Someone in the audience asks about people's careers being "truncated" for talking about the Israel lobby, and asks whether the fact that he was "closer to the end than the beginning of his career" and had tenure played a part in his deciding to write the book. Mearsheimer grins and says, "This is a great question, I honestly love the question."
A great question deserves a great answer. So here we go.
Mearsheimer says of course tenure was important to him. He was not nearly as brave as Norman Finkelstein, "a very fine man" who did his work without having tenure. "The fact that he didn't get tenure is a tragedy." And now Finkelstein is jobless in New York: "a disgraceful situation… Norman would have been much smarter to have waited till he had tenure."
The Atlantic magazine called Mearsheimer in October 2002. "They'd gotten wind I was doing something on the lobby." They wanted an article on the subject, "The Israel lobby and U.S. foreign policy," which was the title of the eventual article in the LRB, where the piece ran after the Atlantic killed it, and of the book. The Atlantic was calling Mearsheimer because he had "an impeccable, established reputation," a frequent contributor to the Times Op-Ed page, and was a chaired prof at the University of Chicago.
"I said to them, I won't do it alone… I have to ask Steve Walt if he's willing to do it with me." Walt was his realist "buddy." They'd talked about the lobby a lot. And Walt was getting ready to unload on the lobby in a judicious manner in Taming American Power, a 2005 book that you will see was excerpted in Foreign Affairs.
Walt was then 47, a Harvard dean, and as I have always said here, a polished courtly man, tall, goodlooking, and very comfortable in a Jewish milieu. Stanford/Princeton; his physicist dad worked at Los Alamos. Married to a half-Jewish woman, living in Brookline hard by the birthplace of Mondoweiss, and sitting in the Belfer chair at the Kennedy School. Robert Belfer being a big Jew, big donor, associated with WINEP.
Mearsheimer was then 54, and more of an outsider, a West Point grad, an autodidact as a young man. He knew he'd be called an antisemite and knew that he needed a friend alongside to go into this. You go in alone and you end up with "psychological damage." (I know who he's talking about…) But he didn't think Walt would tumble for it.
"I was actually surprised that he did it. He was the academic dean of the Kennedy School at Harvard. Many people thought that he had the capabilities to become the university provost or university president and there was no question that if he wrote the piece, that would never happen.
"Many people also thought that he would be a National Security Adviser for someone like Barack Obama. I believe if we hadn't written the lobby article or lobby book, Steve would have been one of Barack Obama's principal advisers. He's a very smart man, he has very good judgment, he's a brilliant bureaucrat, and he would have risen far."
Before the article finally came out in the London Review of Books in mid-March 2006, Mearsheimer gave the piece to the "high command" at the University of Chicago so they wouldn't feel blindsided. Because he anticipated, correctly, that the firestorm would not be confined to the authors. The President, the Provost, the deans got the paper. And Steve Walt did the same at Harvard. The president of Harvard was then Lawrence Summers.
"Larry Summers had seen the piece before it came out, and he saw Steve a day or two later, before the piece was on the internet…And he was very supportive of Steve, very supportive. But he said to Steve, in this one conversation he had with him… 'I just don't understand why you did this.' He said, 'you could have been a high level academic administrator. You could have been National Security Adviser. And now it's all over.' And of course he was right." Mearsheimer later clarified that Walt did have a conversation with Summers but the president's comments about Walt's career prospects were made in a conversation with David Elwood, dean of the Kennedy School, who passed them along to Walt.
"And I anticipated that Steve would not be willing to do it because he would be unwilling to give those things up. Also by the way, my wife and his wife were adamantly opposed to us doing this. But anyway, he agreed to do it, and I agreed to do it, and we marched ahead."
Two comments. The first is to marvel at the considerable power of Walt and Mearsheimer's choice. The other day I said that taking on the lobby was a Jewish fight and activist Anna Baltzer was wrong to say that the battle must involve all Americans. Jeff Blankfort, another anti-Zionist Jew, agrees with Baltzer: "[S]olving this issue, if it is solvable, is a job for all Americans and leaving it to the Jews not only absolves non-Jews from their responsibilities but leaves the Palestinians ultimately at the mercy of those supporting their oppression and who strongly believe that they have a vested interest in doing so. Not a formula for success. It is worthy to note that it was not until three non-Jews, Mearsheimer, Walt and Carter wrote their books that the issue reached a higher level, since the lobby's attacks on Chomsky never rose to that level. It is when non-Jews who have no vested interest in supporting Israel pick up the cudgels that the Jewish establishment gets worried and starts freaking out. Hence, the concern when a Protestant church group starts talking about sanctions… It is our job to encourage all Americans to speak out."
Also: Steve Walt has said that he has no regrets.
Related posts:
- Stephen Walt Responds to the Washington Post’s Nazi Smear
- Legendary ‘NY Review’ Hasn’t Gotten Around to Walt & Mearsheimer, Now Out for a Year
- Yivo Owes Walt and Mearsheimer an Apology. Or a Stage
- Stephen Walt on the Lobby, and Occupation
- Dershowitz used to say that Walt is an antisemite. Now he doesn’t. Why?
{ 37 comments }
A profile in courage. Very inspiring. Phil, how can the single most important issue in American foreign policy and news media be an issue for the Jews to work out among themselves?
You want them to be cause celebre's.
Its silly. Larry Summers comments about Walt's shift in status from universally acceptable to not quite, is probably accurate.
That is a DIFFERENT beast than what happened. The LRB article was polemic. The verbal defense of it by Mearsheimer was polemic. When a thesis that includes elements of "Jewish conspiracy" includes public verbal and written rants, it FAILS to remain in the mainstream, unless the mainstream selectively condemns freedom of speech for Jews.
Similarly for Finkelstein. HE failed. He didn't need to adopt even a passively aggressive tone in writing, in editorial selection, and in interview. But, he did.
Finkelstein could get work. It just won't be in the field that he would like.
We have Walt and Mearsheimer–and then we have Witty and SOG…
And most all of Congress, the MSM, the influential thinktanks,
and the two presidential finalists.
And…Phil. and a handful of posters on this blog.
The transparent cabal is in power, whether its on foreign power,
or the bailout–nothing but a Ponzi scheme there too–check out the comparison of our klepto-government with what the Europeans have done…
Monetary and fiscal policy, or foreign policy–Americans are getting the shaft–and loving it.
Richard:
Everyone fails. I fail. Norman F. fails. Walt and Mearsheimer fail. Jimmy Carter fails.
We have all made a horrible mistake in our rhetoric or our decorum or our manner of speaking. So it is legitimate that we are shunned. We have to work on our manners.
I just dont understand this line of argument. So WHAT if it is polemical, which it may or may not be. Free speech includes polemics.
You say Polemical as if that's screaming fire in a crowded theater. And that is simply untrue. Phil
Dear anon:
can you flesh out for me the differences in approcach between the Euro Central Bank etc and what ex Golden Sachs rep Paulsen doled out for Wall Street?
Thanks
"When a thesis that includes elements of "Jewish conspiracy" includes public verbal and written rants"
This is "FIRE" in a movie theatre.
Your dismissal of criticism of him or yourself as "manners" is a bit odd.
Its an undisciplined approach, played over open fumes.
This is neither Vietnam nor South Africa.
As a major external source of tension that made Summers' continued tenure as Harvard President impossible, I have to note that Summers was so close to Ruth Wisse and friends at the time Walt & Mearsheimer published their thesis that my mind is boggled by the idea that he was honestly supportive of their efforts.
In any case, the economy and finance industry are in such turmoil that I doubt anything is sure.
the problem i have found is that non-jews are so conditioned to avoid anti-semitism that they shun any hint of the truth about aipac and israel. the topic is treated as if you are suggesting hitler was a good and great man and history got it wrong. it's deep, and it's automatic. that is why i say jews have to get out in front. take the lead. unwind this thing that is killing us.
John, please go to Counterpunch website to see what the difference is as between the USA government's policy is, as compared with the European policy.
Richard Witty complains about polemics practiced by WM. Phil retorts that polemics is kind of what one does when making an argument – any argument – unless one is blessed (cursed?) with perfection of manners (if I understand correctly). This presupposes that the only anti-dote to the all-too-human tendency to slide through polemical extortions is to develop impeccable manners.
Putting aside for a second Phil's retort, this may be a good place to remind Witty et al that the Jewish bible (Tanach) is the ultimate example of polemics taken to the max. After all, is not polemics the very essence of the Torah? God, it seems, was quite given to polemics, no doubt in last-ditch attempts to persuade his wayward, contrary flock of the desirability of adhering to the right path (this path including – though not limited to – devotion to steadfast worship of the self-same God). As proof to the desirability of following-in-the-path God offers the past: a-la things were good when you were good – and vice versa…. In other words, anecdotal evidence, supported by much argumentation. Not unlike any book ever written in any of the 'softer' sciences (including the softest of them all, economics..)
Clearly perfection of manners (cf if you have nothing good to say, be quiet) was not one of the great virtues the Jews of old were instructed in. neither did God appear too successful in getting his people to follow the path of righteousness for any length of time, despite offering some of the best divinely inspired polemics of all time.
From this we learn that:
1. Polemics may be necessary if rarely sufficient in convincing the stubborn.
2. Jews had a longer experience in polemics than most – no wonder they are sensitized to the practice (and just what was the talmud exactly if not a polemic epic?). So they became quite adept at both diagnosing it and repudiating it in others while continuing to practice such themselves – with great relish (and here I'd like to offer Dershowitcz as exhibit #1)
3. All argumentation/instruction/persuasion involves polemics (remember your elementary school teachers?) so singling out W&M for dire accusations of engaging in this much maligned practice is a touch disingenuous. In fact the argument that polemics was part of the their work is, by itself, polemical.
4. If great manners alone were sufficient – and necessary – to cure the disease of polemics (assuming that's what it is, the jury still being out) all we'd have to look forward to is for the righteous to become as dull as the English
And yes, I know – this entire comment is pure polemics. Enjoy…
Except of course that W/M do not speak of a "Jewish conspiracy". And you need to add it to the context to be able to scream: Fire!
Ditto Peters. For nonJewish academics, going public on this issue is to be branded an antisemite. This will damage, or at the very least, change the trajectory of ones career. With people like Phil and MJ Rosenberg taking a lead on this today will make it possible for us to give them public support.
I was publicly called an antisemite for suggesting that 911 was blowback for our unilateral support of Israel.
I appreciated dana's comment, although I usually use the term "public relations" rather than polemics. The essence of both lies in treating your audience as an instrument — something to be manipulated — rather than an end in himself.
It's like the difference between "The truth shall set you free," and "By deception shalt thou wage war."
I don't use the term "polemic" to be equivalent to the word argument.
Polemic is an argument that is an assault.
Its an assault of a "we". The article was an assault on Zionists and Zionism, with no pretense of anything approaching complete research into history or even present institutional relationships.
The book was an improvement. But the article was the first impression, and it made a very strong one, a negative one.
That Finkelstein, Mearsheimer, and Phil respond to requests to respect their audience (including their family) with insult ("manners"), is a bad sign.
Its played out here, in the assaults on liberals for not being "pure" in their denunciations. For actually loving Israel, while we only want to be fair and kind to Palestine (whom are only our neighbors, and not also our family).
Witty whines of polemics while polemically putting quotes around "Jewish conspiracy" as if those words actually came out of Mearsheimer's mouth. Typical left-liberal racist-accusation demagoguery tactic.
"But the article was the first impression, and it made a very strong one, a negative one."
I've read both and don't consider either "polemical." In fact I was disappointed at so many clear attempts not to ruffle feathers.
Since you now appear to have gotten around to reading the book, you should post some examples from it, so people can judge the parts that offended you.
(You HAVE read the book by now, right Richard? Tell the truth.)
I was at the talk Prof Mearsheimer gave. He was awesome. If anyone thinks he is anti-Israel or anti-semitic, he/she just has to hear him. He spoke with passion about what our country SHOULD do if we were REAL friends of Israel.
Over the weekend, I also had the opportunity to hear a young, brilliant lawyer, Neal Kumar Katyal ( again a professor, but of law ) who took Pres Bush to court on behalf of Gitmo detainee Hamdan and won his case in supreme court.
We should be proud of Americans like Prof Walt and Prof Katyal who, at personal risk ( career, reputation and physical safety in case of Prof Katyal)took on the establishment and stood up for what is right. There is still hope left for our country ( and the world ) because of individuals like them.
"Everyone fails. I fail. Norman F. fails. Walt and Mearsheimer fail. Jimmy Carter fails.
We have all made a horrible mistake in our rhetoric or our decorum or our manner of speaking. So it is legitimate that we are shunned. We have to work on our manners."
Witty brings two reliable elements to this conversation: dogmatic nationalism, and die-hard victim-hood. Any contradiction of those values is taken as a grave, grave offense to all of jewkind.
If you are honest, compassionate, funny, self-effacing when necessary, you can just let Witty be the thought-crime victim and zionist advocate he so badly needs to be.
Trying to dialog with someone so invested in zionist myth for his very sense of values and identity, in the most closed-hearted and closed-minded way, is like trying to remove a huge sand dune with a bulldozer. The dune won't go away, just change shape a little.
That's why I maintain that the most adequate response to bad-faith zionist bullshit is pure, preferably hilarious, ridicule.
Richard W surely you must know on some level you are being ridiculous.
Mearsheimer points out that the Lobby – as legitimate as most of it's many and varied arms may be – has grown so powerful that it can, where Israel's interests are concerned, control US foreign policy utterly – as in completely!!
This is pretty much his only beef.
He believes in Israels right to exist and that it was generally a smart move for a persecuted people to do whatever it took to get their own state.
The “Jewish Conspiracy” in his book is your add-on.
Phil:
What Witty can't stand is ruthlessly honest criticism that calls a spade apartheid, so to speak.
How many unconverted were convinced by Walt/Mearsheimer, compared to how many were offended?
Most thoughtful people experienced a little of both.
Those that ONLY ascribe praise (like Phil) betray their thoughtfulness by not even acknowledging flaws in their argument and presentation, and not acknowledging those flaws as relevant.
The presence of AIPAC was not unknown, obviously, so their thesis as revelation was redundant. They implied (and the gullible ate it up) that the Israel Lobby was a monolith, even as they described the very very vast majority of efforts (by multiple people with very varying goals and perspectives) as not monolithic, and legal, and even laudable.
If Mearsheimer is advocating for a fair and mutually safe two-state solution, then we are allies as to goal.
But, to ignore how Jews would rationally be offended by the thesis, is really amateurish, a propaganda strategy, rather than an informing one.
We ALL have "no clothes".
"A vast sand dune" is good, but I prefer to think of him as the Tar Baby.
He, he, who cares what Summers says?! American economy has shrunk enormously. What will you do with the surplus of overeducated jews whose main ability was to manage (badly) excess money and produce useless unknowledge? Put them to do some work in the mines? Even to create wars for israel you don't need so many jews (as you probably have already noticed.) So, who cares? America has no need for the summerses of the world, but for the walts and mearsheimers, who are real top notch (that is they don't depend on the judaic network for their academic production to be recognized, contrary of 99% of jewish "intelectuals" in social sciences), there is plenty of work to do ahead.
Who wanna bet the jewish part of the meritocracy will either have to be cut in half (that is exported cheaply) or America will own an immensurable pool of excess brain thinking daily how to put an end to "the system"?
Who cares what the summerses and witties think? Let us see if in a few years from now those self-important imbeciles are still strutting around, farting their splendid ideas. Right now they are intellectual fat in a lagging body yearning for the speed of creativity and freedom. But they have not yet perceived it. For now.
From D:
It's like the difference between "The truth shall set you free," and "By deception shalt thou wage war."
A good one. Alas, the truth may set you free, but freedom has a cost – as Finkelstein, Walt, Mearsheimer and Phil know full too well. All too many of us may talk the talk of free (and some do it eminently well) but having the courage to pay the price is another story. So, cowards that some of us are, we take pot shots at one Richard Witty, who has kindly provided us with a foil. Should we feel guilty about engaging in feather-weight bouts, well, there is always the Sword…..
Ok, Witty, on the matter of Polemics:
From Wikipedia:
Polemics is the practice of disputing or controverting religious, philosophical, or political matters. As such, a polemic text on a topic is often written specifically to dispute or refute a position or theory that is widely viewed to be beyond reproach.
Alternatively, polemics is considered as the "art" or practice of disputation or refutation of errors in theological doctrine. As such, it does often resort to aggressive argumentation, as in "attacking" specific "opinions" or "doctrines".
By either of these definitions (one generic, one theological) W&M did not, in fact, engage in polemics, since they did not attack a theology, or a doctrine, or a dogma (as would have been the case had they chosen for example to attack the issue of lobbies in general, which are indeed, an item of faith in the American governance system – a side-effect of "anything goes" or more aptly "He who has the gold gets the goods").
What W&M did attack is the 'conspiracy of silence" that suppresses freedom of public discourse about the influence of one particular lobby. They proceeded to provide enough proof to validate their contentions about the "conspiracy of silence" along with supporting evidence for the magnitude of the influence of that one lobby, especially when it comes to affecting US's foreign policy. Their only claim to the exercise of polemics is an argument that where silence reigns, influence tends to grow unchecked. And this is not much of a polemics but more of a self-evident claim. Even so, I see little by way of an 'attack" here, but more of a straight-line conjecture. Most of their book is about validating the statistical significance of this conjecture, given the large body of data assembled.
Indeed, your only legitimate course of attack (or polemics) on the WM premise(s) is to dispute enough of the data to invalidate the evidence, or to claim that common sense should NEVER guide conjecture.
In which case, may I recommend economics as a field of endeavor? – much like-minded company there, as Wall Street shows all too clearly (and this ain't no polemical argument*).
___
* apologies for the bad grammar. But who among us, cowardly polemicists, can resist double negatives?
** on the other hand, while W&M may be exonerated vis-a-vis the practice of Polemics, I can't say the same for the Bible.
They certainly engaged in writing and in speech in the conventional use of the term polemic, which is more propaganda than argument.
They have a right to do that, as the Israel Lobby has a right to do what it does, including to counter Walt/Mearsheimer.
The criticism of Walt/Mearsheimer was in its faulty thesis, that the Israel Lobby simultaneously constituted a coherent intentional and malevolent conspiracy, and at other apologetic times didn't.
I personally felt like I was being sold a car with spikes in the seats, but harrangued for noting it.
As I said, "we ALL have no clothes".
The thesis is as read (not only as spoken) and that was largely read as the "evil" of the Jewish conspiracy, the worst of the potential interpretations.
You see it here. You see it in the idiotic accusations of liberal Zionists that simultaneously love Israel, Jewish self-governance, and Israelis (to an extent) and secondarily want to be decent and fair to Palestinians.
(Wanting to be decent to others even secondarily, is far superior ethically to "by any means necessary", or the more vicious "stick it to the Jews".)
"The presence of AIPAC was not unknown, obviously, so their thesis as revelation was redundant."
False.
Surely, Phil, this needs to be undertaken by non-jews and jews alike?
I think that non-jews also have to break free (so to speak) of the brainwashed polemics of criticizing anything Israeli and being branded 'antisemitic'. It just doesn't make sense to have them back stage and being some sort of 'supporters'.
When people can get together because of a cause without such 'labels' as jews or non-jews then that is when this whole charade of hardcore Zionism will unravel.
Dana, I enjoy your comments!
As to the anti-freedom ideas of Mr. Witty, well we have already seen how Stalin's willing executioners liquidated anyone guilty of thoughtcrimes.
Orwell knew 60 years ago what Witty and the Jewish Establishment is slouching toward. They have ordinary Americans right where they want them, incapable of expressing the obvious.
Thousands of elite Jewish citizens jump to their feet cheering and clapping for more fire and brimstone on their enemies (AIPAC dinner, Washington DC, every year). Write a book about it and you will be accused of "Jew-bashing" and "incitement of anti-semitism". Bolshevik bullshit I say.
really i dont think witty is hopeless but so what? is it worth the effort? there are millions more where he came from.
i mean read the bible. jews then were like jews now. great writers but en masse selfish pigs. though god sent his prophets they never learned shit until they were thoroughly trashed. then they were sorry. until next time.
if you'd rather not see i/p being thoroughly trashed then take it to the gentiles. the jews are captives of their collective id. the source of their genius is also the motor of their doom.
The funniest part is that Witty says W&M attacked zionism, when in fact they walked on eggshells, pooh-poohed the Nakba, acknowledged "Israel's right to exist" (no other country has this right), completely ignored the Balfour Declaration, etc etc etc, only criticizing the most egregiously manipulative aspects of organized American zionism.
But even that was too much for the perennially victimized Witty. The clown shouts FIRE! before he's even inside the theater.
"The presence of AIPAC was not unknown, obviously, so their thesis as revelation was redundant."–Witty
Sounds like this was written to console survivors of the USS Liberty.
The following declassified documents appear in the book "America's Defense Line: the Justice Department's Battle to Register the Israel Lobby as Agents of a Foreign Government" and at the Israel Lobby Archive.
Certified letter and FARA order from Assistant Attorney General Internal Security Division to the American Zionist Council Nov. 21, 1962 released under Freedom of Information Act on June 10, 2008 (PDF 217KB)
Foreign Agent Registration Act Section Memo about Isaiah Kenen visit to discuss leaving the employ of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs to conduct public relations for Israel, January 17, 1951 released under Freedom of Information Act May 13, 2008 (PDF 258KB)
Isaiah L. Kenen F1-A Foreign Agent Registration Form (pending)
American Zionist Council Internal Public Relations Plan 1962-1963 (pending)
Secret Letter from John F. Kennedy, President of the United States, to Levi Eshkol, July 5, 1963 about inspections of Israel's Dimona nuclear weapons facility. Obtained from the Israel State Archive and published at George Washington University's National Security Archive website.
Sign up for email notice of upcoming document releases.
But even that was too much for the perennially victimized Witty. The clown shouts FIRE! before he's even inside the theater.
The huge paradox at the center, Witty is completely incapable of handling that the core of the "Jewish conspiracy/Protocol" myth, which ultimately is linked with the authoritarian Machiavellian tradition. That's why the Protocols are easily recognizable as some kind of mirror in which you can see the suppressive political mindset of the falsifiers on the right.
Thus on one hand the existence of the Protocol erected a huge protective barrier around the topic of Jewish power. While Jewish man and women obviously can be and are just as enamored with Machiavelli as the rest of the world.
You can get the documentation regarding the nature of AIPAC I refer to above here:
http://irmep.org/fara.htm
"Yet it was years-in-years-out American diplomacy and billions in American loans and/or outright grants voted for annually by Americans' representatives in Congress that were sustaining the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It was American-made bombers, paid for, at least in part, by American taxpayers, that were pulverizing Beirut apartment houses and burying their occupants under the rubble. Rightly or wrongly, willingly or not, every American citizen, simply by his or her citizenship, was and is involved in the conflict…." (America and the founding of Israel:
An Investigation of the Morality of the America's Role By Father. John W. Mulhall, CSP (Paulist Priest).
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