Backlash over book on the Israel Lobby

Again an attempt to avoid publicity for critics of the Israel lobby. The reaction is a good illustration of the power that the lobby has in the US. It is rather ironic that in Israel a newspaper such as Haaretz can criticise Israel without any problems it seems.


New York Times - August 16, 2007

Backlash Over Book on Policy for Israel
By Patricia Cohen

"The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" is not even in bookstores,
but already anxieties have surfaced about the backlash it is
stirring, with several institutions backing away from holding events
with the authors.

John J. Mearsheimer, a political scientist at the University of
Chicago, and Stephen M. Walt, a professor at the John F. Kennedy
School of Government at Harvard University, were not totally
surprised by the reaction to their work. An article last spring in
the London Review of Books outlining their argument — that a powerful

pro-Israel lobby has a pernicious influence on American policy — set

off a firestorm as charges of anti-Semitism, shoddy scholarship and
censorship ricocheted among prominent academics, writers,
policymakers and advocates. In the book, published by Farrar, Straus
& Giroux and embargoed until Sept. 4, they elaborate on and update
their case.

"Now that the cold war is over, Israel has become a strategic
liability for the United States," they write. "Yet no aspiring
politician is going to say so in public or even raise the
possibility" because the pro-Israel lobby is so powerful. They credit
the lobby with shutting down talks with Syria and with moderates in
Iran, preventing the United States from condemning Israel's 2006 war
in Lebanon and with not pushing the Israelis hard enough to come to
an agreement with the Palestinians. They also discuss Christian
Zionists and the issue of dual loyalty.

Opponents are prepared. Also being released on Sept. 4 is "The
Deadliest Lies: The Israel Lobby and the Myth of Jewish
Control" (Palgrave Macmillan) by Abraham H. Foxman, the national
director of the Anti-Defamation League. The notion that pro-Israel
groups "have anything like a uniform agenda, and that U.S. policy on
Israel and the Middle East is the result of their influence, is
simply wrong," George P. Shultz, a former secretary of state, says in
the foreword. "This is a conspiracy theory pure and simple, and
scholars at great universities should be ashamed to promulgate it."

The subject will certainly prompt furious debate, though not at the
Center for the Humanities at the Graduate Center at the City
University of New York, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, a
Jewish cultural center in Washington and three organizations in
Chicago. They have all turned down or canceled events with the
authors, mentioning unease with the controversy or the format.

The authors were particularly disturbed by the Chicago council's
decision, since plans for that event were complete and both authors
have frequently spoken there before. The two sent a four-page letter
to 94 members of the council's board detailing what happened. "On
July 24, Council President Marshall Bouton phoned one of us
(Mearsheimer) and informed him that he was canceling the event," and
that his decision "was based on the need 'to protect the
institution.' He said that he had a serious 'political problem,'
because there were individuals who would be angry if he gave us a
venue to speak, and that this would have serious negative
consequences for the council. 'This one is so hot,' Marshall
maintained."

Mr. Mearsheimer later said of Mr. Bouton, "I had the sense that this
phone call pained him deeply."

Mr. Bouton was out of town, but Rachel Bronson, vice president for
programs and studies at the council, said, "Whenever we have topics
that are particularly controversial or sensitive, we try to make sure
someone from another point of view is there." In this case, she said,
there was not sufficient time to set up that sort of panel before the
council calendar went out. There are no plans to have the authors
speak at a later date, however.

"One of the points we make in the book is that this is a subject
that's very hard to talk about," Mr. Walt said in an interview from
his office in Cambridge. "Organizations, no matter how strong their
commitment to free speech, don't want to schedule something that's
likely to cause controversy."

After the cancellation Roberta Rubin, owner of the Book Stall, a
store in Winnetka, Ill., offered to help find a site for the authors.
She said she tried a Jewish community center and two large downtown
clubs but they all told her "they can't afford to bring in somebody
'too controversial.' " She added that even she was concerned about
inviting authors who might offend customers.

Some of the planned sites, like the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue, a
cultural center in Washington, would have been host of an event if
Mr. Mearsheimer and Mr. Walt appeared with opponents, said Esther
Foer, the executive director.

Mr. Walt said, "Part of the game is to portray us as so extreme that
we have to be balanced by someone from the 'other side.' " Besides,
he added, when you're promoting a book, you want to present your
ideas without appearing with someone who is trying to discredit you.

As for City University, Aoibheann Sweeney, director of the Center for
the Humanities, said, "I looked at the introduction, and I didn't
feel that the book was saying things differently enough" from the
original article. Ms. Sweeney, who said she had consulted with others
at City University, acknowledged that they had begun planning for an
event in September moderated by J. J. Goldberg, the editor of The
Forward, a leading American Jewish weekly, but once he chose not to
participate, she decided to pass. Mr. Goldberg, who was traveling in
Israel, said in a telephone interview that "there should be more of
an open debate." But appearing alone with the authors would have
given the impression that The Forward was presenting the event and
thereby endorsing the book, he said, and he did not want to do that.
A discussion with other speakers of differing views would have been
different, he added.

"I don't think the book is very good," said Mr. Goldberg, who said he
read a copy of the manuscript about six weeks ago. "They haven't
really done original research. They haven't talked to the people who
are being lobbied or those doing the lobbying."

Overall Mr. Mearsheimer said he thinks the response to their views
will be "less ferocious than last time, because it's becoming
increasingly difficult to make the argument in a convincing way that
anyone who criticizes the lobby or Israel is an anti-Semite or a self-
hating Jew." Both Mr. Mearsheimer and Mr. Walt pointed to the growing
dissatisfaction with the war in Iraq, criticism of Israel's war in
Lebanon and the publication of former President Jimmy Carter's book
"Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid" as making it somewhat easier to
criticize Israel openly.

"This isn't a cabal; this isn't anything secretive," Mr. Walt said.

American Jews who lobby on Israel's behalf are not all that different
from the National Rifle Association, the anti-tax movement, AARP or
the American Petroleum Institute, he said, "They just happen to be
really good at it."

"It's the way American politics work," he continued. "Sometimes
powerful interest groups get what they want, and it's not good for
the country as a whole. I would say that about the farm lobby and
about the Cuba lobby."

To the authors, dual loyalty is as American as Presidents' Day sales
and "Law & Order" reruns. As Mr. Mearsheimer explained: "People are
allowed to have multiple loyalties. They have religious loyalties,
loyalty to family, to an organization and you can have loyalty to
other countries. Someone who is Irish can have a loyalty to Ireland."

"The problem," he said "is when you raise the subject of dual
loyalty, many people tend to think of it in the context of the old
anti-Semitic canard and making the argument that Jews are disloyal to
the U.S."

In print and in interviews both authors have stressed that they hold
no animus towards Israel or Jews. "We think Israeli policy is
fundamentally flawed," Mr. Mearsheimer said, "just as we think
American policy is fundamentally flawed."
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