Promoting his new book about the neverending peace process, Aaron David Miller writes in the L.A. Times today that Jimmy Carter wrote a "bad book" about Israel/Palestine, and Walt and Mearsheimer wrote a "bad book" about the Israel lobby. The language is vicious. Just what is "bad" about these books? Should a writer be allowed–in polite society, or respectable journalism anyway–to dismiss serious books with such derisive language and offer no argument for the claim? I don’t think so. It’s a lot like Jacob Heilbrunn, in his book They Knew They Were Right, saying that Walt and Mearsheimer wrote an "addled essay" in the LRB, without any evidence/facts/analyses marshalled to support the swipe. It feels prejudicial.
These writers (and their editors, too, apparently) feel a need to do this because they need to cover their left flank. Miller’s website actually includes powerful evidence that there is an Israel lobby. But he needs to seem acceptable to the mainstream so he makes it a point to marginalize Walt and Mearsheimer. Heilbrunn’s book includes a compelling argument that Israel has always come first for the neocons, from Podhoretz to Peretz to Feith, from the Six Day War to the liberation of Baghdad. But Heilbrunn is afraid that he will get lumped with Walt and Mearsheimer, so he has to urinate on them.
When I say prejudicial, I believe there’s a color line on this issue. Miller and Heilbrunn are Jewish, so they’re allowed to criticize Israel. Do gentiles get to criticize Israel? Or are they always "bad" when they do it? Look what happened to Fukuyama. If I’m wrong, please give me some names.
