The latest negative review of Walt and Mearsheimer’s book was particularly baroque: Samuel G. Freedman in the Washington Post writing about the Christian concept of original sin and saying that W/M have that view of Israel (and nary a word about the separate road system in the Occupied Territories). I know my people don’t control the news media, but in reflecting on the many print reviews of The Israel Lobby (good and bad, but mostly bad), I’m struck by how many of them have been penned by Jews. Michael Lerner, David Remnick, Richard Cohen, Jeffrey Goldberg, Leslie Gelb, Samuel Freedman. Maybe I’m missing some gentile voices, but isn’t there some value in diversity here? Could someone have assigned the book to James Baker, Francis Fukuyama, Fritz Hollings or Jimmy Carter? You say, Well we know what Hollings and Carter would say. Maybe. But we knew what Freedman would say. Mearsheimer says he unloaded on their paper last year.
Besides, if Freedman and Gelb are right and America, i.e., non-Jews, actually love Israel because of shared interests and democratic values, not because of any lobby, shouldn’t the editors of America put reviewers to the test?
(Shmuel Rosner made a related point last year during the Carter book uproar. He noted that only Jews were resigning in protest from the Carter Center board.)
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{ 35 comments }
Not all Jews get to review the book.
Tony Judt did not get asked to review the book.
How about that; I wonder why?
Now that would be interesting.
Jimmy Carter commented on the book on an interview with Charlie Rose a couple weeks ago, that he hadn't yet read it, but understood the thesis.
I would hope that he would respond as I did (to the article, I haven't read the book), that the content examining who influenced what and how, was interesting but not all that informative.
And, that notwithstanding the many statements of "we don't mean to infer a monolithic conspiracy", still elaborated as if that was exactly what they were speaking about.
To Richard Witty, I have faithfully followed your comments on this and other blogs. I am astounded that you have not taken the time to read the Mearsheimer/Walt book.
They have to get Jews to review the book to ensure that it is well-trashed.
Goyim (like me) do not love Israel. We "support" it to the extent that we wish it well.
With the exception of a few crazy fundies, I have never met a gentile who spends any more time thinking about Israel than about Belgium.
Remembering the reviews of Fritz Stern's last book-Five Germany's I have Know-I would guess that he also would not be allowed to review
the MW book.
Any more? Dennis Prager would be allowed however
When the book is available in my public library, I'll probably read it.
The article and interviews were available on the web, which I have read.
I was NOT impressed with scholarship of the article, not for lack of supporting documentation, but for the willingness to generalize, and particularly to adopt positions later in the article that they claimed to renounce early in the article. (The Jewish lobby is not monolithic but VERY diverse, not centrally coordinated, and legal.)
David Duke reviewed it. He loved it.
Has Wolf Blitzer had them in The AIPAC Comedy Room yet?
If Israel were the shining democracy its apologists describe, would it really need so much "love" from American Jews and so many guns, tanks, and missiles from the U.S. to survive?
But alas, colonialism is quite expensive. An equal-opportunity bankruptor of empires. Next up: ours.
Richard Witty, could you cite any examples of W&M making generalizations? Or are you making a general statement about their shoddy generalizations? Or more succinctly, could you just explain where your and Abraham Foxman's views of W&M's work diverge? Thanks.
The Washington Post reviewer has already written on the subject of the lobby. It was in USA Today on April 5, 2003. The title was –
"Don't Blame Jews for this War"
http://www.geocities.com/dapat_tapatt/ref_dontblamejews.html
Yeah Richard, along the lines of Kathy's comment, when are you going to read the book instead of just commenting on it? (You are allowed to read gentile authors aren't you?)
Is this "put up or shut up"?
I accurately stated that I had not read the book, only the article as well as seeing a dozen interviews (thank you youtube).
The issue that is a bit of bait and switch is their assertion that the Jewish lobby is not monolithic, but somehow it is.
They do make the inference that it is not just observation of something interesting, but a description of some unholy alliance or objective.
Certainly, Phil and many here, conclude and/or infer similarly.
If the assumption is innaccurate or incomplete, then any secondary conclusions drawn are at best innaccurate or incomplete.
I accept a degree of innaccuracy as a given. Certainly in my work, I estimate often.
If however, the prospect of the innacuracy is potentially dangerous, I feel that it is important to speak up.
In the spirit of "taking a courageous stand". For me, thats what it is. I live in a fairly radical community, and those that think freely (often very principled radicals) are my closest friends.
I've certainly taken some heat for my views among those that regard Israel as demon. It bothers me.
But, I'm not going to adopt what I consider an inhumane attitude of contempt for Israel and Israelis on the basis of what some of my friends conclude.
if you've read the book, you'd realize that this is the way things are done.
In no hurry to read the book, I direct Mr. Witty's attention to the following internet resource:
Clearly, MSNBC is implying that there is some monolithic, disproportionately powerful Jewish lobby!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21266470/
Candidates court Jewish support
Clinton, Giuliani attract some early interest
By Matthew E. Berger
NBC/National Journal Campaign Reporter
Updated: 1:25 p.m. ET Oct. 12, 2007
WYNDHAM, N.H. – The John Edwards presidential campaign had a problem.
Set to announce the appointment of former Rep. David Bonior as campaign manager in a few days, Edwards' strategists began to realize that the Michigan Democrat's strong support for Palestinians while he was in Congress could hurt Edwards among American Jews.
And if Jewish voters started to get nervous about the former senator from North Carolina, a lot of dollars could be at stake.
So before the December announcement, Bonior started making calls to influential American Jewish leaders, including some members of Congress, and to political donors, according to people familiar with the effort. Bonior assured the leaders he would not be involved in Middle East policy and said his appointment did not suggest any changes in Edwards's positions on Israel. But many Jewish leaders were still angry that their input was sought only after the decision had been made.
…
I think Chomsky's "The Fate of an Honest Intellectual" ( http://www.chomsky.info/books/power01.htm ) establishes the mechanism that allows for the bias seen in media and academia. It does not take long for those desiring advancement to see how the game is played.
Who is allowed to discuss Israel's criminality?
Of course only Jews, and then only Jews who support Israel, for whom there is an 'ongoing dialogue', an ongoing vehicle to ensure that nothing will be done until lebensraum has been achieved in the here and now. In the meantime the most scandalous abuse of opponents of this criminality, on the most bizarre grounds, continues unabated.
Mearscheimer and Walt, the most unlikely of candidates, have broken the rules. Quelle Horreur!
This from Edward Said's, The Question of Palestine, 1979:
"To write critically about Zionism in Palestine has therefore never meant, and does not mean now, being anti-Semitic; conversely, the struggle for Palestinian rights and self-determination does not mean support for the Saudi royal family, nor for the antiquated and oppressive state structures of most of the Arab nations. One must admit, however, that all liberals and even most ‘radicals’ have been unable to overcome the Zionist habit of equating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. … The almost total absence of any handily available historical knowledge from non-Zionist sources, the dissemination by the media of malicious simplifications (e.g. Jews vs. Arabs), the cynical opportunism of various Zionist pressure groups, the tendency endemic to university intellectuals uncritically to repeat cant phrases and political clichés (this is the role Gramsci assigned to traditional intellectuals, that of being ‘experts in legitimation’), the fear of treading upon the highly sensitive terrain of what Jews did to their victims, in an age of genocidal extermination of Jews – all this contributes to the dulling, regulated enforcement of almost unanimous support for Israel. But, as I. F. Stone recently noted, this unanimity exceeds even the Zionism of most Israelis."
In the ensuing 30 years what?
Fortunately, a substantial literature has been published, substantially by Jews, excoriating Israel's crimes and, directly or indirectly, Israel's cheer squad.
But the essential features of the terrain remains depressingly the same. The situation for the Palestinian Arab population is worse. The Israeli leadership more hardline, the cheer squad undaunted.
The same outrageous bullshit lies keep getting reproduced in the daily press (Barak's generous offer, no partner for peace, etc., etc.). External forces remain pusillanimous in their treatment of the Israeli leadership.
The hard reality is that the prospects are that the M&W affair will blow over, and that it will be more of the same. The marginalisation and demolition job (concurrent with the total self-abnegation of Congress) on M&W indicates business as usual.
Sorry, most bloggers on Mondoweissm dislike it if an Edward Said, a Finkelstein or W&M are criticized.
But a wholesale trashing of the American rich and poor Jews is not immoral.
We Jews and non-Jews are sympathizing with Israel, and I personally lived there for 13 years.
It is a pretty pleasant place. I have also enjoyed to meet the most decent Palestinians and made friends with many doctors, engineers or simple gardeners.
But it is suffocating to visit Jordan, as my personal experience proved.
Try to live or just spend a little time in the tyrannic Egypt, Syria or Saudi Arabia.
My good Turkoman Iraqi friend was inprisoned in Abu Ghraib in Baghdad, an in another one in Riyad.
It is better to keep up a good alliance with Israel, a vibrant scientific and industrial mini powerhouse.
Israel is very attractive to the intelligent Israeli Arab citizens, and many Palestinians moved from Hebron to Jerusalem to have a better life.
The Palestinian economic immigration to Israel was always very strong. Non violent Palestinians are doing well with Israelis.
Only a .1% of the Palestinians are hardened resisters, but the interference by Saudi Arabia, Iran and Syria blocks the Palestinians' ability to make peace with Israel.
An honest scholar must compile the history of the Arab interference in the Palestinian affairs, to rob the will of the nation to act freely.
ej may be right. But we have to keep pushing on. If nothing else, the book will have succeeded in forcing the lobby to be slightly more discrete. Another change is that the so-called "liberal" Zionists have been unmasked. No one is ever again going to mistake a ToughDove or Americans for Peace Now as anything other than "the good cop" side of the lobby.
BTW, that major Christisons article on the history of the lobby, that was only available in the hardcopy edition of CounterPunch, is now available online–
http://icahdusa.org/2007/170
And, in the interest of not engaging in over-simplification, EJ, David and even Edward Said, engage in oversimplification and binary approaches.
Only in war is a non-polarized view irrelevant. "Which side are you on?" is already the wrong one, the anti-civil one.
That's right, Richard. We're all just one big family under G-d.
Philip Weiss said:
"I know my people don't control the news media…"
Do you have any facts to back up this
outrageous assertion, sir?
Richard Witty said:
"When the book is available in my public library, I'll probably read it.
The article and interviews were available on the web, which I have read."
Your blatant antisemitism is tiring, Mr. Witty.
Please stop perpetuating "cheap Jew" stereotypes
immediately, or face the consequences.
I notice that more and more J-blogs are starting to run ads for this–
http://www.ojerusalemthemovie.com/
(It's a Samuel Goldwyn production.)
Yeah Richard, no need to go to the library when Phil or other members of the Tribe on this blog can get the book for you WHOLESALE. As a famous man once said, "At a price like this it doesn't have to be good!"
The book was described in MANY reviews, including Phil's, as basically the same thesis, but elaborated on.
The disclaimers of monolith, the assertions of the legality of the "lobby" (a monolith term already) and its means.
So, if there is something new and valuable to be derived from spending the $25 and 10 hours, I'll do it. Otherwise I'll wait.
Time is finite, money is finite.
Thank God and progressive humans for inspiring, constructing, acquiring, and managing public libraries.
as soon as non jews comment, we will make sure to accuse them of anti-semitism.
no one dares any more to critisize… we made sure of that!
Cooper – Don't you have some nooses to drop off today?
Actually your people 'do control' the news media and only someone very dense and uninformed would think otherwise. Well, there is a third exception.
What is this, 'your people' anyway?
To paraphrase Mohammad Ali:
"No arab ever called me a 'goyim'"
I'd prefer that Americans worry more about their infrastructure, their poor, their wounded veterans, their economy, and their corrupt politicians than a small middle-eastern nation that is trying very hard to have influence over them.
We can't take care of our current disabled vets from the Iraq war, but we can still send billions in military aid to Israel each year.
Somewhere there is a disconnect between what is good for America and what is good for Israel.
As someone who KNOWS true history, not the bullshit produced by the Infernal Jew, the jews, and more precisely, the Zionist Jew needs to be torn from ALL positions of leadership-finance, entertainment, media, political etc. EVERY synagogue and zionist meeting place needs to classified as a terrorist organization and eradicated upon sight. Should sound familiar to you bleeding-heart Israel lovers when it comes to the treatment of Palestinian? No? You are a cancer on this planet-period. With the looting of our Pentagon of more than 2 TRILLION DOLLARS, announced conveniently by that goy-traitor Rumsfeld(Or is he a scum Jew?) by Dov Zacheim (sp?)-a Zionist infiltrator coupled with the WELFARE Israel receives from us GOYIM, add in that the Central Banks are CONTROLLED by zionist scum, it is not too hard to see why EVERY movie the goy gets to watch has a KIKE producer or a KIKE controlled production company. Propaganda. Keep the goy in line. But guess what my jewish little turds, the truth is escaping faster than you can imagine. So what will be played out here is history. A history that your slimy race of shit experiences time and time again. This time there will be NO place for you scum to hide.
Countdown until David or Alan claims that jackson is really a plant from the ADL here to make all this talk of anti-semitism seem more legit.
If you want to get reviews from the Goyim you can go to Amazon.com and read the reviews posted there. Mearsheimer and Walt's thesis is accepted just about universally. I don't read reviews of the book by Jews since I already know what their opinion will be. It will basically boil down to ridiculous comparison's to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It's amazing that anyone takes these mainstream Jewish reviews about this book seriously.
"I know my people don't control the news media,"
LOL, oh no, of course not, and I "Know" the sky isn't blue. Stop acting so damn ignorant sir. Don't you realize that W+M are doing you a favor? These men, along with Kevin MacDonald are trying to keep history from repeating itself. If these matters aren't resolved by calmer heads, then the same thing that has happened to your people since the beginning of time is going to happen again. Is that what you want?
I read the MW file over a year ago; I spent the $ for their book.
I am reading it now, and I also spent the cash to send a signal I want context and put my money where my mouth is.
Mearsheimer and Walt just speak the plain facts. All the huffing and puffing in the world will not change that.
But no proof that there was no firing? Responding to charges he had released only a "watered down" version of the report by a four-member U.N. Board of Inquiry (BoI), Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon vehemently denied the accusation. "I would like to categorically reject any impression, any word, called watered down," he told reporters Tuesday. "I told you that this Board of Inquiry is independent. I respect the complete independence of this report." Yet Mondoweiss still posts a misleading headline. But then we can not hold Weiss to any standards at all.
Mr. Weiss, I write this as an admirer of your heroic activities on this website. In my opinion, you favor people who are honest, moral and shall I say “law-abiding”. “Bad Jew”/”Good Jew”? I gather from this post, and its antecedent, that the “Good Jew” of whom you speak favored, and was (and is) encouraged to contribute money, effort and argument to aid and advance the post-’67 confiscation of West Bank/Gaza lands to expand the Jewish State. And in the 1830’s, in Georgia, who was a “Good American”? Of course, those Americans who wanted to drive out the Cherokees, a civilized and assimilated people, from their ancient lands in Georgia. As the Cherokee were driven to death and exile at gunpoint by the then-US Defense forces, they sang “Amazing Grace” along the Trail of Tears. [This moving and stirring hymn was composed by a reformed slave-trader who anguished over his own inhumanity.] It is too bad this Christian hymn can’t somehow find its way into the suffering of the Palestinians. I made my living in the world of jurisprudence here in the US. From this I learned about “good” and “bad”. Specifically, where behavior proscribed by criminal law, it is “bad”. No amount of moral argument, religious or nationalistic ideology, or volumes of really smart semantics, can ever change proscribed conduct from “bad” to “good”. The killing off and forced expulsion (really a genocide) of the Cherokees by the US government (using its army) was utterly criminal. The Cherokee had prevailed in the US Supreme Court, which ruled the State of Georgia had no rights (none, nada) to act against the Cherokee Nation. Pres. Jackson (a true Native-American hater) deliberately ignored the law as stated by the Court and “genocided” the Cherokee at the behest of Georgia authorities. In 1967 Theodor Meron, the Israeli Foreign Ministry's legal adviser, reported to Levi Eshkol, the Prime Minister, in a memo marked "Top Secret" and "Extremely Urgent", his unequivocal conclusion "that civilian settlement in the administered territories contravenes the explicit provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention." Forty years later, in 2007, he said "I believe that I would have given the same opinion today." Judge Meron, a holocaust survivor, also disclosed that the Foreign Minister, Abba Eban, was " sympathetic" to his view that civilian settlement would directly conflict with the Hague and Geneva conventions governing the conduct of occupying powers. Despite the legal opinion, Eshkol and the Labor cabinet progressively sanctioned settlements. [This paragraph paraphrases an article in the Independent]. What happened in the Jewish community of which you write, that aid and furtherance of criminal behavior (under the Geneva convention and Hague Convention statutes) by Israel became the standard for a “Good Jew”? A fundamental of criminal law everywhere (in Israel too) is that those who knowingly assist, facilitate or aid criminal behavior are also culpable under the proscriptive statute. An enterprise by a large and diverse number of people which has as its paramount object, the commission of crime, is a true criminal conspiracy, whether the object is to import and market cocaine or steal land under false claim of right. So, in my analysis, the people you describe as “Good Jews” are accomplices, facilitators and/or co-conspirators in Israel’s crime of seizing occupied Palestine. These “Good Jews” may have power, Ph.D.s, be bright, clever and rich ….. whatever…. but they are de facto criminals. They, as the Americans who genocided the Cherokee, will never be brought to the bar. That does not exonerate them or those in the Jewish community which, as you have pointed out, has been hugely complicit in the crimes against the Palestinians and their lands. Sadly, even shockingly, they boast of their complicity “as Jews”. When it comes to crime, you either are or aren't – PEP doesn't apply.
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