Three weeks ago I reported that Newsweek senior editor Michael Hirsh said at a SAIS panel that the "Israel lobby" was pushing for an attack on Iran. Hirsh was liberated to state what is obvious, I ventured, by the effect of Walt and Mearsheimer–who notwithstanding the vicious reviews are operating like a depth charge.
The latest evidence for my position comes from Jim Fallows, who on his blog yesterday essentially endorses Walt-Mearsheimer. Quoth Fallows:
To the (ongoing) extent that AIPAC
— the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which calls itself
“America’s Pro-Israel Lobby” — is trying to legitimize a military
showdown between the United States and Iran, it is advancing its own
concerns at the expense of larger American interests. The people who
are doing this are not from one ethnic group in the conventional sense
but are mainly of one religion (Jewish).
Fallows’s motivation is surely similar to Hirsh’s. He regards an attack on Iran as a horrible mistake, against "larger American interests." Now when he has the opportunity he is speaking out; as so many journalists failed to speak out in 2002. Good for him.
That said, Fallows’s overall take on Walt/Mearsheimer is unconvincing. He says that going back to Madison, government theorists have warned of the effect of "faction" in American politics. He says the Israel lobby is doing just what the Armenian lobby and the Cuba lobby are doing. The analogy is something of an insult to a reader’s intelligence. The Israel lobby is not on a par with these other lobbies. It spavines all our efforts in the Arab world and has clearly contributed to a foreign policy disaster in Iraq. The effects of the (yes: powerful) Cuba lobby are far more circumscribed. The Bay of Pigs is a long time ago, Cuba was incendiary when it was the tip of the spear of the Communist world. Now it’s just an isolated island with leftwing friends. I doubt that the Armenian "lobby" has gained traction for the genocide issue because of contributions to California political campaigns; though someone should hire me to do journalism on this issue. Its moment is arriving because of historical/cultural forces, not unlike the movement that dignified the Holocaust in the 1960s. I haven’t even gotten to the importance of Jews in the establishment, which Fallows is surely aware of.
The takeaway here, though, is that Fallows is brave; and his bravery is sure to be noted and emulated. Last night on Hardball, Chris Matthews and Pat Buchanan had a charade conversation about the politics of attacking Iran, a plan they both deplore, in which neither dared educate their viewers by saying the words Israel lobby. Trita Parsi, Michael Hirsh and now Jim Fallows have done so.
What is happening right now is that it is OK for respectable people to blog about the Israel lobby, or talk about it at an academic discussion, but it’s not O.K. to say as much in a mainstream venue. Heavens no! Consider Hirsh. A week after the SAIS panel he wrote in Newsweek about neocons joining the braintrust for Giuliani (a wonderful piece of reporting that is getting a lot of pickup). Though he did talk about Israel-focused ideology, he didn’t mention the lobby. It’s just a matter of time before this sort of self-censorship ends.
