By: Alan Hart

Author Alan Hart opens Volume One of the American edition with an Appeal to the American People. The following is the text of it.

Dear America,

If all of our children, wherever they live, are to have the prospect of a future worth having, the world needs America’s best, not what it had under the neo-conned regime of President George “Dubya” Bush—its worst.

This Englishman, who first began to ask himself why things are as they are in the world when he was covering the war in Vietnam, knows America well enough from coast to coast to have a good idea of what your best is.

Deep down, you Americans are the most idealistic people on earth. This suggests to me that if all of you were properly informed about why what is happening in the Middle East is happening, you would want to make your democracy work to cause your government to play its necessary and leading role in stopping the countdown to catastrophe for all of us. I believe, for example, that if all Americans had been properly informed long ago about the cause and effect relationship of Israeli occupation and Palestinian violence, there would have been pressure on Congress and the White House long ago for an end to Israeli occupation of Arab land grabbed in the 1967 war. In that event the conflict in and over Palestine, which I describe as the cancer at the heart of international affairs, could have been cured and would not now be threatening to consume us all.

In 1974 I spent some time alone with His Royal Highness Prince Phillip at Buckingham Palace. I was there to try to persuade him to persuade Her Majesty The Queen to consent to a royal premier for Five Minutes To Midnight, a film I had made on global poverty and its implications for all. We talked for more than two hours, mainly about the state of the world in general, and the state of Britain in particular. At a point H.R.H said: “If I was prime minister, I would hang trade union leaders from lampposts.” As soon as I got home, I typed a short note to him. I thanked him for his time and suggested that it was not a good idea to hang trade union leaders from lampposts. He replied by return. He didn’t mean what he had said to be taken literally. He was, he wrote, “exaggerating to make a point.”

Sometimes it is necessary to exaggerate to make a point, so (deep breath!) here goes.

The problem, dear Americans, is that many of you are too uninformed to make your democracy work for the purpose of giving expression and substance to your idealism. And many of you are uninformed about conflict in the Middle East not because you don’t want to know, but because you have been misinformed by the corporate-controlled mainstream media, which has been described as the “Israeli occupied” media.1 On my visits to America over the years many, many Americans said to me, “We know we’re not getting the truth from our own mainstream media.” That being so, my question is—Why then do so many of you continue to let your views be shaped by the mainstream media’s take on what is happening in the Middle East?

After 9/11 most if not all Americans asked, “Why do they hate us?”  For very many Americans, “they” were more or less all Arabs and Muslims everywhere.

What would Americans have learned if, instead of rushing to declare his war on global terrorism, President Bush had caused that question to be addressed seriously?

The short answer—the long one is in this book—begins with the statement that the overwhelming majority of all Arabs and Muslims everywhere do not hate America or Americans.  (A truth is that for decades very many Arabs and other Muslims would, if they could, have migrated to America to enjoy a better life there. Today, however, the number of Arabs and other Muslims who would opt for American residence and citizenship if they could is greatly reduced because of the fact, sad but true, that the monster of Islamophobia is on the prowl across the Land of the Free and licking its lips). What almost all Arabs and Muslims everywhere do hate is American foreign policy—its double standards in general and, in particular, its unconditional support for an Israel, a country which ignores UN resolutions, demonstrates its contempt for international law and human rights conventions (continued occupation, torture, targeted assassinations and collective punishment are part of this package), and resorts to state terrorism.

To put “anti-Americanism” into its true Arab perspective, I offer this thought. If it had been possible for an American President to wave a magic wand and have Israel back behind more or less its borders as they were on the eve of the 1967 war, with a Palestinian state in existence on the Arab land from which Israel had withdrawn as required by UN Security Council Resolution 242, and with Jerusalem the capital of two states, the U.S. would have had, overnight, with one wave of that magic wand, the respect, friendship and support of not less than 95 per cent of all Arabs (and very probably that of almost all Muslims everywhere). And if the President had also pressed the Arab regimes to be serious about democratizing their countries, the U.S. would have become their champion, truly admired, as it was when President Woodrow Wilson was in the White House.

As professors John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt argued in their groundbreaking book, The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy, unconditional support for Israel is not in America’s own best interests. In fact it’s not in anybody’s best interests including those of the Jews of the world.

My only quarrel with the Mearsheimer and Walt book is its title. For reasons this book makes clear, the phenomenon of their title is not an Israel lobby. It’s the Zionist lobby, and I’ll get to why it should be called by its proper name in a moment.

Mearsheimer and Walt’s work improved to some extent the prospects for informed and honest debate about who must do what and why for justice and peace in the Middle East, but an actual resolution of the conflict in and over Palestine needs the citizens of America to be better informed than they are about much more than the Zionist lobby’s influence on American policy for the Middle East.

Above all Americans—American Jews especially—need to know that almost everything they’ve been conditioned to believe about the making and sustaining of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is not true. They need to know, for example, that Israel and the Palestinian refugee problem were created, mainly, by Zionist terrorism and ethnic cleansing. And they need to know, again for example, that Israel’s existence has never—ever—been in danger from any combination of Arab military force. Zionism’s assertion that Israel’s Jews have lived in constant danger of being “driven into the sea” was the propaganda cover that allowed Israel (a Zionist, not a Jewish, state) to get away where it mattered most—in Europe and America—with presenting its aggression as self-defense and itself as the victim when, actually, it was and remains the oppressor.

The problem with the truth of history as it relates to the making and sustaining of conflict in and over Palestine is that it’s pregnant with extreme danger because it could provoke anti-Semitism2 throughout the mainly Gentile nations of the Judeo-Christian or Western world, which is where most Jews live. There is, however, a way to exorcise this extreme danger. It is by giving the truth its necessary global context, not only to show that consequences have causes, but also to explain, among other things, the difference between Judaism and Zionism. Knowledge of the difference is the key to complete understanding of the conflict and who must do what and why for justice and peace.

Judaism is the religion of Jews, not “the“ Jews because not all Jews are religious. Like Christianity and Islam, Judaism has at its core a set of moral values and ethical principles. As holocaust survivor Dr. Hajo Meyer states in his book, An Ethical Tradition Betrayed: The End of Judaism,3 these values and principles put Jews “at the forefront of humanitarian and socially constructive endeavors” throughout much of history. (In his book my dear friend Hajo expresses his dismay at what he sees as the “moral collapse of contemporary Israeli society and the worldwide Jewish community as a whole.”  He compares Israel’s current policies with the early stages of the Nazi persecution of Germany’s Jews. He stresses that he is not seeking to draw a parallel between Israel’s current policies and the Nazis’ “endgame”—the slaughter of six million European Jews. He is merely trying to point out, he says, “the slippery slope” that eventually led to this catastrophe, and the necessity of  “foreseeing the possible consequences” of a policy that oppresses and marginalizes the Palestinians in their own homeland).

Even the shortest definition of Zionism must begin by recognizing that there is what might be called “spiritual Zionism” and “political Zionism”. In the sense that they look to Jerusalem as their spiritual capital or center, all Jews who are religious could regard themselves as spiritual Zionists. The Zionism of this book’s main title and substance is political Zionism.

It is Jewish nationalism in the form of a sectarian, colonial enterprise which, in the process of creating in the Arab heartland a state for some Jews—mainly by terrorism and ethnic cleansing as noted above—made a mockery of, and demonstrated contempt for, Judaism’s moral values and ethical principles. (Judaism insists that the return of Jews to the land of the ancient Hebrews must await the Second Coming of the Messiah. Zionism said, in effect: “We can’t wait for Him. Zionism is the Messiah.”) As this book makes clear, prior to the obscenity of the Nazi holocaust, political Zionism was of no interest to more than a minority of the Jews of the world and was opposed by many.

Supporters of Israel right or wrong conflate Judaism and Zionism because the assertion that Judaism and Zionism are one and the same enables them to claim that criticism of the Zionist state of Israel is a manifestation of anti-Semitism. Often, almost always these days, the accusation that criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic is a form of blackmail intended to silence criticism of, and suppress informed and honest debate about, the Zionist state and its policies. The reality is that Judaism and political Zionism are total opposites, and knowledge of the difference is the key to understanding two things:

1. Why it is possible, with good reason on the basis of all the facts, to be passionately anti-Zionist—opposed to Zionism’s colonial enterprise—without being, in any way, shape or form anti-Semitic.

2. Why it is wrong to blame all Jews everywhere for the crimes of the hardest core Zionist few in Palestine that became little Israel, and then Greater Israel.

It’s worth noting that virtually all Arabs and other Muslims have always known the difference between Judaism and Zionism.  And it can be said without fear of contradiction that throughout much of their history, Arabs and other Muslims were the best protectors of Jews in need of sanctuary. It was Zionism’s colonial enterprise that poisoned the relationship, though not-perhaps I should say not yet-to the point at which most Arabs and other Muslims blame all Jews for Zionism’s crimes.

Jews, all Jews, also need to know the difference between Judaism and Zionism. Am I suggesting that many don’t know it? Yes. A truth today, or so it seems to me from conversations with Jews, is that very many if not most of them have no idea of what Zionism actually is, both in ideological principle and practice in Palestine form the early years of the 20th century to the present. And there are two main reasons for this apparent lack of awareness.

One can be explained by the awesome success in propaganda terms of Zionism’s Nakba denial. Nakba is the Arab word for catastrophe and shorthand in Arab terminology for Zionism’s ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948.

The other main reason is that many Jews of the world don‘t want to know the truth of history as it relates to the creation of the Zionist state of Israel and the Palestinian refugee problem (in much the same way, some might say, as Americans, some or many, don’t want to know what really happened to the native Indians of America). In the Prologue to this book, Waiting for the Apocalypse, I seek to explain, empathetically, why to date many Jews have not wanted to know the truth of history.

So why do I assert that all Jews need to know the difference between Judaism and Zionism?

The sleeping giant of classical anti-Semitism is being re-awakened in the mainly Gentile Judeo-Christian world in which most Jews live, and a prime cause of the re-awakening is the behavior of the Zionist  state of Israel and its extraordinary (some would say insufferable) self-righteousness. As we shall see, prior to the obscenity of the Nazi holocaust many of the best Jewish minds of the time feared that Zionism, if it was allowed to have its way, would at some point provoke anti-Semitism. These fears were given a fresh public airing by a most remarkable Israeli, Yehoshafat Harkabi, in 1986. He was the longest serving Director of Israeli Military Intelligence and was universally respected. In the Prologue I quote from his book, Israel’s Fateful Hour. He warned of the danger of Israel becoming “a factor in the rise of anti-Semitism”.

It’s my view that after the obscenity of the Nazi holocaust, and because of it, the giant most likely would have gone back to sleep, remained asleep and, in all probability, would have died in its sleep – IF Zionism had not been allowed by the major powers, first Britain, then America, to have its way, as Balfour put it, “right or wrong”.

What, really, is the basis for believing that anti-Semitism is seriously on the rise?

The increase in the desecration of synagogues and Jewish graves (and the like), verbal abuse and assaults on Jews are indicators. But what may be far more sinister is the growing number of Europeans and North Americans who are now beginning to speak negatively about Jews at dinner parties and behind closed doors. The more it becomes apparent that Israel is the obstacle to peace on any terms most Palestinians and other Arabs and Muslims can accept, the more this antipathy will grow, with the real danger that it will break out, become unsuppressed, and manifest itself as violent anti-Semitism. It’s my view, which I know is shared by some eminent Jews in Europe and America, that if the monster of anti-Semitism does go on the rampage again, it might well start its journey in America.

But what actually happens in the future will depend a great deal on whether or not the vast majority of Jews who live in the nations of the mainly Gentile Judeo-Christian world are prepared to come to grips with the fact that Zionism is, as the title of this book asserts and its substance demonstrates, their real enemy. If they can and do, and are then prepared to end their silence on the matter of Israel’s behaviour, they will, by distancing themselves from Zionism, best protect themselves from a charge of complicity (if only by default) in Zionism’s crimes. Silence is not the way to refute and demolish such a charge.

I am aware that many Americans, including American Jews, might honestly believe they are serving the best interests of the Jews by refusing to address the foundational Zionist myths, but I say they are wrong, dangerously wrong.  All, including the corporate-controlled mainstream media, who refuse to come to grips with the truth of history and thus why it is perfectly possible to be passionately anti-Zionist without being anti-Semitic, are helping to set up all Jews to be blamed for the crimes of the relative few.

As surely as day follows night, the Zionist lobby and other supporters of Israel right or wrong will make an awesome effort to limit distribution of this book in America, and to cause the informed and honest debate it was written to promote to be suppressed.  The less this attempt to suppress the truth of history is successful, the more all citizens of America will be empowered to give substance to their idealism, to make their democracy work for justice and peace in the Middle East.

I would like readers of this post to know that I was moved close to tears by the words of an eminent Canadian Jewish lady who does speak out. She is Judith Weisman, a Toronto psychotherapist and a member of Independent Jewish Voices, a founding member of Not In Our Name, Jews for a Just Peace and the Jewish Women’s Committee. See her and listen to her
here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nx1eRkBgzcA

Alan Hart

Alan Hart is a former ITN and BBC Panorama foreign correspondent who covered wars and conflicts wherever they were taking place in the world and specialized in the Middle East.

He blogs on www.alanhart.net and tweets on www.twitter.com/alanauthor

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Author’s Note

The story this book tells is constructed on the documented truth of history and insights from my own engagement with the conflict in various capacities over more than three decades. I was, for example, the first Western correspondent to the banks of the Suez Canal with the advancing Israelis in the Six Days War of June 1967. And over the years I enjoyed intimate access to, and on the human level friendship with, leaders on both sides of the Arab-Israeli conflict. I am probably the only person on Planet Earth to have enjoyed a special relationship with the two greatest opposites in all of human history – Golda Meir, Mother Israel, and Yasser Arafat, Father of Palestine. (I made a BBC Panorama profile of the former and wrote a book about the latter). In telling the whole, unexpurgated story of the creation of the Zionist state of Israel and how it became a threat not only to the peace of the region and the world but also to the best interests of Jews everywhere and the moral integrity of Judaism itself, I’ve quoted from my private conversations over the years with leaders on both sides. My aim in doing so was to provide an extra degree of real and rare insight.

Given its length, three volumes for the American edition with perhaps a fourth in due course, some might ask – “Why such a big enterprise?” And some might add, “Do you seriously believe that more than a handful of Americans will be bothered to take the time and make the effort required to read three or even four volumes?”

I am, of course, aware that because of its length this book does require a serious commitment of reading time, and therefore effort, during the 18 months or so in which all three or possibly four volumes will be published. How can I possibly justify such a call on readers’ time? My short answer is in two parts.

I believe the reward for effort will be understanding, probably for the first time ever for very many Americans, of how all the pieces of the most complex and complicated jig-saw puzzle fit together and, therefore, an understanding of why the Palestine problem is the cancer at the heart of international affairs and what must be done and by whom if it is to be cured before it consumes us all.

The length of this work is also to do with the nature of the challenge I set myself. To tell the truth needed for real understanding, I had to re-write the whole story of the making and sustaining of the Arab-Israeli conflict, replacing Zionist mythology with the documented facts of history. To make complete understanding possible, it was also necessary for me to put regional events into their global context. The latter includes, for example, what went on behind closed doors in London, Paris, Washington and Moscow.  All of that was a mission impossible in a single volume.

To date in the mainly Gentile Judeo-Christian or Western world we have had only a first draft of history, one constructed on Zionist mythology. This book offers a second, one that exposes Zionist mythology for the propaganda nonsense it mainly is.

And there’s a little something I’d like to add here by way of encouragement for what is sometimes called the general reading public. This book is written in the conversational style of the television reporter and to some extent reads more like a novel than a conventional historical work. This is to make the story accessible to all – i.e. not just a relatively small number of academics and other professionally interested people. I can also report that since the publication in the UK of the first hardback edition of this work in two volumes, I’ve received a good number of messages from so-called ordinary people of all faiths and none telling me they thought the book is “an easy read” and a “page-turner”.  There was even a rabbi who called me to say, with great good humour, that I was to blame for his lack of sleep. He told me he had taken my book to bed to read a little each night but that when he started he couldn’t put it down.

In the UK, I had to set up my own publishing company to get the first hardback edition of this book in two volumes to the retail market place; and this despite the fact that my literary agent had on file letters of rare praise for my work from the CEOs of some of our major publishing houses. One CEO described my manuscript as “awesome… driven by passion, commitment and profound learning.” This letter added, “There is no question it deserves to be published.”  But all in the UK were too frightened to publish this book out of fear of offending Zionism too much and being falsely accused of promoting anti-Semitism and, possibly, finding themselves on the receiving end of an organized boycott of all their authors and titles. It didn’t matter that my book is actually the opposite of anti-Semitic, and contains my call, as a Gentile, for the Jews to become a light unto nations by demonstrating that right can prevail over might and there is a place for morality in politics.

My access to the documented truth of history was assisted by the named authors from whose work I have quoted. I thank them all and eight in particular for the special quality of their original research. The eight are: Lenni Brenner, Alfred M. Lilienthal, the writing duo of Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre, Seymour Hersh, Stephen Green, Yehoshafat Harkabi and, most notably, Avi Shlaim.

I am also indebted to Ilan Pappe. He and Avi Shlaim are Israel’s two leading “revisionist” (which means honest) historians. Ilan’s own latest book, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, a seminal work documented in chilling detail, was not available for me to draw off when I was finalizing the content of my own Volume One; but I make reference to his work in a footnote to my Chapter 10 which is titled Zionist Terrorism and Ethnic Cleansing. Ilan and I have become dear friends and allies in common cause and regard ourselves as being, with a small band of others including Avi Shlaim, on the hottest frontline in the war for the truth of history. Ilan is at the very top of Zionism’s official “S.H.I.T” list (Self-Hating Israeli Traitors), and we both think I would be up there with him, ahead of 6,999 others, if I was an Israeli. In one of our first conversations Ilan said he thought Zionists were more frightened of my book than any other because of its title. His latest book, he said, they could rubbish in their usual way. “Your book,” he added, “is a real problem for them because its main title, Zionism, The Real Enemy of the Jews, is the whole truth in seven words.” The many hours of his precious time Ilan gives me for analytical conversation helps greatly to keep my own thinking refreshed and finely tuned. His most generous endorsement of my work is on the back cover of this volume. (There was, however, one point on which Ilan censured me. He said that I was, and all others were, wrong to use the term “diaspora” as in Jewish diaspora. His argument, with which I fully agree and actually develop in this book, is that diaspora implies that the Jews of the world have a biological and ancestral connection to the ancient Hebrews and thus an historical claim to the land of Palestine that became Israel. In reality they-almost all if not quite all the Jews of the world-have no such connection or claim. Most believe they do, but they don’t. With good grace Ilan accepted that when I use the term Jewish diaspora it is for convenience).

I must also thank my dear wife, Nicole Marie Louise, to whom I have been married for 47 years. Only a lady as remarkable and as loving as she is would have allowed her husband to put everything on the line, including his home and perhaps even his life, in order to tell the truth of history. Whenever I am asked why I do what do, I quote my dear friend Hajo Meyer. At breakfast one morning after he had been one of my guests on a debating platform in London, I asked him why at the age of 82, and given that he is vilified by Zionism’s propaganda        hit men, he continues to serve in the frontline of the war for truth and justice. He replied, “The first person I see every morning is me.”

Nicole understands that I, too, need to be able to live with myself.

That this book is now published in the United States is due entirely to the vision, courage and commitment of Diana G. Collier, the Editorial Director of Clarity Press, Inc. (www.claritypress.com/Hart-1.html) I cannot find words adequate enough to express my thanks to her and my respect for her.  Courage of the kind Diana and her colleagues have demonstrated is extremely rare in the publishing as well as the mainstream media world.

The book is available from Amazon as well as bookshops not frightened of offending Zionism, and Clarity Press can provide very significant discounts for bulk purchases by advocacy groups.
Source: intifada-palestine.com

The two-state solution is the only way to guarantee the Jewish state’s long-term security—and our own.

By John J. Mearsheimer  

The United States and Israel fundamentally disagree about the need to establish a Palestinian state living side by side with Israel. President Obama is committed to a two-state solution, while Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu is opposed and has been for many years. To avoid a direct confrontation with Washington, Netanyahu will probably change his rhetoric and talk favorably about two states. But that will not affect Israel’s actions. The never-ending peace process will go on, Israel will continue building settlements, and the Palestinians will remain locked up in a handful of impoverished enclaves in the West Bank and Gaza. Anticipating this outcome, Obama has told Congress to expect a clash with Israel.

This is not a fight Obama is likely to win, even though the United States is more powerful than Israel and most Americans favor creating a Palestinian state and bringing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to a close.

Look at the historical record. Since 1967, every American president has opposed settlement-building in the Occupied Territories. Yet no president has been able to put meaningful pressure on Israel to stop building settlements, much less dismantle them. Perhaps the best evidence of American impotence is what happened during the Oslo peace process in the 1990s. Israel confiscated 40,000 acres of Palestinian land, constructed 250 miles of connector and bypass roads, doubled the number of settlers, and built 30 new settlements. President Clinton did hardly anything to halt this expansion.

The main reason no president has been able to stop Israel from colonizing the Occupied Territories is the Israel lobby. It is an especially powerful interest group that has pushed the American government to establish a “special relationship” with Israel, which is, as Yitzhak Rabin once said, “beyond compare in modern history.”

The special relationship means Washington gives Israel consistent, almost unconditional diplomatic backing and more foreign aid than any other country. In other words, Israel gets this aid even when it does things that the United States opposes, like building settlements. Furthermore, Israel is rarely criticized by American officials and certainly not by anyone who aspires to high office. Recall what happened earlier this year to Charles Freeman, who was forced to withdraw as head of the National Intelligence Council because he had criticized certain Israeli policies and questioned the merits of the special relationship.

Many hope that Obama will be different from his predecessors and stand up to the lobby. The indications thus far are not encouraging. During the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama responded to charges that he was “soft” on Israel by pandering to the lobby and publicly praising the special relationship. He was silent during the recent Gaza War—when Israel was being criticized around the world for its brutal assault on that densely populated enclave—and he said nothing when Freeman was forced to quit his administration. Like his predecessors, Obama appears to be no match for the lobby.

Israel’s supporters in the United States often claim that the special relationship is not due to the lobby’s influence. The American people, they argue, identify closely with Israel and put significant pressure on their leaders to support it generously and unconditionally. But there is abundant evidence showing that this is not true. Recent polls indicate that over 70 percent of Americans think that the U.S. should not take sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and only 47 percent of Americans think that Israel’s influence in the world is “mainly positive.” Moreover, 60 percent of Americans have said that the United States should withhold aid to Israel if it resists pressure to reach a peace agreement with the Palestinians.

In short, a clear majority of Americans do not favor the special relationship and would back Obama if he leaned on Israel to accept a Palestinian state. The lobby, however, would surely side with Israel and pressure the White House to back off. Given the lobby’s track record—as well as Obama’s—it is difficult to imagine him not caving.

Israel’s supporters defend the special relationship because they believe it is an unalloyed good for both countries. In essence, they think that the two countries’ interests are synonymous, and whatever Israel deems good for Israel is good for the United States. From their perspective, there is no need for Israel to change its behavior on any major policy issue, especially on matters relating to the Palestinians.

But they are wrong. Israel’s interests, like any other country’s interests, are not always the same as America’s. Thus it makes little sense for Washington to back Israel no matter what it does because sometimes there will be circumstances in which the two countries’ interests clash. For example, it probably made good sense for Israel to acquire nuclear weapons in the 1960s, since it lives in a dangerous neighborhood and a nuclear arsenal is the ultimate deterrent. But a nuclear-armed Israel was not in the American national interest.

Both countries would be much better off if the Obama administration treated Israel the way it treats other democracies, such as Britain, France, Germany, and India. In practice, this would mean backing Israel when its actions are consistent with American interests. But when they are not, Washington would distance itself from Jerusalem and use its considerable leverage to change Israeli behavior.

The United States is in deep trouble in the Middle East and has a serious terrorism problem in good part because of its unconditional support for Israel’s policies in the Occupied Territories. Backing Israel at almost every turn also makes it harder for Washington to get open support from moderate Arab states, even when dealing with common threats like Iran.

Israel’s backers often maintain that American support for Israel had nothing to do with 9/11, but this claim is simply not true. Consider the motivations of Khalid Sheik Muhammed, whom the 9/11 Commission describes as the “principle architect of the attacks.” According to the commission, “KSM’s animus toward the United States stemmed not from his experiences there as a student, but rather from his violent disagreement with U.S. foreign policy favoring Israel.” Numerous independent accounts have also documented that Osama bin Laden has been deeply concerned about the Palestinian situation since he was young, and the 9/11 Commission reports that he wanted the attackers to strike Congress, which he saw as the most important source of support for Israel in the United States. The commission also tells us that bin Laden twice wanted to move the date of the attacks forward because of events involving Israel—even though doing so would have increased the risk of failure.

In short, there is little hope of ending America’s terrorism problem and improving its standing in the Middle East if the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not resolved. That will only happen if there is a two-state solution, and that will only occur if the United States puts pressure on Israel.

The special relationship has become a liability for Israel as well. No country has ever pursued a flawless foreign policy, yet the lobby makes it impossible for American leaders to criticize Israel when it does something foolish. Think of the 2006 Lebanon War, when Washington backed Israel to the hilt while it employed a strategy that was, as most Israelis now recognize, boneheaded. The United States would have been a better friend had it pressured Israel to come up with a smarter response or pressed for a quick ceasefire. But that is not how the special relationship works. It is hard to see how this situation makes good sense for Israel.

So how should the Obama administration react to Netanyahu’s opposition to a Palestinian state? The key to understanding this vital issue is to consider two questions. First, what does Israel’s future look like in the absence of a two-state solution? In other words, where is Israel headed if Netanyahu gets his way? Second, what are the likely consequences for America, Israel, and the Palestinians?

Given present circumstances, there are three possible alternatives if the Palestinians do not get their own state, all of which involve creating a “greater Israel”—an Israel that effectively controls the West Bank and Gaza, or all of what was once called Mandatory Palestine.

In the first scenario, greater Israel would become a democratic binational state in which Palestinians and Jews enjoy equal political rights. This solution has been suggested by a handful of Jews and a growing number of Palestinians. It means abandoning the original Zionist vision of a Jewish state, however, since the Palestinians would eventually outnumber the Jews in greater Israel. Uri Avnery, a prominent Israeli journalist and peace activist, is surely correct when he says, “There is no chance at all that the Jewish public will agree, in this generation or the next, to live as a minority in a state dominated by an Arab majority.” Israel’s supporters in America would also have virtually no interest in this outcome.

Second, Israel could expel most of the Palestinians from greater Israel, thereby preserving its Jewish character through an overt act of ethnic cleansing. This seems unlikely, not just because it would be a crime against humanity, but also because there are about 5.5 million Palestinians between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, and they would put up fierce resistance if Israel tried to expel them from their homes.

Still, there are good reasons to worry that Israel might adopt this solution as the demographic balance shifts and concerns about the survival of the Jewish state intensifiy. It is apparent from public-opinion surveys and everyday discourse that many Israelis hold racist views about Palestinians, and the recent Gaza War made clear that they have few qualms about killing Palestinian civilians. A century of conflict and four decades of occupation will do that to a people. Furthermore, a substantial number of Israeli Jews—40 percent or more—believe that the Arab citizens of Israel should be “encouraged” to leave by the government. Indeed, former foreign minister Tzipi Livni recently said that if there were a two-state solution, she expected Israel’s Palestinian citizens to leave and settle in the new Palestinian state.

The final and most likely alternative is some form of apartheid, whereby Israel increases its control over the Occupied Territories, but allows the Palestinians limited autonomy in a set of disconnected and economically crippled enclaves. Israelis and their American supporters invariably bristle at the comparison to white rule in South Africa, but that is their future if they create a greater Israel while denying full political rights to an Arab population that will soon outnumber the Jewish population in the entirety of the land. Former prime minister Ehud Olmert said as much when he proclaimed that if “the two-state solution collapses,” Israel will “face a South-African-style struggle.” He went so far as to argue, “as soon as that happens, the state of Israel is finished.” Other Israelis, as well as Jimmy Carter and Bishop Desmond Tutu, have warned that continuing the occupation will turn Israel into an apartheid state.

These three outcomes are the only alternatives to a two-state solution, and each would be disastrous for the Jewish state. Apartheid is not a viable long-term solution because the Palestinians will continue to resist until they achieve independence. Their resistance will force Israel to escalate the same repressive policies that have already cost significant blood and treasure, encouraged political corruption, and badly tarnished the nation’s global image. More importantly, there would be little support and much opposition to an apartheid state in the West, especially in the United States, where democracy is venerated and segregation is condemned. This is why Olmert said that going down the apartheid road would be suicidal for Israel.

But bringing democracy to greater Israel would also mean the end of the Jewish state because the more numerous Palestinians would dominate its politics. That leaves ethnic cleansing, which would certainly keep Israel Jewish. That murderous strategy, however, would do enormous damage to Israel’s moral fabric, its relationship with Jews in the diaspora, and its international standing. Israel and its supporters would be treated harshly by history. No genuine friend of Israel could support such a heinous course of action.

Given this grim situation, it is not surprising that a significant number of Israelis have moved abroad and many others would leave if they could. There are somewhere between 700,000 and 1 million Israeli Jews living outside the country, many of whom are unlikely to return. Since 2007, emigration has been outpacing immigration in Israel. According to scholars John Mueller and Ian Lustick, “a recent survey indicates that only 69 percent of Jewish Israelis say they want to stay in the country, and a 2007 poll finds that one-quarter of Israelis are considering leaving, including almost half of all young people.” They report, “in another survey, 44 percent of Israelis say they would be ready to leave if they could find a better standard of living elsewhere,” and “over 100,000 Israelis have acquired European passports.” These figures are a bad omen for Israel.

This discussion of where Israel is heading raises the obvious question: would it not be in Israel’s best interests for President Obama to put significant pressure on both Israel and the Palestinians to agree to a two-state solution? In fact, would it not have been better for Israel if the United States had long ago stopped it from building settlements and instead helped create a Palestinian state? One wonders what future the opponents of a two-state solution envision for greater Israel, for it is hard to see a favorable outcome if the Palestinians do not get their own state. This is not to say that two states living side by side represents an ideal outcome for either side; it is simply better than the alternatives.

Finally, denying the Palestinians their own state is not in the lobby’s interest, and not just because of the consequences for Israel. Over the past two decades, the case for backing Israel—no matter what it does—has become a tough sell in the United States, especially on college campuses. Younger Jews appear to be more willing to criticize Israel than their elders. Americans of all persuasions are becoming increasingly aware of what Israel did to the Palestinians in 1948 and what it has been doing in the Occupied Territories since 1967. Consequently, Israel no longer looks like the victim; it looks like the victimizer, and a ruthless one at that. This situation is sure to get worse if Israel turns itself into an apartheid state in full view of the world.

Because Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians will be increasingly hard to defend, the lobby will have to rely more than ever on threats and intimidation. Facts and reason are not effective weapons when trying to justify an apartheid state. Given the growing awareness of the lobby’s activities—thanks mainly to the Internet—its actions are already being scrutinized in ways they were not in the past. In other words, it has become difficult for the lobby to wield its influence without leaving fingerprints, and greater recognition of its role is likely to trigger greater resentment. Its torpedoing of the Freeman appointment, which was widely discussed in the blogosphere and eventually by the mainstream media, is a case in point. The lobby’s behavior will become more heavy-handed and transparent, which runs the risk of angering large numbers of Americans, including many Jews. It would be much easier for the lobby to defend Israel if it lived alongside a Palestinian state.

President Obama would like to change the situation because he understands that a two-state solution would be good for America, good for Israel, and good for the Palestinians. But Netanyahu seems determined to thwart his efforts. Who is likely to win this fight?

As things stand, Obama has little chance of prevailing, mainly because the lobby’s key institutions will side with Israel, and the American president shows little sign of being willing to take on the lobby. Other factors also weigh against him. There are about 480,000 settlers and a huge infrastructure of roads and settlements in the West Bank. Given that the political center of gravity in Israel has shifted sharply to the right over time, it is hard to imagine any Israeli government having the political will, much less the ability, to dismantle a substantial portion of that enormous enterprise. Consider that a February 2009 poll found that 59 percent of Israelis opposed a Palestinian state; only 32 percent supported it.

Nor is there much sympathy for the two-state solution in the American Jewish community. A 2007 survey found that only 46 percent of Jews in this county favored the establishment of a Palestinian state, probably because 82 percent of those surveyed believed that “the goal of the Arabs is not the return of occupied territories but rather the destruction of Israel.” A 2008 J Street poll showed more support for the two-state solution (78 percent) but also revealed substantial opposition to dismantling Israeli settlements and making East Jerusalem part of Palestine. Those reservations, coupled with deep-seated fears of Palestinian motives, will help the lobby’s hardliners make their case. Of course, Christian Zionists will adamantly oppose the two-state solution: they want Israel to control every square millimeter of Palestine because they believe that will facilitate Christ’s Second Coming.

Obama’s only hope—and it is a slim one—is that a substantial part of the American Jewish community will come to understand Olmert’s warning that Israel will become like white-ruled South Africa if there is no two-state solution. More American Jews need to understand that Israel is in serious peril and that the situation is likely to get worse, not better. Obama would be acting as Israel’s friend if he put pressure on both sides to reach a settlement. If there is no agreement, Israel faces a grim future, and it will become very difficult to defend Israel. In short, more Jewish-Americans need to recognize that it is in their interest to champion the two-state solution.

If that does not happen, Obama will be unable to get tough with Israel. There will be even more trouble ahead for Israel, the United States, and especially the Palestinians. 

__________________________________________

John J. Mearsheimer is a professor of political science at the University of Chicago and coauthor of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.

Source: The American Conservative

Comment: This article by John Mearsheimer uncovers Israel and brings out the real aims of the Zionist State. Israel has now a coalition Government of Extremist who are opposed to a two state solution for the simple reason that they want a Greater Israel , the colonization of the rest of Palestine. Israel hopes to accomplish this with the support of the powerfull Israeli Lobby which has a strangle hold on the U.S. Congress, and the Senate. Administrador

By John J. Mearsheimer

Benjamin Netanyahu is in the final stages of putting together Israel’s next government, which will be opposed to a two-state solution. Most importantly, the new prime minister and his Likud Party are firmly against a Palestinian state. The Labor Party, which will be part of the governing coalition and which has been identified with the two-state solution for the past two decades, did not insist that Likud support that policy as a condition for joining the government. Its leader, Ehud Barak, merely asked for and got a vague statement saying that Israel was committed to promoting regional peace. Avigdor Lieberman, who heads Yisrael Beiteinu, the other major party in the ruling coalition, is not likely to push to give the Palestinians a viable state of their own. His main concern is “transferring” the Palestinians out of Israel so that it can be an almost purely Jewish state.
So Israel will continue expanding its settlements in the West Bank. In fact, the Israeli press is reporting that Netanyahu and Lieberman agreed in their negotiations to form a government that Israel would build 3,000 housing units in an area between Jerusalem and Maale Adumim (a huge settlement bloc) known as E-1. Once that is accomplished, Israel will have effectively cut the West Bank in half, making it almost impossible to create a viable Palestinian state. This deal was supposed to be secret, because the United States is opposed to Israel building in the E-1 area.

The Palestinians, of course, will remain locked up in Gaza and a handful of enclaves on the West Bank. In essence, Netanyahu and his two key ministers — Ehud Barak (Defense) and Avigdor Lieberman (Foreign Affairs) — are committed to creating a Greater Israel, which will cover all of the territory that was once Mandate Palestine.

The Obama administration will surely try to push Netanyahu to change his thinking about a two-state solution and work to give the Palestinians a real state of their own. The Israel lobby, however, will adamantly defend Israel’s right to do whatever it wants in the Occupied Territories and make it impossible for the president to put significant pressure on Israel. Netanyahu, like all Israeli leaders, understands this basic fact of life. He knows that he will just have to say a few nice words about the “peace process” and blame the whole thing on the Palestinians, who he believes are a bunch of terrorists anyway, and he will be pretty much free to do whatever he wants in Gaza and the West Bank.

It seems clear to me and to many smart people I know that this story does not have a happy ending. Indeed, it looks like a disastrous ending. Greater Israel cannot be a democratic state, because there will soon be — if there aren’t already — more Palestinians between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea than there are Israeli Jews. So, if you give each person one vote, Israel becomes Palestine. That is not going to happen anytime soon, if ever, which leaves two possible outcomes: apartheid and expelling the Palestinians — and there are more than 5 million of them — from Greater Israel. Talk about repulsive options. It is worth remembering that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said that if there is no two-state solution, Israel will end up in a South Africa-like situation and that will mean the end of the Jewish state. In effect, he is saying that Israel is turning itself into an apartheid state.

My bottom line is that Israel, with the backing of the lobby, is pursuing a remarkably foolish — Ehud Olmert would say suicidal — policy towards the Palestinians.

I would appreciate it greatly if Israel’s American backers would explain what I am missing here. They must think that there is a happy ending to this story that Olmert and I simply fail to see. Otherwise they would not be backing the Greater Israel enterprise. There is no need for Christian Zionists to respond, because I know what their happy ending is: the Battle of Armageddon and then the Second Coming of Christ. Israel’s Jewish backers do not buy this story, which, in fact, many consider anti-Semitic. But they must have an alternative explanation for how Greater Israel is good for the Jews. What is it?
Soure: http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/03/26/please_tell_me_where_israel is headed

The Gaza offensive has succeeded in punishing the Palestinians but not in making Israel more secure.

By John J. Mearsheimer | The American Conservative, January 26, 2009

Israelis and their American supporters claim that Israel learned its lessons well from the disastrous 2006 Lebanon war and has devised a winning strategy for the present war against Hamas. Of course, when a ceasefire comes, Israel will declare victory. Don’t believe it. Israel has foolishly started another war it cannot win.

The campaign in Gaza is said to have two objectives: 1) to put an end to the rockets and mortars that Palestinians have been firing into southern Israel since it withdrew from Gaza in August 2005; 2) to restore Israel’s deterrent, which was said to be diminished by the Lebanon fiasco, by Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza, and by its inability to halt Iran’s nuclear program.

But these are not the real goals of Operation Cast Lead. The actual purpose is connected to Israel’s long-term vision of how it intends to live with millions of Palestinians in its midst. It is part of a broader strategic goal: the creation of a “Greater Israel.” Specifically, Israel’s leaders remain determined to control all of what used to be known as Mandate Palestine, which includes Gaza and the West Bank. The Palestinians would have limited autonomy in a handful of disconnected and economically crippled enclaves, one of which is Gaza. Israel would control the borders around them, movement between them, the air above and the water below them.

The key to achieving this is to inflict massive pain on the Palestinians so that they come to accept the fact that they are a defeated people and that Israel will be largely responsible for controlling their future. This strategy, which was first articulated by Ze’ev Jabotinsky in the 1920s and has heavily influenced Israeli policy since 1948, is commonly referred to as the “Iron Wall.”

What has been happening in Gaza is fully consistent with this strategy.

Let’s begin with Israel’s decision to withdraw from Gaza in 2005. The conventional wisdom is that Israel was serious about making peace with the Palestinians and that its leaders hoped the exit from Gaza would be a major step toward creating a viable Palestinian state. According to the New York Times’ Thomas L. Friedman, Israel was giving the Palestinians an opportunity to “build a decent mini-state there—a Dubai on the Mediterranean,” and if they did so, it would “fundamentally reshape the Israeli debate about whether the Palestinians can be handed most of the West Bank.”

This is pure fiction. Even before Hamas came to power, the Israelis intended to create an open-air prison for the Palestinians in Gaza and inflict great pain on them until they complied with Israel’s wishes. Dov Weisglass, Ariel Sharon’s closest adviser at the time, candidly stated that the disengagement from Gaza was aimed at halting the peace process, not encouraging it. He described the disengagement as “formaldehyde that’s necessary so that there will not be a political process with the Palestinians.” Moreover, he emphasized that the withdrawal “places the Palestinians under tremendous pressure. It forces them into a corner where they hate to be.”

Arnon Soffer, a prominent Israeli demographer who also advised Sharon, elaborated on what that pressure would look like. “When 2.5 million people live in a closed-off Gaza, it’s going to be a human catastrophe. Those people will become even bigger animals than they are today, with the aid of an insane fundamentalist Islam. The pressure at the border will be awful. It’s going to be a terrible war. So, if we want to remain alive, we will have to kill and kill and kill. All day, every day.”

In January 2006, five months after the Israelis pulled their settlers out of Gaza, Hamas won a decisive victory over Fatah in the Palestinian legislative elections. This meant trouble for Israel’s strategy because Hamas was democratically elected, well organized, not corrupt like Fatah, and unwilling to accept Israel’s existence. Israel responded by ratcheting up economic pressure on the Palestinians, but it did not work. In fact, the situation took another turn for the worse in March 2007, when Fatah and Hamas came together to form a national unity government. Hamas’s stature and political power were growing, and Israel’s divide-and-conquer strategy was unraveling.

To make matters worse, the national unity government began pushing for a long-term ceasefire. The Palestinians would end all missile attacks on Israel if the Israelis would stop arresting and assassinating Palestinians and end their economic stranglehold, opening the border crossings into Gaza.

Israel rejected that offer and with American backing set out to foment a civil war between Fatah and Hamas that would wreck the national unity government and put Fatah in charge. The plan backfired when Hamas drove Fatah out of Gaza, leaving Hamas in charge there and the more pliant Fatah in control of the West Bank. Israel then tightened the screws on the blockade around Gaza, causing even greater hardship and suffering among the Palestinians living there.

Hamas responded by continuing to fire rockets and mortars into Israel, while emphasizing that they still sought a long-term ceasefire, perhaps lasting ten years or more. This was not a noble gesture on Hamas’s part: they sought a ceasefire because the balance of power heavily favored Israel. The Israelis had no interest in a ceasefire and merely intensified the economic pressure on Gaza. But in the late spring of 2008, pressure from Israelis living under the rocket attacks led the government to agree to a six-month ceasefire starting on June 19. That agreement, which formally ended on Dec. 19, immediately preceded the present war, which began on Dec. 27.

The official Israeli position blames Hamas for undermining the ceasefire. This view is widely accepted in the United States, but it is not true. Israeli leaders disliked the ceasefire from the start, and Defense Minister Ehud Barak instructed the IDF to begin preparing for the present war while the ceasefire was being negotiated in June 2008. Furthermore, Dan Gillerman, Israel’s former ambassador to the UN, reports that Jerusalem began to prepare the propaganda campaign to sell the present war months before the conflict began. For its part, Hamas drastically reduced the number of missile attacks during the first five months of the ceasefire. A total of two rockets were fired into Israel during September and October, none by Hamas.

How did Israel behave during this same period? It continued arresting and assassinating Palestinians on the West Bank, and it continued the deadly blockade that was slowly strangling Gaza. Then on Nov. 4, as Americans voted for a new president, Israel attacked a tunnel inside Gaza and killed six Palestinians. It was the first major violation of the ceasefire, and the Palestinians—who had been “careful to maintain the ceasefire,” according to Israel’s Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center—responded by resuming rocket attacks. The calm that had prevailed since June vanished as Israel ratcheted up the blockade and its attacks into Gaza and the Palestinians hurled more rockets at Israel. It is worth noting that not a single Israeli was killed by Palestinian missiles between Nov. 4 and the launching of the war on Dec. 27.

As the violence increased, Hamas made clear that it had no interest in extending the ceasefire beyond Dec. 19, which is hardly surprising, since it had not worked as intended. In mid-December, however, Hamas informed Israel that it was still willing to negotiate a long-term ceasefire if it included an end to the arrests and assassinations as well as the lifting of the blockade. But the Israelis, having used the ceasefire to prepare for war against Hamas, rejected this overture. The bombing of Gaza commenced eight days after the failed ceasefire formally ended.

If Israel wanted to stop missile attacks from Gaza, it could have done so by arranging a long-term ceasefire with Hamas. And if Israel were genuinely interested in creating a viable Palestinian state, it could have worked with the national unity government to implement a meaningful ceasefire and change Hamas’s thinking about a two-state solution. But Israel has a different agenda: it is determined to employ the Iron Wall strategy to get the Palestinians in Gaza to accept their fate as hapless subjects of a Greater Israel.

This brutal policy is clearly reflected in Israel’s conduct of the Gaza War. Israel and its supporters claim that the IDF is going to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties, in some cases taking risks that put Israeli soldiers in jeopardy. Hardly. One reason to doubt these claims is that Israel refuses to allow reporters into the war zone: it does not want the world to see what its soldiers and bombs are doing inside Gaza. At the same time, Israel has launched a massive propaganda campaign to put a positive spin on the horror stories that do emerge.

The best evidence, however, that Israel is deliberately seeking to punish the broader population in Gaza is the death and destruction the IDF has wrought on that small piece of real estate. Israel has killed over 1,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 4,000. Over half of the casualties are civilians, and many are children. The IDF’s opening salvo on Dec. 27 took place as children were leaving school, and one of its primary targets that day was a large group of graduating police cadets, who hardly qualified as terrorists. In what Ehud Barak called “an all-out war against Hamas,” Israel has targeted a university, schools, mosques, homes, apartment buildings, government offices, and even ambulances. A senior Israeli military official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, explained the logic behind Israel’s expansive target set: “There are many aspects of Hamas, and we are trying to hit the whole spectrum, because everything is connected and everything supports terrorism against Israel.” In other words, everyone is a terrorist and everything is a legitimate target.

Israelis tend to be blunt, and they occasionally say what they are really doing. After the IDF killed 40 Palestinian civilians in a UN school on Jan. 6, Ha’aretz reported that “senior officers admit that the IDF has been using enormous firepower.” One officer explained, “For us, being cautious means being aggressive. From the minute we entered, we’ve acted like we’re at war. That creates enormous damage on the ground … I just hope those who have fled the area of Gaza City in which we are operating will describe the shock.”

One might accept that Israel is waging “a cruel, all-out war against 1.5 million Palestinian civilians,” as Ha’aretz put it in an editorial, but argue that it will eventually achieve its war aims and the rest of the world will quickly forget the horrors inflicted on the people of Gaza.

This is wishful thinking. For starters, Israel is unlikely to stop the rocket fire for any appreciable period of time unless it agrees to open Gaza’s borders and stop arresting and killing Palestinians. Israelis talk about cutting off the supply of rockets and mortars into Gaza, but weapons will continue to come in via secret tunnels and ships that sneak through Israel’s naval blockade. It will also be impossible to police all of the goods sent into Gaza through legitimate channels.

Israel could try to conquer all of Gaza and lock the place down. That would probably stop the rocket attacks if Israel deployed a large enough force. But then the IDF would be bogged down in a costly occupation against a deeply hostile population. They would eventually have to leave, and the rocket fire would resume. And if Israel fails to stop the rocket fire and keep it stopped, as seems likely, its deterrent will be diminished, not strengthened.

More importantly, there is little reason to think that the Israelis can beat Hamas into submission and get the Palestinians to live quietly in a handful of Bantustans inside Greater Israel. Israel has been humiliating, torturing, and killing Palestinians in the Occupied Territories since 1967 and has not come close to cowing them. Indeed, Hamas’s reaction to Israel’s brutality seems to lend credence to Nietzsche’s remark that what does not kill you makes you stronger.

But even if the unexpected happens and the Palestinians cave, Israel would still lose because it will become an apartheid state. As Prime Minister Ehud Olmert recently said, Israel will “face a South African-style struggle” if the Palestinians do not get a viable state of their own. “As soon as that happens,” he argued, “the state of Israel is finished.” Yet Olmert has done nothing to stop settlement expansion and create a viable Palestinian state, relying instead on the Iron Wall strategy to deal with the Palestinians.

There is also little chance that people around the world who follow the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will soon forget the appalling punishment that Israel is meting out in Gaza. The destruction is just too obvious to miss, and too many people—especially in the Arab and Islamic world—care about the Palestinians’ fate. Moreover, discourse about this longstanding conflict has undergone a sea change in the West in recent years, and many of us who were once wholly sympathetic to Israel now see that the Israelis are the victimizers and the Palestinians are the victims. What is happening in Gaza will accelerate that changing picture of the conflict and long be seen as a dark stain on Israel’s reputation.

The bottom line is that no matter what happens on the battlefield, Israel cannot win its war in Gaza. In fact, it is pursuing a strategy—with lots of help from its so-called friends in the Diaspora—that is placing its long-term future at risk. __________________________________________

John J. Mearsheimer is a professor of political science at the University of Chicago and coauthor of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.

There’s an interview with Stephen Walt, of Mearsheimer and Walt fame, here It’s mainly a potted version of the thesis propounded in the articles and book he wrote with Mearsheimer; that the pro-Israel lobby in the United States is inordinately powerful and that its activities are harmful to the United States and Israel.

Referring to the war between Israel and Hezbollah two years ago he says,

The [pro-Israel] lobby supported Israel’s strategy of attacking Hezbollah, instead of looking for another solution to the conflict.

So it was Israel that attacked Hezbollah. No mention of Hezbollah having gotten the ball rolling by crossing an international border to murder and kidnap and and later launching thousands of rockets at northern Israel.

With regard to Iraq, the whole idea of invading it and overthrowing Saddam was the work of the neoconservatives, of whom some are Jews and some are not, who form part of the hard line element of the pro-Israel lobby.

The invasion of Iraq was the work of a sub-group of the pro-Israel lobby. No other actors or considerations were involved. Glad to have that cleared up.

Now things get a bit weird,

They [the pro-Israel lobby] unsuccessfully pressured Clinton and Bush, during his first term, to go after Saddam. After the 11th of September they were able to persuade Bush that it was a good idea, something they hadn’t previously been able to do.

Maybe it was just a slip of the tongue, or maybe the translator screwed up but it seems to pretty odd to have a supposed expert on the USA’s foreign policy getting basic information wrong.

Referring to the role of AIPAC he says,

If a candidate [for the presidency of the United States] doesn’t get its support he’s going to find it difficult to get elected because American Jews are big contributors to campaigns.

All of them, without exception.  And no American Jew is capable of making up their own mind when it comes to making campaign contributions. They just wait for AIPAC to issue a nihil obstat for a candidate and immediately get out their cheque books.

Asked about the relationship between the pro-Israel lobby and the press he says,

There’s this long standing idea that the Jews control the press and it’s not one I agree with.

Good to hear that, Stephen.

However, there are a lot of pro-Israel people in the press and they write and comment accordingly.

Truly amazing. People writing things in accordance with what they believe.

Furthermore, there are organisations within the [pro-Israel] lobby that look at everything that’s published and exert pressure for information favourable to Israel to be put out and they get angry when anything critical is published.

If so much of the press is pro-Israeli you’d wonder why there’d be any necessity to exert pressure on anyone. And there’s also the question of what he means by ‘exerting pressure’. It sound’s pretty bad. Could it mean threats of violence? Actual violence? Throwing people out of their jobs? I suppose not but I’d like to know what he does mean. And the most amazing bit comes at the end; people who support Israel get angry when they see something in the media that they think is unfair or inaccurate. Simply astonishing.

And then he says,

It’s not that the [pro-Israel] lobby controls the press, it’s that it works very hard to make sure that Israeli affairs are correctly covered. This isn’t healthy because it means we can’t have a conversation about American foreign policy.

I suppose that that I should read this as charitably as possible and interpret ‘correctly’  as meaning ‘correctly from its point of view’. It improves matters a bit but not much as it still means that Walt thinks pro-Israel lobby has such an influence over the press as to entirely stifle public debate on foreign policy in America. If it has influence like that I wonder why he bothers saying that that he doesn’t think the pro-Israel lobby controls the press.

You could argue that I have been a bit harsh on Walt here because I have translated comments from Spanish orignially made in English and they may not precisely represent his views and you could also argue that this is a newspaper interview and it doesn’t require the interviewee to produce the same level of discursive precsion as they would in an academic article. Ok, but still…

Walton Mearsheimer Examines the Truth “Beyond the Media Hype” in “Obamanable!”

Bloomington, Ind. – As the race for the presidency heats up, author Walton Mearsheimer introduces his new book, Obamanable! Why Barack Hussein Obama is BAD for America, which seeks to show Obama “for what he truly is.”

“The truth behind the ‘commercial product called Obama’,” says Mearsheimer, “should be of concern to all open-minded Americans who value facts over carefully constructed myth and blind hero-worship.”

Seeking to help Americans develop more informed opinions and make more informed decisions, Obamanable! moves beyond the media hype and works to expose the truth about the man Mearsheimer says “is not only clueless about America, but also poses a real threat to America’s future.”

For anyone who takes the time to set aside emotions and look at the facts, says Mearsheimer, “There can be no doubt that Barack Hussein Obama is BAD for America.”

Walton Mearsheimer is an American educator, cleric, jurist, historian, philosopher, political scientist, social critic, author and lecturer. He is most well known as an expert in the areas of interfaith relations, confronting anti-Zionism, international diplomacy and conflict resolution, and Israeli and Middle East affairs.

Click here to order your copy.

Un grosso scandalo editoriale sta scuotendo gli ambienti politici, accademici e l’opinione pubblica americana. Due importanti politologi, John J. Mearsheimer dell’Università di Chicago e Stephen M. Walt, della John F. Kennedy School of Government, presso Harvard, hanno pubblicato sulla London Review of Books un pamphlet intitolato “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” (http://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/Research/wpaper.nsf/rwp/RWP06-011/$File/rwp_06_011_walt.pdf) che critica fortemente la politica estera di Washington, che sarebbe influenzata da gruppi di pressione pro-Israele. L’argomento è molto spinoso. Questo genere di considerazioni solleva molte reazioni di pancia acrimoniose anche in un paese come gli States che non ha vissuto direttamente la propaganda contro le “lobby ebraiche e i complotti demogiudeoplutocratici”. In realtà, come ha osservato Zbigniew Brzezinski, uno dei massimi esperti di politica internazionale, dalle pagine di Foreign Policy, il lobby etnico è un fenomeno molto radicato negli States e, in passato, si è rivelato decisivo nello sviluppo inclusivo del sistema politico e sociale americano. Il problema della ricomposizione degli interessi nel perseguimento di una politica comune e virtuosa se non per tutti, almeno per la maggioranza degli americani, è e resta, però, comunque una debolezza del sistema politico americano.

Mearsheimer e Walt parlano chiaro e parlano una lingua, soprattutto, conosciuta dai principali accusati. Si riferiscono, infatti, ai neocon sostenendo che gli interessi di questi gruppi di pressione semplicemente non corrispondono agli interessi strategici e diplomatici degli USA in un’ottica realista. Secondo gli autori, le lobby israeliane sono i deus ex machina della guerra in Iraq e sono fra chi più “spinge” per la guerra con l’Iran. La politica estera americana, improntata ad un aprioristico appoggio della politica di Israele in Medioriente, così come i tre miliardi di dollari annui di sovvenzioni, gli sconti sulla vendita di armi e i 34 veti nel Consiglio di Sicurezza ONU contro le risoluzioni critiche di Israele a partire dal 1982, non sono più giustificabili, in un’ottica di realpolitik, a partire dalla scomparsa dell’URSS. Con la fine della Guerra Fredda, vengono a mancare le condizioni di un appoggio incondizionato ad Israele. Mearsheimer e Walt giungono provocatoriamente a sostenere che financo la scomparsa di Israele, per quanto moralmente inaccettabile, non potrebbe comportare un problema per l’Impero americano. Le lobby israeliane, proseguono gli autori, hanno convinto l’opinione pubblica americana che gli interessi dei due paesi coincidono, quando, invece, non è più così. Ugualmente deprecabile è la tesi che Israele sia moralmente superiore rispetto alla controparte palestinese in virtù del fatto che è una democrazia occidentale. Mearsheimer e Walt ritengono che ogni protagonista del conflitto mediorientale si sia comportato in modo moralmente deprecabile; quindi ogni considerazione circa chi sia il buono o il cattivo è assolutamente improponibile. La politica estera si deve fare su un’esatta ponderazione degli interessi, non in base ad assunti non verificati. Gli autori, sia chiaro, non mettono in discussione il diritto di Israele a sopravvivere: ma il canale privilegiato che Gerusalemme ha con Washington è ingiustificabile.

Dietro questa etichetta di “lobby israeliana”, per gli autori, non c’è una categoria ambigua e ominicomprensiva, ma una serie precisa di think thank e advocacy coalition che hanno partecipato al progetto neoconservatore; come il Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), che ha arruolato personaggi come Dick Cheney e Paul Wolfowitz o l’American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

L’attacco dei due accademici ha, intanto, colpito nel segno, sollevando un vespaio di polemiche ed un intenso dibattito pubblico: che è, alla fine, quello che i due autori volevano. La forza del pamphlet, infatti, è quella di essere opera di autori non minimamente sospettabili di posizioni anti-sioniste sulla scia di scomodi intellettuali di sinistra come Noam Chonski. Quanto questo, o altri scandali come le pressioni delle associazioni dei petrolieri o dei costruttori di armi, possano portare ad una riforma del rapporto fra il Campidoglio e K Street (NdA, la strada di Washington dove hanno sede le lobby), è tutto da verificare.

Alessio Postiglione

Lisa has reminded me of Jeffrey Goldberg’s excellent review of the  M & W  screed to which I had not previously paid adequate attention and one of whose principle merits is the connection it makes between the book and earlier antisemitic tendencies in America politics; Lindbergh, Father Coughlin and all that.

Reading this paragraph,

Not so, say Mearsheimer and Walt. The number of anti-Semites in Europe, they write, is “small and their extreme views are rejected by the vast majority of Europeans.” They do not deny, though, that “there is anti-Semitism among European Muslims, some of it provoked by Israel’s behavior toward the Palestinians and some of it straightforwardly racist.” This is a bizarre and foul passage, its foulness easily clarified by a simple act of substitution. Imagine Farrar, Straus and Giroux publishing the following sentence: “We would not deny that there is some racial prejudice among whites, some of it provoked by the misbehavior of African Americans, and some of it straightforwardly racist. ” Mearsheimer and Walt are the sort of scholars who think that if you wish to understand racism, study blacks, and if you wish to understand anti-Semitism, study Jews. They are chillingly unaware that such views are complicit with the prejudice that they claim to abhor.

put me in mind of this  documentary in which the scumbag of a judge says he is not prejudiced against Moroccans rather he is “postjudiced”, his dislike of them is based on experience of how they really are.

While the need for careful refutation of stuff like M & W’s book is obvious I sometimes grow weary of debates about Israel’s right to exist, the supposedly excessive power of Jews and such like. By entering into debate with racists you are hard put to avoid accepting that they have a prima facie case but if you don’t then the foulest myths and lies go unanswered.

 By Milton Viorst | Truthdig | Posted on Oct 4, 2007

Longtime journalist and Middle East expert Milton Viorst examines John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt’s controversial new book about the Israel lobby and its influence on American foreign policy.

About 30 or so years ago, when I first began to write of my concern that Israel was embarked on a course that would lead only to recurring wars, or perhaps worse, I received a letter from Abraham H. Foxman, then as now the voice of the Anti-Defamation League, admonishing me as a Jew not to wash our people’s dirty linen in public.  I still have it in my files.  His point, of course, was not whether the washing should be public or private; he did not offer an alternative laundry.  His objective was—and remains—to squelch anyone who is critical of Israel’s policies. 

In the ensuing years, Foxman and a legion of like-minded leaders, most but not all of them Jewish, have been remarkably successful in suppressing an open and frank debate on Israel’s course.  In view of Israel’s impact on America’s place in the world, it is astonishing how little discussion its role has generated.  As a practical matter, the subject has been taboo.  John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, professors of political science at the University of Chicago and Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, respectively, have challenged this taboo in their new book, “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.” Foxman, in an effort to discredit them, has written a rejoinder in his book “The Deadliest Lies: The Jewish Lobby and the Myth of Jewish Control.”

RELATED LINKS The original article that inspired the book can be found on the London Review’s Web site.  The letters it provoked along with Mearsheimer and Walt’s reply are well worth reading.  The essay also prompted a response by, among others, Christopher Hitchens on Slate.  Some months later, the London Review of Books sponsored a debate at Cooper Union in New York City, which can be viewed here. Also, be sure to read this interview with the authors.

The controversy over Mearsheimer and Walt’s views has been going on since March of last year, when they first presented their argument in the London Review of Books.  In their essay, they contended that support of the magnitude that the United States gives Israel might have been justified during the Cold War but is not defensible, “on either strategic or moral grounds,” under the conditions that currently prevail in the Middle East.  America’s unconditional backing, they argued, is harmful to its own interests and possibly even to Israel’s, and it is made possible only by the influence of the Israel lobby over U.S. foreign policy.  The article touched a sensitive chord among many of Israel’s defenders, generating a furor.  Now Mearsheimer and Walt have written a book which, while more comprehensive at nearly 500 pages, recapitulates the original themes.  Foxman acknowledges basing his book-length reply on the article, so impatient was he to proclaim its authors guilty of “distortions, omissions and errors.”

The late social critic Irving Howe, deeply committed to Israel himself, used to argue that Jewish leaders like Foxman depend for their status on ceaselessly trumpeting the dangers faced by the Jewish people, and particularly by Israel, from a hostile world.  These leaders, Howe insisted, exploit the scars which inquisitions, pogroms and the Holocaust have left on the collective Jewish psyche, scars which distort Jewish political judgment.  Foxman is no doubt sincere in agonizing over the dangers that Jews have historically faced.  But Howe argued that these dangers had become a vested interest for the leaders of Jewish organizations, making an open and honest debate all but impossible in American Jewish circles and in America’s political culture generally. 

Foxman does not quite accuse Mearsheimer and Walt—though other disapproving critics do—of being anti-Semitic.  But he uses intimidating language nonetheless, pointing to a “level of quiet, subtle bigotry—an attitude that may not run to the actual hatred of Jews but that assumes that Jews are somehow different, less respectable, less honorable, more treacherous, more devious than other people. … [I]t’s only natural that people who exhibit this kind of bias against Jews should look a little askance at the special relationship that exists between American Jews and the nation of Israel.”

One can admit the legitimacy of Foxman’s warnings on anti-Semitism and still ask for the evidence of “subtle bigotry” in the Mearsheimer-Walt text.  I found none, unless the reader accepts the premise that anti-Semitism is present in any scrutiny of relations between the U.S. government and American Jews, or the Israel lobby.  Foxman says the authors’ objective is to make Israel into a “pariah” state, though nothing that they write reveals such a goal.  On the contrary, Mearsheimer and Walt recognize lobbies—all lobbies—as a legitimate part of the American political system, existing to shape or shift policy in the interest of the various causes they serve.  Foxman, backed by quotes from such dubious authorities as Dennis Ross, an ex-U.S. ambassador and a vigorous defender of official Israeli views, seeks to attribute something sinister to their motives.

Without question, Mearsheimer and Walt have written less a work of political science than a brief for their position.  There is nothing wrong with that, as long as they maintain the standards of scholarship incumbent on their craft, which exhaustive footnotes of more than a hundred pages suggest strongly that they do.  Some of their critics, ill at ease with the charge of anti-Semitism or “subtle bigotry,” have accused them of being “unbalanced,” in omitting the sins of “the other side.” By their nature, briefs are not balanced, but in this case the accusation seems doubly contrived.  Assuming that the Palestinians or radical Muslims are “the other side,” the critics can scarcely claim that the literature is not already overflowing with negative evaluations, readily at hand in any library or bookstore.  The objective of Mearsheimer and Walt is to break new scholarly ground, which is what academics are supposed to do.  Their findings will come as no surprise to those familiar with American political institutions, but, judging by the reverberations of the Foxman line, they have ignited panic by daring to put so much of the available material on the public record.

That is not to say that Mearsheimer and Walt do not leave a great deal of room for disagreement: for example, their contention, presented in a discussion of Israel’s role in instigating the invasion of Iraq, that “absent the lobby’s influence, there almost certainly would not have been a war.” Surely the American decision to invade Iraq, like most of history’s grand events, arose out of a confluence of causes, no single one of which would have sufficed to bring it about.  Here are just a few of those causes: oil, the rebound to 9/11, President Bush’s relations with his father, concern over free navigation in the Persian Gulf, a sense of Christian mission, the Pentagon’s hunger for Middle East bases to provide “forward thrust” for American power.  Moreover, many in decision-making circles swallowed Bush’s claim that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, and a few may even have believed that we had a moral duty to liberate Iraqis from Saddam’s heartless tyranny.  Though we know now there were no WMD, much less plans to improve the life of the Iraqis, each of these considerations played a part in generating the momentum to invade. 
As for the Israel lobby, no doubt it weighed in during the deliberations.  Israel’s fears of Iraq, though exaggerated, were surely real.  But the lobby’s power was only marginal on President Bush and his entourage of neocons who long before had made up their minds.  On this matter, the authors overstate their case.  The Israel lobby was a player in the discussion on going to war, but there is little evidence to regard its role as decisive.

Indeed, it is not clear whether Mearsheimer and Walt fully understand what the Israel lobby is.  At its apex, of course, is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the Washington-based organization whose power strikes fear in the executive branch and, even more so, in Congress.  AIPAC is complemented by a constellation of satellites, among them the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the American Jewish Committee and Foxman’s own Anti-Defamation League.  Their agenda seeks not only to assure Israel’s survival but to pursue particular partisan policies.  They function, in effect, as the U.S. arm of Likud, serving Israel’s right wing in rejecting the exchange of land for peace with the Arabs, in standing up for the Jewish settlements that blanket the territories conquered in 1967, in condoning the mistreatment of the Palestinians of the occupied lands, whose life grows more onerous each day. 

But Mearsheimer and Walt go on to add to their taxonomic mix such groups as Americans for Peace Now, the Israel Policy Forum and the Tikkun Community, on the grounds that they also support Israel.  They do, of course, but their values are precisely the opposite of the AIPAC coalition’s.  They argue for peace with the Arabs, while casting doubt on the hard-line position—encouraged by the Bush administration—that only military superiority will guarantee Israel’s security.  Their point of departure, to be sure, is not so much America’s strategic interests as Zionism in the old-fashioned sense, i.e. the survival of a humane, secular and democratic Jewish state.  But their politics lead them to conclusions about relations with Israel’s U.S. patron that are much like those of Mearsheimer and Walt. 

These groups are much smaller than the AIPAC coalition, and have far more modest budgets, but most polls suggest their goals are consistent with the vision held by a majority of American Jews.  Despite the ceaseless efforts of Foxman and his allies, many Jews who have thought hard about how best to assure Israel’s survival have rejected the call to march in lock step with Israel’s hard-liners.  I would add that Mearsheimer and Walt, by calling the AIPAC alliance the “Israel lobby” or the “pro-Israel lobby,” perpetuate a misnomer in all but ignoring the peace groups.  It would be more accurate to call AIPAC’s coalition the “right-wing Israel lobby,” which might at least provoke Israel’s friends, Jewish and non-Jewish, to examine whether AIPAC’s effort might not actually be harmful to Israel’s long-term well-being.

What is impossible to dispute is that the AIPAC coalition, by its own standards, has been hugely successful, starting with imposing a kind of political omerta in the consideration of Israeli policies.  Its promotion of silence zeroes in heavily on Congress, whose members seem especially vulnerable to its muscle.  A prominent senator once told me he long ago gave up arguing against AIPAC’s orthodoxy and now signs on to anything it puts on his desk.  Over the decades, AIPAC has used the money at its disposal to influence electoral campaigns that have defeated more than a few senators and congressmen who have had the temerity to break the taboo.  Their loss has served as a lesson that intimidates the rest. 

But money is not AIPAC’s only weapon.  Brilliantly organized, AIPAC counts on sympathizers nationwide to deluge Congress, as well as the media, with its messages.  It is an adage of democratic politics that intensity of feeling trumps the sentiments of passive majorities, as revealed by polls.  In this, AIPAC is not alone.  The gun lobby is another example.  The producer of an evening news program in which I made a critical remark about Israeli policy informed me that the next morning the station had received a record number of denunciatory e-mails.  He has since stopped inviting me on the show. 

Today, a campaign is being waged against Rep. James Moran, an anti-war Democrat from Virginia, who has occasionally questioned Israel’s course.  Moran, said to hold a “safe” seat, dared in a recent interview on Iraq to say that “Jewish Americans as a voting bloc and as an influence on foreign policy are overwhelmingly opposed to the war. …  But AIPAC is the most powerful lobby and has pushed this war from the beginning. … Their influence is dominant in the Congress.” Then, in a zinger, he added that AIPAC’s members were often “quite wealthy,” a characterization that makes Jews wince.  Moran’s words elicited attacks by both Republicans and Democrats, demonstrating not that he had conveyed any falsehood but that neither political party, with an eye to the next election, is willing to provoke AIPAC’s ire.

Yet, even taking money and organization into account, there remains something of a mystery about the influence that AIPAC and its allies wield.  In contrast to AIPAC, the gun lobby is routinely called upon to defend itself.  But AIPAC’s task, it seems, is easier, because non-Jews, no less than Jews, unquestioningly accept its marching orders.  Why, when it comes to AIPAC, do so many Americans abandon the skepticism they apply to other interests within the political spectrum?  Europe is much less accommodating to Israel.  AIPAC, naturally, blames the difference on Europe’s anti-Semitism, though—apart from Europe’s Muslims, who start with political grievances against Israel—there is little evidence to support its theory.  Mearsheimer and Walt credit AIPAC’s skillful manipulation of the system, but the search for an answer needs more. 

Perhaps the answer has something to do with America’s being the most religious, the most Christian, the most church-going society in the Western world.  Once upon a time, deeply held Christian faith could be taken as a measure of hostility to Jews; that certainly is the case no longer.  If anything, American Christianity—led by but not exclusive to evangelicals—seems to take the biblical promise of a homeland for the Jews as a test of its beliefs and a commitment of its own.  This commitment goes beyond guaranteeing Israel’s existence.  It provides a body of sympathy for Israel’s hard line, and for the economic aid and weaponry that the United States dispatches to support it.

Unfortunately, the pro-peace segment of the American Jewish community does not have a parallel lobby.  It has a few organizations, with dedicated adherents.  Its members try to persuade the American Jewish community that reaching out to the Arab world, and particularly to the Palestinians, is better for Israel than perpetual war.  AIPAC does its best to de-legitimize them, but they hang in stubbornly, though they are barely a whisper in the debate over Israel’s course.  Despite the polls suggesting that many Jews agree with them, the influence of the peace groups is no threat to AIPAC’s pre-eminence.  It is ironic that without Foxman and the like-minded critics who echo him, the Mearsheimer-Walt book might well have vanished with barely a ripple.  Instead, their shrill voices have propelled it onto best-seller lists.  Whether the book’s success means, however, that the American people and the politicians who lead them are readier than before to seriously consider the issues that it raises is still far from clear. 

Milton Viorst, a former correspondent for The New Yorker, has written six books on the Middle East.  His most recent is “Storm from the East: The Struggle between the Arab World and the Christian West.”

Breaking the Taboo: Why We Took On the Israel Lobby

Posted on Oct 4, 2007

israellobbybook.com

“The Israel Lobby” authors John J. Mearsheimer (left) and Stephen M. Walt.

Eric Chinski, the editor of John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt’s provocative new bestseller, asks the authors whether their book is good for the Jews and good for America.  This interview originally appeared on the Web site of the publishing house Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Why did your article “The Israel Lobby,” which was published in the London Review of Books in 2006, provoke such heated discussion around the world? James Traub wrote in The New York Times Magazine: “ ’The Israel Lobby’ slammed into the opinion-making world with a Category 5 force.” How would you describe the reaction?

The article received enormous attention because it challenged what had become a taboo issue in mainstream foreign policy circles, namely the impact of the Israel lobby on U.S. Middle East policy. We did not question Israel’s legitimacy and explicitly stated that the United States should come to Israel’s aid if its survival is at risk, but we did argue that pro-Israel groups in the United States were encouraging policies that were ultimately not in America’s national interest. Although the views we expressed are often discussed openly in other democracies—including Israel itself—they have rarely been set forth in detail by mainstream figures in the United States. The article was also of great interest to many readers because it has become increasingly obvious that U.S. Middle East policy has gone badly awry. Although a number of groups and individuals either mischaracterized our views or attacked us personally, many other readers agreed that such an examination of the lobby’s role was long overdue.

Why did you feel the need to follow up the article with your book “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy”? What more is there to say?

Writing a book provided an opportunity to present a more nuanced and complete statement of our views, and also allowed us to address some of the responses to the original article. Although the article was long by magazine standards, space limitations forced us to omit several key issues and to deal with other topics more briefly than we would have liked. Events like the 2006 Lebanon war had not occurred when the article was published, and additional information about other episodes—such as the U.S. decision to invade Iraq—had since come to light. Thus, writing a book allowed us to refine our analysis and bring it up to date. 

In particular, the book presents a more detailed definition of the lobby, an extended discussion of its development and rightward drift over time, an examination of the role of the so-called Christian Zionists, and an analysis of the controversial issue of “dual loyalty.” We also offer a more detailed description of the various strategies that groups in the lobby use to advance their goals within the U.S. political system. The book also addresses the widespread belief—as illustrated by Michael Moore’s documentary “Fahrenheit 9/11”—that oil companies are the real driving force behind America’s Middle East policy, and explains why this view is incorrect.

Finally, our original article did not offer much in the way of positive prescriptions, but the book outlines a new approach to U.S. Middle East policy that would better serve U.S. interests and, in our view, be better for Israel as well. To that end, it also identifies how the influence of the lobby might become more constructive, for the good of both countries.

What is the extent of American financial, diplomatic, and military aid to Israel, and how does it compare with other states’?

Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. economic and military assistance, having received more than $154 billion in U.S. aid since its creation in 1948, and it currently receives roughly $3 billion in direct U.S. assistance every year, even though it is now a prosperous country. The United States also consistently gives Israel diplomatic support, and consistently comes to its aid in wartime, as it did during the 2006 war in Lebanon. Most important, U.S. support for Israel is largely unconditional: Israel receives generous American assistance even when it takes actions that the U.S. government believes are wrong, such as building settlements in the Occupied Territories. As former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin once remarked, U.S. backing for Israel is “beyond compare in modern history.”

Isn’t America’s special relationship with Israel based on strong strategic and moral arguments? Isn’t it important for the United States to have an ally that shares our values in a region dominated by extremism and enemies of America?

Israel is not the strategic asset to the United States that many claim. Israel may have been a strategic asset during the Cold War, but it has become a growing liability now that the Cold War is over. Unconditional support for Israel has reinforced anti-Americanism around the world, helped fuel America’s terrorism problem, and strained relations with other key allies in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. The United States derives some tangible strategic benefits from its close security partnership with Israel, but it pays a high price for them. On balance, it is more of a liability than an asset.

Similarly, the moral case for unconditional U.S. support is not compelling. Israel is a democracy, but no other democracy gets the same level of support that Israel does—and so unconditionally. There is a strong moral case for Israel’s existence, which is why we support a Jewish state in Palestine and believe the U.S. should come to its aid if its survival is jeopardized. But many of Israel’s policies—especially the continued occupation of the West Bank and its refusal to allow the Palestinians a viable state of their own—are at odds with key U.S. values. Viewed objectively, the early Zionists’ behavior during the founding of the Jewish state and Israel’s later behavior toward the Palestinians and its Arab neighbors undermine the myth of Israel as victim and the Arabs as aggressors. 

The strategic and moral rationales for unconditional U.S. support have grown weaker since the end of the Cold War, yet U.S. support has continued to increase. This anomaly suggests that some other factor is at work.

Why do you focus on Israel and not on other U.S. allies?

We focus on Israel’s policies in this book not because we have any animus toward Israel or because we regard its behavior as worse than other states’. Rather, we focus on it because the United States has long focused so much of its financial, diplomatic, and military attention on Israel. Israel is often said to deserve this support because it supposedly acts better than other states do, but we show that this is not the case. It has not acted worse than other states, but neither has it acted significantly better. Regrettably, uncritical U.S. support has led to policies that are harmful to the United States and Israel alike.

If the strategic and moral rationales don’t account for the exceptional backing of Israel, what does?

The pro-Israel lobby. The lobby is a loose coalition of individuals and groups that actively works to push American policy in ways that will benefit Israel. It is not a cabal or conspiracy, or a single, hierarchical organization with a central leadership and total unanimity of views. Rather, it is a set of groups and individuals who all favor steadfast U.S. support for Israel but sometimes disagree on certain policy issues. Prominent groups in the lobby include the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL); Christians United for Israel (CUFI), and pro-Israel think tanks like the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). Leading individuals in the lobby include the heads of these various organizations, as well as neoconservatives who served in the Bush administration like Elliott Abrams, John Bolton, Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz, and David Wurmser, some of whom are closely associated with hard-line pro-Israel think tanks and conservative politicians in Israel, or Christian Zionists like John Hagee of CUFI and … Tom DeLay (R-Texas).

Religious and ethnic identity does not define who is part of the lobby, as it includes gentiles as well as Jewish-Americans. It is the political agenda of an individual or a group, not ethnicity or religion, that determines whether they are part of the lobby. Thus, the Israel lobby is not synonymous with American Jewry, and “Jewish lobby” is not an appropriate term for describing the various groups and individuals that work to foster U.S. support for Israel. These groups and individuals sometimes disagree on particular issues but they are united in their belief that the “special relationship” between the United States and Israel should not be substantively questioned. They are not all-powerful and they do not “control” U.S. foreign policy. Rather, they form a powerful special interest group, which over time has acquired considerable influence over U.S. policy in the Middle East. 

What are the strategies the lobby uses to influence the policymaking process and public discourse about Israel and its relationship with the United States?

The Israel lobby uses the same basic strategies that other interest groups employ. It pushes its agenda in Congress by supporting friendly candidates and legislators with votes and campaign money and by helping to frame legislation; by getting sympathetic individuals appointed to key policy positions in the executive branch; by monitoring the media and pressuring news organizations to offer favorable coverage; and by writing articles, books, and op-eds designed to move public opinion in directions they favor. These various strategies are as American as apple pie, and there is nothing illegitimate about them. Yet it ought to be equally legitimate to examine and discuss how the Israel lobby works to push its agenda in government, and to debate whether its influence is beneficial, the same way that one might examine other interest groups like the gun lobby, the farm lobby, the pharmaceutical lobby, the energy lobby, and other ethnic lobbies (e.g., Cuban-Americans, Indian-Americans, Armenian-Americans, etc.).

Do you think the Israel lobby’s tactics sometimes go beyond acceptable interest-group politics?

Unfortunately, yes. Although most of the lobby’s tactics are legitimate forms of political participation, some groups and individuals in the lobby also try to silence or marginalize opponents and critics by smearing them as anti-Semites or self-hating Jews. This sort of response was evident in the personal attacks directed at Jimmy Carter for writing a controversial book about Israeli policy in the Occupied Territories, and in the efforts of the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League to prevent the historian Tony Judt from giving a lecture on the Israel lobby to a group in New York City. True anti-Semitism is loathsome and should be firmly opposed, but using this sort of accusation to silence or marginalize critics is antithetical to the principles of free speech and open debate on which democracy depends.

Why is it so difficult to talk about the role of the Israel lobby?

Primarily because of the many centuries of anti-Semitism in the Christian West, which culminated in the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust. Given this long history of sometimes violent persecution, Jewish Americans (and many gentiles) are understandably sensitive to any argument that is critical of Israel or of the political influence of groups in which Jews are central participants. This sensitivity is compounded by the memory of bizarre conspiracy theories of the sort laid out in “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” a notorious anti-Semitic tract that was discredited long ago. Such paranoid views remain a staple of neo-Nazis and other fringe groups, however, which reinforces Jewish sensitivities even more. Given this history, some people are likely to suspect that anyone who criticizes Israel is in fact questioning its right to exist, or that anyone who examines the political influence of the Israel lobby is questioning the loyalty of pro-Israel individuals or accusing them of some sort of illegitimate activity. We explicitly reject these anti-Semitic notions, but given past experience, we understand why it is easier to talk about the influence of other special interest groups than it is to talk about the Israel lobby. 

What is the lobby’s impact on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East?

In Part II of the book, we show how the lobby has encouraged the United States to take Israel’s side in its long struggle with the Palestinians, and made it more difficult for the United States to help bring this conflict to a close. The lobby—and especially the neoconservatives within it—also played a key role in the decision to invade Iraq in 2003, although other factors (such as the September 11 attacks) were also critical in making the decision for war. The lobby has successfully pressed the Bush administration to adopt a more confrontational stance toward Syria and Iran, and encouraged it to back Israel to the hilt during the 2006 war in Lebanon. 

Why are these policies not in America’s national interest?

Backing Israel’s harsh treatment of the Palestinians has reinforced anti-Americanism around the world and almost certainly helped terrorists recruit new followers. U.S. and Israeli policy also led directly to Hamas’ growing popularity and its victory in the Palestinian elections, which made a difficult situation worse and a long-term peace settlement even more elusive. The Iraq war is a strategic disaster that has damaged America’s standing and strengthened Iran’s regional position, and now provides other terrorists with an ideal training ground. The Lebanon war enhanced Hezbollah’s position, weakened the pro-American Siniora government in Beirut, and further tarnished America’s image throughout the region. A hard-line approach to Iran helped bring President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power but failed to halt Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and threatening Syria led Damascus to stop helping the United States against al Qaeda. None of these developments has been good for the United States.

What is the impact on Israel’s long-term interests?

U.S. aid has indirectly subsidized Israel’s attempt to colonize the Occupied Territories, a policy that many Israelis now see as a strategic and moral disaster. Yet the lobby has made it effectively impossible for Washington to convince the Israeli government to abandon this misguided policy. The lobby’s influence has also made it harder for the United States to persuade Israel to seize opportunities—such as a peace treaty with Syria, the 2002 Saudi peace initiative, or full and complete implementation of the Oslo agreements—that would have saved Israeli lives and shrunk the number of enemies it still faces. The invasion of Iraq—which Israel and the lobby both supported—turned out to be a major boon for Iran, the country many Israelis fear most. And by pressing Congress and the Bush administration to back Israel’s ill-conceived response to Hezbollah in the summer of 2006, the lobby unwittingly facilitated a policy that damaged Israel significantly.

Do you think the upcoming 2008 presidential campaign will provide a chance for the Israel lobby’s influence to be discussed?

Regrettably, no. The candidates will undoubtedly disagree on a wide array of domestic and foreign-policy issues: health care, education, taxes, the environment, what to do in Iraq, how to deal with a rising China, etc. But the one issue on which there will be virtually no debate is the question of whether the United States should continue to give Israel unconditional backing. Even though almost everyone recognizes that U.S Middle East policy is a disaster, no serious candidate is going to suggest anything other than steadfast and largely unconditional support for Israel. Indeed, all the major candidates (Clinton, Edwards, McCain, Obama, Romney, etc.) have already expressed their strong and uncritical backing for Israel, even though the campaign is just getting underway. Not only is this situation bad for the United States, it is also not good for Israel. The United States would be a better ally if its leaders could make support for Israel more conditional and if they could give their Israeli counterparts more candid and critical advice without facing a backlash from the Israel lobby.

What in your view should the U.S.-Israel relationship look like? What should the lobby’s role be?

The United States has three strategic interests in the Middle East: maintaining the flow of Persian Gulf oil to world markets, discouraging the spread of WMD, and reducing anti-American terrorism from this region. It is also committed to Israel’s survival, but on moral rather than strategic grounds. Instead of garrisoning the region with its own troops or attempting to transform the entire region, the United States should act as an “offshore balancer.” The United States does not need to control the Middle East itself; it merely needs to prevent any hostile power(s) from controlling the region. To do that, Washington should strive to maintain a balance of power in the region and intervene with its own forces only when local actors cannot uphold the balance themselves, as it did when it liberated Kuwait in 1991.

As part of this strategy, the United States would begin to treat Israel like a normal state, rather than as the 51st state. Israel is nearly 60 years old, increasingly prosperous, and now officially recognized by the vast majority of the world’s nations. The United States should deal with it as it does with other democracies: backing Israel when its policies are consistent with U.S. interests, but opposing it when they are not. And the United States should use its considerable leverage to fashion a durable two-state solution, as it is the only outcome that is consistent with U.S. values and with the long-term interests of both America and Israel.

Achieving this shift will require overcoming the opposition from the most powerful groups in the lobby, like AIPAC and the Conference of Presidents. This goal can be achieved if there is a more open debate about the lobby’s role in shaping U.S. policy, more widespread awareness of Israel’s history and behavior, and a candid discussion within America’s pro-Israel community. Instead of trying to weaken or counter the lobby, one may hope that moderate pro-Israel organizations will become more influential, and that the leading organizations realize that the hard-line positions they have espoused in the past have been counterproductive. If these groups can bring their impressive influence to bear in more constructive ways, U.S. policy will be more in line with its national interests, and better for Israel too.