I am a giant optimist, it's one of my character flaws. Lately I was kvelling (Yiddish: chirping/gushing) to Stephen Walt that the world is changing on Middle East policy, and the lobby was loosening its grasp on the discourse, and that he and John Mearsheimer are the Harriet Beecher Stowes of this transformation, having written the big book. He responded in this way:
arguing that Obama should openly acknowledge that the Palestinians were
the victims of a historic injustice in 1948, and that a two-state solution
is the only way to acknowledge and reconcile the wrongs done to both
Jews and Palestinians. Mead has long been a reliable weathervane to
shifting opinion, and he is beginning to figure out that U.S. Middle East policy
has been deeply screwed up. He canât acknowledge why weâve had such a
counterproductive policy, however, so he repeats the familiar mantra
that "support for
Israel runs very deep among Americans." Of course, this claim wrongly assumes
that the broad but shallow support that many Americans have for
Israelâs existence
means that there is strong backing for the âspecial relationship" (the
policy of unconditional and uncritical support). Heâs wrong: most
Americans think our policy should be more evenhanded. Still, I see this
as progress. Similarly, Martin Indyk
of Brookingsâ Saban Center recently said that "the era of the blank
check was over.â This is a remarkable statement: Indyk is acknowledging
that there was a blank check in the past and saying this is now
changing. (Weâll see). But wait, there's more: the new Council on
Foreign Relations/Brookings Institution book edited by Indyk and CFR
President Richard Haass has a chapter by Shibley Telhami and Steven Cook that advocates making the U.S.-Israeli aid package conditional on an end to Israeli settlement expansion. Amazing. Even Jeff Goldberg has been complaining about the lobby's harmful influence.
What is happening, I hope, is a
redefinition of what it means to be âpro-Israel.â Thoughtful people are
beginning to realize that uncritical support for the Jewish state isnât
âpro-Israel,â because it has encouraged policies that threaten Israel's
long-term future. Similarly, critics of certain Israeli policies like Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinki, Avraham Burg,
and John and myself arenât âanti-Israelâ–they simply think that the
âspecial relationshipâ is no longer good for either country (if it ever
was), and that a normal relationship would be better for both.
A couple comments. As my father always says, Without fireworks. Adjustments of Jewish power, post-Holocaust, will happen quietly, with no announcement. In a sense, the fury directed at Walt and Mearsheimer were the only fireworks. And even as those smears were launched, the lobby quietly folded its tent, and retrenched, slightly. The Indyk admission is amazing. And it demonstrates: These guys lied about the lobby all night and all day, and got Walter Russell Mead to lend his triple barrelled minister's kid imprimatur, for a time.
