Daniel Luban brings out the Occam’s razor for the tedious Rosenberg/Chait dispute over the Israel lobby’s influence:
This is an irrelevant debate. The lobby’s critics don’t need to show that its influence is unique or total, only that it is significant and pernicious.
It may well be that, say, the AARP or NRA or financial lobby exert comparable influence in their designated areas of policy.
But it is equally true that someone pushing for, say, financial reform would have no problem saying publicly that the financial lobby has a significant and pernicious effect on policy. More than that, most proponents of financial reform would recognize that it is essential to publicly highlight the ways that Wall Street skews policy, both in order to build support for reform and to adequately understand the forces standing in its way.
But make a comparable critique of the Israel lobby, and you will find that people suddenly get very, very alarmed — and not just the Michael Goldfarbs and Jennifer Rubins of the world, but also liberals like Chait himself. Such liberals ostensibly share these basic criticisms of the lobby but for some reason feel that one should never, ever talk about them publicly. If you do talk about them publicly, and suggest that the Israel lobby has as significant and pernicious effect on U.S. foreign policy in the Levant as the Wall Street lobby has on financial regulatory policy, you will quickly find yourself compared to Hitler or bin Laden or Father Coughlin and your position caricatured beyond recognition.
To avoid further unproductive debates on this subject, let me venture a suggestion for Chait and other liberals who are, if not quite pro-lobby, at least anti-anti-lobby. My position, and that of most of the other lobby critics to whom he refers, is simply that the lobby’s influence is significant and pernicious, and that recognizing this fact is essential for any attempt to positively influence U.S. policy in the Middle East. If you want to argue that the lobby’s influence is not significant, or not pernicious, or that we should simply avoid talking about the subject at all, then do so. Otherwise, save yourself the time
