There's a new director at Yivo Institute for Jewish Research. A guy from the Yale Press, Jonathan Brent.
On a few occasions on this site I have challenged Yivo, which conducted a smearfest of Walt and Mearsheimer in 2007, during which they were repeatedly denounced as the second coming of Father Coughlin, to invite these non-Jewish scholars of Jewish history to the Yivo stage to defend their position. Now that David Harris of the American Jewish Committee has baited Mearsheimer to debate, then run from the debate, it ups the ante for Yivo to do the right thing.
There is other pressure on Yivo. A year ago, Jeffrey Goldberg, one of the participants in the Yivo monsters' ball, all but recanted his position, blaming the Israel lobby for the settlements program. Other events have underlined the truth of Walt and Mearsheimer's position: the rise of J Street, as an alternative, inside the Jewish community; and Obama's repeated efforts to trianguate Jewish leadership with a push on the two-state-solution. Not an Arab or Palestinian in sight. No power.
If Jonathan Brent is at all alive to this Jewish moment (in a word, power), he will invite Walt and Mearsheimer to New York.
