Keohane of Princeton on Walt and Mearsheimer

by on December 12, 2007 17
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Robert Keohane, the international-relations scholar who debated Walt and Mearsheimer at Princeton Monday night, has supplied a copy of his opening comments to the assiduous James Morris, who passed them on to me.

Two excerpts:

"The charge of anti-Semitism is a
category mistake.  It confuses opposition to a state’s policy with
prejudice against the ethnic groups that compose it.  American liberals in
the 1930s opposed German policy, but this did not make them anti-German.
People who criticize US China policy on grounds of Chinese human rights abuses
are not thereby “Sinophobes.”  Those who want to impose sanctions on Sudan or  Zimbabwe are  not
“anti-Black.”   In contrast, Amreican attitudes toward Japanese
during World War II were racist.
How can we tell the difference?  Racists denigrate the character or
intelligence of the people against whom they are prejudiced – Americans
regularly characterized the Japanese as sub-human (John Dower, War Without Mercy: Race and
Power in the Pacific War).  They did not
so denigrate the German people.  There is no denigration of Israelis, or
of Jews, in The Israel Lobby."

"If you scratch any
democracy, you will find flaws.   We live in a country that is flawed
by a history of genocide toward indigenous peoples, slavery, institutionalized
racial discrimination, racism in public speech as well as attitudes, and
pervasive gender discrimination.  Discussions are now occurring in Washington about the use of torture, arguably in violation of the U.S. military
code of conduct as well as of international law.  These flaws do not
disqualify us from criticizing others, but they make it very problematic to
impose too demanding standards or to be highly moralistic. I regard the moral
arguments in chapter 3 as making some valid points, but overall to lack the
sense of balance, and ethical modesty, that one might expect from Realist
scholars."

The first excerpt is wonderful and reasonable and fair. Keohane’s second point is cloddish and insensitive. The 40-year occupation is a mere "scratch" on Israel’s democracy? But something like 40 percent of the population of historical Palestine has lesser rights than the majority. And thousands of them are in prison, and their children are denied all opportunity, and a huge wall snakes through their olive groves! Keohane implores the realists to be realistic about this. Were the Freedom Riders realistic about desegregation in the 60s? This is the moral blot on the U.S. that is before our eyes. The great thing about The Israel Lobby is that it is not a realists’ work, it is a moral work.

About Philip Weiss

Philip Weiss is Founder and Co-Editor of Mondoweiss.net.
Posted in US Policy in the Middle East, US Politics

{ 17 comments... read them below or add one }

  1. trouvere says:
    December 12, 2007 at 2:28 pm

    Why is it it necessary to have a "balancing" spokesman present when two professors speak at a university?

  2. Klaus Bloemker, Frankfurt, Germany says:
    December 12, 2007 at 5:27 pm

    _________________
    Being anti-German during the Third Reich
    _________________

    It would have been legitimate to be anti-German during Nazi-times on the following assuption: Since the Nazis defined 'Germanness', 'being German' as belonging to an inherently superior Aryan Volk by descent and excluded most others from the cultural life, politics etc. of that Volk on the basis of their non-German descent – and if this were the political-social credo of the majority, then of course there were good reasons to be anti-German ON PRINCIPLE.

    If a certain people A has a particular concept of self-definition and act according to that concept. And if you disapprove of that concept – then you are anti-A on principle.

    This was the case with anti-Soviet/communism and this is the case with legitimate anti-Zionism and also anti-Semitism.

    Mearsheimer and Walt are just avoiding the question whether the deplorable mainstream Israeli policies are rooted in the deplorable concept of Jewishness/Judaism.

  3. Take America Back from the Israel Firsters says:
    December 12, 2007 at 6:06 pm

    Must read article by James Petras:

    ISRAEL AND TOP ZIONIST LEADERS ATTACK INTELLIGENCE

    link to tinyurl.com

    http://NEOCONZIONISTTHREAT.BLOGSPOT.COM

  4. Take America Back from the Israel Firsters says:
    December 12, 2007 at 8:46 pm

    The Israel Lobby and the War Party:

    http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=12042

  5. Realist says:
    December 12, 2007 at 11:27 pm

    Why did we go to Iraq?

    http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/2007/12/12/oilmap.jpg

  6. Realist says:
    December 12, 2007 at 11:30 pm

    In case this comment didn't submit successfully, it's hard to ignore the following map when discerning why we are in Iraq.

    http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/2007/12/12/oilmap.jpg

  7. Take America Back from the Israel First Crowd says:
    December 13, 2007 at 5:53 am

    Obama caves to pressure from Israel firsters over Mearsheimer/Walt book

    link to itszone.co.uk

  8. Larry K says:
    December 13, 2007 at 8:10 am

    Only Israel benefits from these endless Middle East wars. Iraq is the beginning. As we commit war-crimes in Baghdad, the US gov't commits treason at home by opening mail, eliminating habeas corpus, using the judiciary to steal private lands, banning books like "America Deceived" from Amazon and Wikipedia, conducting warrantless wiretaps and engaging in illegal wars on behalf of AIPAC's 'money-men'. Soon, another US false-flag operation will occur (sinking of an Aircraft Carrier by Mossad) and the US will invade Iran.. Then we'll invade Syria, then Saudi Arabia, then Lebanon (again) then ….
    Final link (before Google Books bends to gov't demands and censors the title):
    link to iuniverse.com

  9. Dan says:
    December 13, 2007 at 4:31 pm

    Anti-Semitic ? Is this being anti Arabs as well ?
    History shows that both Arabs and Jews have the same ancestry within the Semitic tribes ( remember a year or so ago when the DNA findings regarding this historical fact were muzzled by Zionists ? ) .

    Hence , when I hear one referring to a critic of Israel as an anti-Semitic , I laugh and realize how “educated” that individual really is ( in other words that may be a Zionist/Jew by adoption/culture , not by blood lines ) . Tell this to others please and when some one calls you anti-Semitic tells them you have nothing against Arabs , and let them wonder 

  10. Dan says:
    December 13, 2007 at 4:32 pm

    Anti-Semitic ? Is this being anti Arabs as well ?
    History shows that both Arabs and Jews have the same ancestry within the Semitic tribes ( remember a year or so ago when the DNA findings regarding this historical fact were muzzled by Zionists ? ) .

    Hence , when I hear one referring to a critic of Israel as an anti-Semitic , I laugh and realize how “educated” that individual really is ( in other words that may be a Zionist/Jew by adoption/culture , not by blood lines ) . Tell this to others please and when some one calls you anti-Semitic tells them you have nothing against Arabs , and let them wonder 

  11. chris says:
    December 13, 2007 at 5:56 pm

    My favorite one goes like this:

    "Do you think Fascism in Italy was bad?"

    "yes."

    "Why are you anti-catholic?"

    The author of this post misses the point that the anti-semite paint brush doesn't depict one as anti-Israel, but as religiously intollerant, "just like the Nazis".

    This is why the ADL and AIPAC were fighting AGAINST calling the Armenian death in WW1 a genoicide, because then the anti-semite attack may slip away from the Nazi connotation.

    Please, fight this virulent spew when you hear it. It's endemic and destructive. Societies built on lies or dirty tricks will not sustain themselves. It doesn't work like that.

  12. Sam says:
    December 13, 2007 at 9:44 pm

    If only the United States of american followed it's own first Amendments meaning, "Congress shall make NO LAW RESPECTING an establishment of religion,,,"

    And this is the only way the entire planet can live together without the attempted slaughter of those that 'are different' than yourself.

    A law that gives a tax break/advantage over another equal type group/person based solely on the self proclaimed religiousness of thee,,, is a violation of that provision of the Bill of Rights.

    Hate bill? Why, to protect those with undefendable ideals in their myths? Screw them. If their religion is so good and strong, it could survive any oppossion in words to it.

    Free speech, or slavery, you decide.

  13. jukamaki says:
    December 14, 2007 at 4:15 am

    Sorry mate but the only good thing about Hitler is that he said that the Jews main problem was their "Big Lie" and goddang it to heck if the kook wasn't right on that one. Well he was also smart enough to use the USA Ford and GM Opel car companies to build his Panzer and Tiger tanks! Smart guy eh!

    So this is relavent to the lie that we are anti-semitic for saying we don't like Israel jumping up and down on the heads of the Palestinians.

    Now Profesor, I have a response that is sort of an amendment to your statment of misuse of category. I propose to side with the jews point of view and use the racism finger pointing in reverse. After all the Tora says the Jews are the master race and we gentiles are refered to by Jews in normal Hebrew chatter as "goyim" which means "cattle" in English. So the "Big Lie" applies here when Jews tell you they want equal rights for you and me and them to live harmonyously together. The only equal rights that they believe in is unequal by definition that they get to sit on the top of the hill on the uneven playing field of life!

  14. jukamaki says:
    December 14, 2007 at 4:16 am

    Sorry mate but the only good thing about Hitler is that he said that the Jews main problem was their "Big Lie" and goddang it to heck if the kook wasn't right on that one. Well he was also smart enough to use the USA Ford and GM Opel car companies to build his Panzer and Tiger tanks! Smart guy eh!

    So this is relavent to the lie that we are anti-semitic for saying we don't like Israel jumping up and down on the heads of the Palestinians.

    Now Profesor, I have a response that is sort of an amendment to your statment of misuse of category. I propose to side with the jews point of view and use the racism finger pointing in reverse. After all the Tora says the Jews are the master race and we gentiles are refered to by Jews in normal Hebrew chatter as "goyim" which means "cattle" in English. So the "Big Lie" applies here when Jews tell you they want equal rights for you and me and them to live harmonyously together. The only equal rights that they believe in is unequal by definition that they get to sit on the top of the hill on the uneven playing field of life!

  15. NOMOREWAR_FORISRAEL says:
    December 14, 2007 at 10:20 am

    Be sure to check out the comments section of the following blog entry by Phil Weiss:

    Jewish Chauvinism in Feith's, and Friedman's, Back Pages

    http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2007/12/jewish-chauvini.html

    What is incredible that that Phil's piece (for 'The Nation') is the only one that shows up when one does a search for 'Mearsheimer' at www.cbsnews.com:

    Ferment over the 'Israel Lobby':

    link to cbsnews.com

  16. NOMOREWAR_FORISRAEL says:
    December 14, 2007 at 4:59 pm

    Letters to the Editor of the Daily Princestonian by Mearsheimer/Walt & retired CIA analyst Bill Christison

    http://tinyurl.com/2jekk2

  17. nmd7 says:
    December 14, 2007 at 7:42 pm

    The answer to the question: what is a Jew? is of supreme relevance.

    If Jews are those who opt into, or opt to remain in a community united only by a peculiarly and virulently racist philosophy-made-religion, I see no alternative to defining myself as someone who hates Jews because they are Jews.

    Let's say the members of the Nazi party circa 1945 formed a somewhat coherent society, and over the next few thousand years they maintained ingroup coherence and through religious doctrine sanctioned their hatred for Jews and general racial supremacism. They celebrate genocides and pogroms in their religious services, and demand the right to an ethnic-homeland that they deny to all other peoples, but especially Jews.

    Wouldn't Jews, and the rest of the world justifiably hate the committed Nazis of 5007 simply for being Nazis?

    (Read the Torah (Old. T), or Talmud, if you need to find hate and supremacism that outstrips Hitler's, I am possibly being unfair to Nazis).

    http://www.come-and-hear.com/

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