Journalist Ron Kampeas of JTA (a settler who owns property in illegally-annexed East Jerusalem) writes today that the American Jewish Committee has not
run from a debate with "bums" Walt and Mearsheimer. He says the AJC has merely postponed such a debate (forever):
[I]t is not out of the question that a more urgent matter might press the professional leader of a group that informally calls itself
drum roll
"the State Department of the Jewish people" to delay discussion of a topic that ain't exactly about to drop off the radar.
"One would hope there would be an appreciation of scheduling difficulties," Ken Bandler, the AJC's spokesman, told me. "The issues we would discuss with Professor Mearsheimer are not going away. Whether now or in a few months, there will be plenty to talk about."In other words, game still on.
Holding up my end of the discussion here, I asked Mearsheimer– He responds:
"[AJC spokesman] Ben Cohen did not say that the AJC was simply putting off or delaying the debate. He said, as I reported in my July 12 note to you, that we might revisit the issue in 2010. He gave no indication that the AJC was committed to having the debate we had been talking about. And given what happened in my negotiations between April and June, I have no reason to think that the AJC really wants to have a debate. But if they do, David Harris should call up some institution like YIVO or the 92nd Street Y and ask it (not the AJC) to set up a public debate with me and Steve on one side and Harris and another prominent figure from the lobby on the other side. I am sure that there is an institution in New York that would be happy to sponsor a serious debate involving that cast of characters and would do a fine job arranging it. David Harris would simply have to show up and he would even have a wingman to help him out. And I am sure that C-Span would happily cover the event so that people all around the country could see it."
