God bless the LA Times Editorial board, it met with Walt and Mearsheimer and published the dialogue! That’s called journalism. It was a real give and take.
The LA Times people were critical, at times even conservative: Nick Goldberg suggested that W&M are wrong to want to "upend" a 60-year-relationship that has been a good one. The Times people also questioned the word "lobby;" they asked, quite perceptively, whether the lobby hasn’t functioned in Israel’s interest over the years (W&M like to say that the lobby has not served Israel’s interests; I tend to side with the LAT). And the LAT people asked, legitimately it seems to me, whether Walt and Mearsheimer regard the lobby as "pernicious." W&M sidestep this one, saying the lobby is only doing what other lobbies do. They should be more forthcoming on this point: they should point to the real damage the lobby has done, in dehumanizing Palestinians, and chilling free speech in this country. Points they make with moral force in their book. But now these ivory-tower dudes are out on the hustings, and a little gunshy. I say they should stick their necks out a little…
Stephen Walt’s best point in this conversation was when he pointed out how many times the U.S. has vetoed U.N. Security Council resolutions re Israel. 42 times or so. I was thinking this morning of how I as an aspiring freelance writer used to carry Marty Peretz’s water at the New Republic, that I did a piece sharply critical of UN Depy Secy Brian Urquhart. I didn’t understand what I was doing; but I was serving Peretz’s "party line," as he puts it in W&M’s book, of supporting Israel. Look at what this great relationship has done to Jewish identity! Smart, young Jews are compelled to practice jury nullification with the U.N., to argue that the organization has no legitimacy– for a simple reason, that in ’67 the U.N. said that the occupation and acquisition of lands through war was not alright. If only Israel had heeded UN Resolution 242! Or if our country has taken it seriously! For nearly 60 years, UN 242 has been an excellent reason for upending our relationship with Israel, or reforming it anyway.
Back to the subject: Huge props to Op-Ed Editor Goldberg and the LA Times opinion page for doing what almost no other mainstream journalists have done so far– acknowledging the tremendous seriousness of Walt and Mearsheimer’s ideas, and taking them on fairly! The world lurches forward.
