Walt and Mearsheimer’s book is embroiled in a power struggle. They were trying to be scholars. But their work is being dismissed because it has political consequences; it empowers Israel’s critics here. In an interview published in Haaretz today, macher (Yiddish for powerful guy) Marty Peretz talks about the book in several different keys:
"The book was not a success in the U.S." he says. "The publisher has lost a lot of money, so it’s a do-not-go-here sign for others."
Whew, the lobby still works!
People like Walt and Mearsheimer are "facing a stone wall, which is the fact that the American people like Israel and identify with it," he says. That support has little to do with the Israel lobby. "We have petitions upon petitions from centuries ago by Americans who wanted a Jewish homeland in Palestine…"
AIPAC and Dershowitz can fold their tents. They’re purely superfluous.
Peretz concedes the Walt and Mearsheimer study might have had some profound effects. "It is possible that in some unconscious way, the report set the scene for the National Intelligence [Estimate]," he says, referring to the December report that concluded Iran had dropped its program for developing nuclear weapons – a conclusion the Israeli defense establishment reportedly considers erroneous.
So maybe the lobby isn’t working?
Walt and Mearsheimer’s target audience includes liberal American Jews, Peretz says. "Their study appeals to Jews who resent having to suffer the embarrassment of being connected to Israel," he says.
Ah, self-hatred. And he’s right that I resent the connection. But it’s not embarrassment. It’s being implicated in human rights abuses.
{ 15 comments }
"They were trying to be scholars. "
That is an embellishment. They were trying to argue for a policy change on the part of the US government, and used partisan invective and generalization to make the argument.
They adopted an intentionally and opportunistically contreversial title that fostered a culture of malevolent stereotypes among the majority of commentators that never read a word of it.
What do you read Phil?
Have you read any Israeli/Palestinian histories that you found particularly informative and insightful?
One VALID criticism of Walt/Mearsheimer is that their knowledge of history, even recent, of the region was negligent.
Maybe that is relevant to the very limited scope of relationship between the US and Israel that they were commenting on, but it does NOT add up to a principled complete basis of analysis.
The relationship between the US and Israel is more comprehensive than security, or geo-political strategy.
What specific changes in Israeli policy and practise, do you think would result in a qualitative change for the better?
What conditions would be necessary for those changes to be feasible?
To make those changes, do you think they will occur primarily from Israeli/Jewish initiated study and reflection, or by things like boycott?
"What specific changes in Israeli policy and practise, do you think would result in a qualitative change for the better?"
Get the hell out of the occupied territories.
"What conditions would be necessary for those changes to be feasible?"
Israel already has them; nukes and the lone superpower support, both economically and by arming.
Chicken and egg? Israel is the interloper in the region, not the natives. What did the native Indian have to do with the Puritan reason for coming to America? The least they can do is start out honest now–
Richard: If only "Israeli/Jewish initiated study and reflection" will solve the problems and bring about the necessary changes, then why is the problem not solved by now?
Could you imagine that both W/M's book and paper was triggered by a concern? A concern that the same forces who already had pushed the US into the war against Iraq, were beating the war drums again [e.g. Mr. Faster Please,Ledeen]for the next war against he the next "shitty little country"? [Syria, Iran ...]
Do you think the US should fight many wars against many ME countries to defend its interests there?
And last but not least: What are your favorite authors on the ME conflict?
Most recently Baruch Zimmerling, an Israeli activist historian, one of the New Historians.
I also like the thesis of Benny Morris' Righteous Victims.
I think boycott and other externally forced "solutions" will do the OPPOSSITE of reconciliation. They will inflame, as boycotts are a form of collective punishment.
They are not gentle and also do not force a distinction between those that are unconditionally opposed to Jewish self-governance in Israel/Palestine, and those that are conditionally motivated.
The concept of interloper is an odd one to me. In a democracy, immigrants are accepted. They are known to immigrate for good reasons, even if they are not the "original" population.
While it is reasonable to say that the Palestinian people were there first, they experienced a great deal of migration in same century that Zionism emerged, and independantly from Zionism.
Big changes were happening in the world from the early 20th century to the present.
1. Ottoman Turkey imposed a land titling requirement on all land, that theoretically displace ALL fellahin.
2. WW1 and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire
3. Sykes-Picot and the European post-war imperialism
4. Appearance of the global marketplace, creating an international market for Palestinian agricultural products in particular, that changed land use for larger commercial farms, and changed the agricultural economy of the region.
5. Large global scale population increases, including in Palestine, resulting in forced relocations of MANY, including Jews.
It is quaint to say "what did the Palestinians do to deserve what occurred?"
They didn't.
But, its cruelly unrealistic to blame ANY other people for the social change of the 20th century, including those forced to migrate. Anyone that migrates must migrate somewhere. And there is always an indigenous (or those that claim to be).
"this is among us Jews"
————————–
In yesterday's International Herald Tribune (also in the NYT) there was an op-ed column by Roger Cohen critizising the attacks on Obama:
'He is not pro-Israel enough. He is a covert Islamist: his middle name is "Hussein". He attended a Muslim school in Indonesia. He has former Jimmy Carter adviser Brzezinski (who is cool on Israel) on his foreign policy team etc.'- All this emerging from the 'concerned' Jewish American-Israeli lobby.
The column's last sentence was:"Backing Israel is not enough if the backing gives carte blanche for the subjugation of another people."
__________
On Roger Cohen's blog http://www.iht.com/passages there was a comment by a guy named Richard Weissfeld from Encino,Cal who said to Roger:
"First of all, keep out of this goyum, this is among us Jews."
To which someone by the name of Cynthia responded:
"With respect to the gentleman who wants the “goyum” to stay out of it: as long as this is seen as a U.S. foreign policy issue and taxpayers´ money is being spent on this issue, then it is indeed an issue for us goyim. You live in the U.S. sir, and not in Isreal."
Argument with Witty is simply pointless.
He believes that Jews have the right to plunder and kill non-Jews with impunity.
We should really be talking about what the Israel Lobby really is and how much harm it is doing to the USA.
For this reason I wrote "The Israel Lobby and American Society" ( http://members.aol.com/ThorsProvoni/C__Judonia1.pdf ) and ignored the question of Palestine except for the initial introduction.
"But, its cruelly unrealistic to blame ANY other people for the social change of the 20th century, including those forced to migrate. Anyone that migrates must migrate somewhere. And there is always an indigenous (or those that claim to be)."
It was never about migration.
Witty is just trying to baffle us with bullshit.
Arab nationalists met with Ben-Gurion and other Zionist leaders shortly after Hitler took power and were completely baffled that he was unwilling to trade the goal of making Palestine a Jewish state for open immigration of Jews throughout the Arab world (destinations proposed were Egypt, Syria and Iraq).
Shakib Arslan believed that Ben-Gurion was insane. He never conceived that Ben-Gurion saw the persecution of Jews by German Nazis as something that would so increase sympathy for Jews that no one would challenge a theft of Palestine from the native population.
http://www.google.de/books?q=Baruch+Zimmerling&btnG=Nach+B%C3%BCchern+suchen
That's the only place were I can find anything about blessed Zimmerling.
Zero: http://www.google.de/search?hl=de&q=%22Baruch+*+Zimmerling%22&btnG=Suche&meta=
But since I just finished all of Avi Shlaim, I could lay my hands on, I may as well read Morris.
But what do you think: Should Iran be nuked? So they have no chance to even threaten to nuke anybody ever?
I am gone for a week.
An indigenous people returns – and has the 'right of return' to the land of its origin.
_________
In Witty's logic and moral universe we should all have a 'right of return' to Tansania/South East Africa – that's where we all come from; black, white, Jews, Kurds or Swedes.
__________
But wait, Jewish logic and ethics cannot be universalized – trying to do so is like trying to square a circle. Phil Weiss tries once in a while to universalize Judaism. But it's a Sisyphus work: the stone you are rolling uphill always rolls down again.
Kimmerling is meant not Zimmerling.
"But wait, Jewish logic and ethics cannot be universalized – trying to do so is like trying to square a circle. Phil Weiss tries once in a while to universalize Judaism. But it's a Sisyphus work: the stone you are rolling uphill always rolls down again."
Judaism is more of a process than of a well-defined set of beliefs and practices.
For the most part 19th century German Judaism genuinely strove to be a universalizing religion from the most Orthodox to the most radical Reform.
It was the Judaism that fit German culture of the time period.
Today American Judaism consists of ethnic narcissism, Holocaust fixation, and worship of the State of Israel. It is the Judaism that results from more than two generations of the self-indoctrination associated with Israel lobbying and advocacy.
Richard:
If you really believe that "In a democracy, immigrants are accepted. They are known to immigrate for good reasons . . ." how then do you argue against the Palestinian Right of Return?
I was saving a banana for breakfast tommorrow, but now it's disappeared. Damn you, Walt & Mearsheimer–is there NO limit to your insidious conspiracy?
In 1930, Zionism was a utopian experiment, an ideology, a hope.
Rational, given the breadth, length, intensity of European persecution.
Following WW2 and the post-WW2 continued persecutions, Zionism was a need.
A need you fight for.
The only big shift that I see currently, is that to my mind Israel has enough. There is no longer a need to expand, or at least the ethical concerns now outweigh the intensity of need.
But, there is a need to continue as a self-governing Jewish state.
And, it is inevitably and rationally an intimate with the US, and it is inevitably and rationally supportable by the US, including aid and exchange and in MANY forms, including defense.
Even if the scale and limitations of defense and strategic relationship changes, the existential relationships remain which are permanent.
To be a friend means to stand with one's friend. And, Israel IS a friend.
While Walt/Mearsheimer may acknowledge that permanent relationship, those that read only titles to books, or opportunistically seek sanction for militancy, don't.
Walt/Mearsheimer are far more disserved by their publisher (for the idiotically contreversial title) and by their proponents (for the idiotic "my country right or wrong" refusal to criticize).
Yes, let's make the world safe for democracy:
Foreign Office, November 2nd,1917
Dear Lord Rothschild,
I have much pleasure in conveying to you on behalf of His Majesty's Government the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations, which has been submitted to and approved by the Cabinet:
"His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."
I should be grateful if you would bring this Declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.
Yours sincerely,
Arthur James Balfour.
Comments on this entry are closed.