W are correct. To obtain lasting peace in the Middle East the state of Israel must be dismantled and incorporated into a new state of greater Palestine. A Truth and Reconciliation Commission must be established. All Jewish settlements in the occupied territories must be dismantled and returned to the displaced Palestinians. Those Palestinians who were displaced at the time when the state of Israel was established should be permitted to return if they wish. Compensation to the Palestinians should be paid by the state of Israel– in the same way as the German state compensates Jewish people for the dispossession during the Nazi era. Israels nuclear and biochemical arsenals must be dismantled and made subject to international inspection. Israel must be subject to the same inspection regime as all other nuclear states. That will by itself remove much of the cause of tension in the Middle East. Israel is a mendicant state. It cannot exist without being underwritten by the United States taxpayers, and united States military equipment, reparation payments from the German state, money and aid from the Jewish diaspora and cheap Palestinian labour.The continued existence of the state of Israel is a liability to the international community. After 60 years of continual fighting to maintain the state of Israel there is no end in sight. The time has therefore come to examine the fundamental cause of of conflict, which is the existence of the state of Israel.
Israeli actions over the last 60 years are crimes against humanity and war crimes. They have been doing to the Palestinian people exactly what the Nazis did to them and about which they are still continually complaining.
After 60 years the time has come for the Jews to put behind them the Holocaust and "move on". Unfortunately there have been many more Holocausts since the few years when the Jews suffered so terribly in Europe.It is time also put an end to the ludicrous cry of ":God's chosen people".
Barry Fox, man you would be right at home has Julius Streichers right hand man
It is a pity that Bill Pearman should resort to old hackenyed slogans and pejoratives to attempt to discredit my suggestions for solving what has been and still appears to be an intracable problem rather than confront a very real and terrible problem with an open mind.There are many peoples who do not and cannot have a separate state of their own of whom the Afrikaner people,the Australian Aborigines, the Native American people, and the Inuit, just to name a few. All have been subject to terrible repression and subjugation in their time and some still are. So their is nothing special about the condition of the Jewish people. Moreover in the era of the global village and the international community there is less reason than ever for separate nation states let alone one especially for the Jewish people, most of whom live outside the state of Israel and have no intention of ever living in it.
It is a pity that Bill Pearman should resort to old hackenyed slogans and pejoratives to attempt to discredit my suggestions for solving what has been and still appears to be an intracable problem rather than confront a very real and terrible problem with an open mind.There are many peoples who do not and cannot have a separate state of their own of whom the Afrikaner people,the Australian Aborigines, the Native American people, and the Inuit, just to name a few. All have been subject to terrible repression and subjugation in their time and some still are. So their is nothing special about the condition of the Jewish people. Moreover in the era of the global village and the international community there is less reason than ever for separate nation states let alone one especially for the Jewish people, most of whom live outside the state of Israel and have no intention of ever living in it.