The leftwing group Gush Shalom hosted Walt and Mearsheimer in Israel. Here's its coverage of the 48-hour trip. W&M saw the wall, are now in Dubai.
Another worry that proved groundless was that the visit would be killed by silence, as happened to the visit of former President Jimmy Carter. On the contrary, they were overwhelmed with requests from the media, both Israeli and foreign, for interviews. Since the visit lasted for less than 48 hours, it was impossible to grant all the requests.
During the entire visit, there was not a single negative incident. The professors expressed their satisfaction with the fact that the Israeli public was ready to listen and discuss, while such a debate is impossible in the United States....
They were seen to be warm, open and modest, eager for debate and without a trace of fanaticism or hostility, extremely well informed about Israeli affairs.
Three cheers for the Israelis. Some elements of their democracy are beautiful. And compare it to the U.S. Can you think of a Jewish venue to which Walt and Mearsheimer have been invited since their book came out 9 months ago? I can't think of one. Has the Forward deigned to interview them? I know they were disinvited by at least one place because of out of what was surely deference to the Jewish community--the Chicago Global Affairs Council--and of course they were slagged at Yivo, without a chance to respond. When is the American Jewish community going to see Israel as even Israel sometimes sees Israel?
There's nothing better than open discussion!
and why not? open debate is good, better, best.
check mate.
is there any other way?
I suspect if any major organization tried to give Walt/Mearsheimer a stage, Alan Dershowitz would succeed in having the host defunded for promoting hate crimes and perhaps even criminally charged as well. There would always be some judge who would agree that crimes were committed. And Walt and Mearrsheimer would end up in the dock, as so often happens in Europe and Canada. Israel apparently is a lot less hysterical than diaspora lands. I think if Phil Weiss were to travel to Canada, where his blog is read, he could be charged with a crime as well, as happened to Mark Steyn, writing in Maclean's.
thank God for the Constitution, at least whats left of it.
deconstructionism is a dichotomy, an oxymoron with oxymorons leading the charge.
oxymoron: : a combination of contradictory or incongruous words (as cruel kindness); broadly : something (as a concept) that is made up of contradictory or incongruous elements
.
"The professors expressed their satisfaction with the fact that the Israeli public was ready to listen and discuss, while such a debate is impossible in the United States…."
NO COMMENT NECESSARY. Res ipsa loquitur.
Walt and Measheimer are silenced in the U.S. because too much is riding on open debate. I doubt that open debate could change much in Israel since most Israelis know the situation through participation.
But in fact Israeli politics is permanently driven by majority bigotry towards the Palestinian arabs, settlements and so on, including 'compromise' peace offers based on keeping settlements and Jewish colonial chauvinism more generally. Israel has an element of free speech and lively discourse, but the policies it always pursues are the reason why the Israel lobby in the US needs to try to stifle discourse over here.
Or — what Todd said.
Sad actually. This very openness means that the Israelis are well informed about what is happening in the occupied territories. It also means that they accept it. The West bank settlement expansion has popular support. The US would never go along if we really knew what was going on. Hence it is only necessary to stifle debate here to keep the settlement movement going.
The proof is in the pie.
People who post here do not know or understand foreign nations, foreigners, and anybody living 1 mile from their doorsteps.
Phil and his people are wild speculators, and far from understanding Israelis, Palestinians or anybody.
Then it would be nice if foreign people and problems were kept away from my doorstep. How's that?
As Kevin Macdonald said in his review of W&M:
"The fact that there is more even-handedness in Israel can be reasonably attributed to the lack of danger that open discussions would influence non-Jews who, after all, are the ones who need constant pro-Israel propaganda in the first place. This can be seen as just another example of the dictum noted above by Mearsheimer and Walt: It is okay for Jews to criticize Israel among themselves but inappropriate to do it in the presence of non-Jews."
Avi – I believe it was Hannah Arendt who spoke of being chastized over focusing on Roma deaths in the Holocaust. She was speaking at a Jewish senior center to a mixed crowd and purportedly a Jewish woman told her afterwards, "not in front of the goyim."
It is clear that many are on board with the notion of controlling the narrative.
Simply put, peace is a non-starter for American Jews for whom an Israel at war is and has been the entre to corridors of power and influence, and have placed them at the the top of the american political ziggurat. I suggest, that there is a concerted effort by an American Jewish propaganda machine that is hell bent on depicting the State of Israel as one settler-loving, palestinian-hating, monolith. Given whats in the balance, this is understandable. An Israel that is at peace with it's neighbors, an Israel that is reconciled to the reality of a two-state solution, an Israel that is committed to social justice for all of its citizens, an Israel not torn apart by social dysfunction, is simply not in the interests of American Jews, either from the left or the right side of the political spectrum. Without an Israel on a perpetual war-footing, without an Israel as a supplicant client state, without an Israel that is willing to subordinate its own interests to that of the United States, without the perception that it is necessary for American Jews to intercede with the American government on Israel's behalf, (American Jews become a political non-entity (much as they were prior to June 1967), with the attendant loss of power and influence that would entail. In short, American Jewish support has nothing to do with Israel's welfare, it has to do with its own.