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Stephen M. Walt

John J. Mearsheimer

The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy Paperback – September 2, 2008

by John J. Mearsheimer (Author), Stephen M. Walt (Author)

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The Israel Lobby," by John J. Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen M. Walt of Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, was one of the most controversial articles in recent memory.

Originally published in the London Review of Books in March 2006, it provoked both howls of outrage and cheers of gratitude for challenging what had been a taboo issue in America: the impact of the Israel lobby on U.S. foreign policy.

Now in a work of major importance, Mearsheimer and Walt deepen and expand their argument and confront recent developments in Lebanon and Iran. They describe the remarkable level of material and diplomatic support that the United States provides to Israel and argues that this support cannot be fully explained on either strategic or moral grounds. This exceptional relationship is due largely to the political influence of a loose coalition of individuals and organizations that actively work to shape U.S. foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction. Mearsheimer and Walt provocatively contend that the lobby has a far-reaching impact on America's posture throughout the Middle East―in Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, and toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict―and the policies it has encouraged are in neither America's national interest nor Israel's long-term interest. The lobby's influence also affects America's relationship with important allies and increases dangers that all states face from global jihadist terror.

Writing in The New York Review of Books, Michael Massing declared, "Not since Foreign Affairs magazine published Samuel Huntington's ‘The Clash of Civilizations?' in 1993 has an academic essay detonated with such force." The publication of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy is certain to widen the debate and to be one of the most talked-about books in foreign policy.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Controversial.” ―Terry Gross, Fresh Air, NPR

“It could not be more timely.” ―David Bromwich, The Huffington Post

“The strategic questions they raise now, particularly about Israel's privileged relationship with the United States, are worth debating.” ―David Remnick. The New Yorker

“Ruthlessly realistic.” ―William Grimes, The New York Times

“The argument they present is towering and clear and about time.” ―Philip Weiss, Mondoweiss.com

“Mearsheimer, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, and Walt, on the faculty at Harvard, set off a political firestorm.” ―Jay Solomon, The Wall Street Journal.com

“Promises controversy on a scale not seen since Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilizations sought to reframe a new world order.” ―Stefan Halper, National Interest.com

“Deals with Middle East policymaking at a time when America's problems in that region surpass our problems anywhere else . . . People are definitely arguing about it. It's also the kind of book you do not have to agree with on every count (I certainly don't) to benefit from reading.” ―MJ Rosenberg, Israel Policy Forum Newsletter

About the Author

John J. Mearsheimer is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science and the co-director of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago. He has published several books, including The Tragedy of Great Power Politics.

Stephen M. Waltis the Belfer Professor of International Affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and was academic dean of the Kennedy School from 2002 to 2006. He is the author of Taming American Power: The Global Response to U.S. Primacy, among other books.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy

By Mearsheimer, John J.

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Copyright © 2008 Mearsheimer, John J.
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780374531508
Excerpt America is about to enter a presidential election year. Although the outcome is of course impossible to predict at this stage, certain features of the campaign are easy to foresee. The candidates will inevitably differ on various domestic issues—health care, abortion, gay marriage, taxes, education, immigration—and spirited debates are certain to erupt on a host of foreign policy questions as well. What course of action should the United States pursue in Iraq? What is the best response to the crisis in Darfur, Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Russia’s hostility to NATO, and China’s rising power? How should the United States address global warming, combat terrorism, and reverse the erosion of its international image? On these and many other issues, we can confidently expect lively disagreements among the various candidates.
Yet on one subject, we can be equally confident that the candidates will speak with one voice. In 2008, as in previous election years, serious candidates for the highest office in the land will go to considerable lengths to express their deep personal commitment to one foreign country—Israel—as well as their determination to maintain unyielding U.S. support for the Jewish state. Each candidate will emphasize that he or she fully appreciates the multitude of threats facing Israel and make it clear that, if elected, the United States will remain firmly committed to defending Israel’s interests under any and all circumstances. None of the candidates is likely to criticize Israel in any significant way or suggest that the United States ought to pursue a more evenhanded policy in the region. Any who do will probably fall by the wayside.
This observation is hardly a bold prediction, because presidential aspirants were already proclaiming their support for Israel in early 2007. The process began in January, when four potential candidates spoke to Israel’s annual Herzliya Conference on security issues. As Joshua Mitnick reported in Jewish Week, they were “seemingly competing to see who can be most strident in defense of the Jewish State.” Appearing via satellite link, John Edwards, the Democratic party’s 2004 vice presidential candidate, told his Israeli listeners that “your future is our future” and said that the bond between the United States and Israel “will never be broken.” Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney spoke of being “in a country I love with people I love” and, aware of Israel’s deep concern about a possible nuclear Iran, proclaimed that “it is time for the world to speak three truths: (1) Iran must be stopped; (2) Iran can be stopped; (3) Iran will be stopped!” Senator John McCain (R-AZ) declared that “when it comes to the defense of Israel, we simply cannot compromise,” while former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) told the audience that “Israel is facing the greatest danger for [sic] its survival since the 1967 victory.”
Shortly thereafter, in early February, Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) spoke in New York before the local chapter of the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), where she said that in this “moment of great difficulty for Israel and great peril for Israel . . . what is vital is that we stand by our friend and our ally and we stand by our own values. Israel is a beacon of what’s right in a neighborhood overshadowed by the wrongs of radicalism, extremism, despotism and terrorism.” One of her rivals for the Democratic nomination, Senator Barack Obama (D-IL), spoke a month later before an AIPAC audience in Chicago. Obama, who has expressed some sympathy for the Palestinians’ plight in the past and made a brief reference to Palestinian “suffering” at a campaign appearance in March 2007, was unequivocal in his praise for Israel and made it manifestly clear that he would do nothing to change the U.S.-Israeli relationship. Other presidential hopefuls, including Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) and New Mexico governor Bill Richardson, have expressed pro-Israel sentiments with equal or greater ardor.
What explains this behavior? Why is there so little disagreement among these presidential hopefuls regarding Israel, when there are profound disagreements among them on almost every other important issue facing the United States and when it is apparent that America’s Middle East policy has gone badly awry? Why does Israel get a free pass from presidential candidates, when its own citizens are often deeply critical of its present policies and when these same presidential candidates are all too willing to criticize many of the things that other countries do? Why does Israel, and no other country in the world, receive such consistent deference from America’s leading politicians?
Some might say that it is because Israel is a vital strategic asset for the United States. Indeed, it is said to be an indispensable partner in the “war on terror.” Others will answer that there is a powerful moral case for providing Israel with unqualified support, because it is the only country in the region that “shares our values.” But neither of these arguments stands up to fair-minded scrutiny. Washington’s close relationship with Jerusalem makes it harder, not easier, to defeat the terrorists who are now targeting the United States, and it simultaneously undermines America’s standing with important allies around the world. Now that the Cold War is over, Israel has become a strategic liability for the United States. Yet no aspiring politician is going to say so in public, or even raise the possibility.
There is also no compelling moral rationale for America’s uncritical and uncompromising relationship with Israel. There is a strong moral case for Israel’s existence and there are good reasons for the United States to be committed to helping Israel if its survival is in jeopardy. But given Israel’s brutal treatment of the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, moral considerations might suggest that the United States pursue a more evenhanded policy toward the two sides, and maybe even lean toward the Palestinians. Yet we are unlikely to hear that sentiment expressed by anyone who wants to be president, or anyone who would like to occupy a position in Congress.
The real reason why American politicians are so deferential is the political power of the Israel lobby. The lobby is a loose coalition of individuals and organizations that actively works to move U.S. foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction. As we will describe in detail, it is not a single, unified movement with a central leadership, and it is certainly not a cabal or conspiracy that “controls” U.S. foreign policy. It is simply a powerful interest group, made up of both Jews and gentiles, whose acknowledged purpose is to press Israel’s case within the United States and influence American foreign policy in ways that its members believe will benefit the Jewish state. The various groups that make up the lobby do not agree on every issue, although they share the desire to promote a special relationship between the United States and Israel. Like the efforts of other ethnic lobbies and interest groups, the activities of the Israel lobby’s various elements are legitimate forms of democratic political participation, and they are for the most part consistent with America’s long tradition of interest group activity.
Because the Israel lobby has gradually become one of the most powerful interest groups in the United States, candidates for high office pay close attention to its wishes. The individuals and groups in the United States that make up the lobby care deeply about Israel, and they do not want American politicians to criticize it, even when criticism might be warranted and might even be in Israel’s own interest. Instead, these groups want U.S. leaders to treat Israel as if it were the fifty-first state. Democrats and Republicans alike fear the lobby’s clout. They all know that any politician who challenges its policies stands little chance of becoming president. The Lobby and U.S. Middle East Policy The lobby’s political power is important not because it affects what presidential candidates say during a campaign, but because it has a significant influence on American foreign policy, especially in the Middle East. America’s actions in that volatile region have enormous consequences for people all around the world, especially the people who live there. Just consider how the Bush administration’s misbegotten war in Iraq has affected the long-suffering people of that shattered country: tens of thousands dead, hundreds of thousands forced to flee their homes, and a vicious sectarian war taking place with no end in sight. The war has also been a strategic disaster for the United States and has alarmed and endangered U.S. allies both inside and outside the region. One could hardly imagine a more vivid or tragic demonstration of the impact the United States can have—for good or ill—when it unleashes the power at its disposal.
The United States has been involved in the Middle East since the early days of the Republic, with much of the activity centered on educational programs or missionary work. For some, a biblically inspired fascination with the Holy Land and the role of Judaism in its history led to support for the idea of restoring the Jewish people to a homeland there, a view that was embraced by certain religious leaders and, in a general way, by a few U.S. politicians. But it is a mistake to see this history of modest and for the most part private engagement as the taproot of America’s role in the region since World War II, and especially its extraordinary relationship with Israel today. Between the routing of the Barbary pirates two hundred years ago and World War II, the United States played no significant security role anywhere in the region and U.S. leaders did not aspire to one.6 Woodrow Wilson did endorse the 1917 Balfour Declaration (which expressed Britain’s support for the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine), but Wilson did virtually nothing to advance this goal. Indeed, the most significant U.S. involvement during this period—a fact-finding mission dispatched to the region in 1919 by the Paris Peace Conference under the leadership of Americans Henry Churchill King and Charles Crane—concluded that the local population opposed continued Zionist inroads and recommended against the establishment of an independent Jewish homeland. Yet as the historian Margaret Macmillan notes, “Nobody paid the slightest attention.” The possibility of a U.S. mandate over portions of the Middle East was briefly considered but never pursued, and Britain and France ended up dividing the relevant portions of the Ottoman Empire between themselves.
The United States has played an important and steadily increasing role in Middle East security issues since World War II, driven initially by oil, then by anticommunism and, over time, by its growing relationship with Israel. America’s first significant involvement in the security politics of the region was a nascent partnership with Saudi Arabia in the mid-1940s (intended by both parties as a check on British ambitions in the region), and its first formal alliance commitments were Turkey’s inclusion in NATO in 1952 and the anti-Soviet Baghdad Pact in 1954. After backing Israel’s founding in 1948, U.S. leaders tried to strike a balanced position between Israel and the Arabs and carefully avoided making any formal commitment to the Jewish state for fear of jeopardizing more important strategic interests. This situation changed gradually over the ensuing decades, in response to events like the Six-Day War, Soviet arms sales to various Arab states, and the growing influence of pro-Israel groups in the United States. Given this dramatic transformation in America’s role in the region, it makes little sense to try to explain current U.S. policy—and especially the lavish support that is now given to Israel—by referring to the religious beliefs of a bygone era or the radically different forms of past American engagement. There was nothing inevitable or predetermined about the current special relationship between the United States and Israel.
Since the Six-Day War of 1967, a salient feature—and arguably the central focus—of America’s Middle East policy has been its relationship with Israel. For the past four decades, in fact, the United States has provided Israel with a level of material and diplomatic support that dwarfs what it provides to other countries. That aid is largely unconditional: no matter what Israel does, the level of support remains for the most part unchanged. In particular, the United States consistently favors Israel over the Palestinians and rarely puts pressure on the Jewish state to stop building settlements and roads in the West Bank. Although Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush openly favored the creation of a viable Palestinian state, neither was willing to use American leverage to make that outcome a reality.
The United States has also undertaken policies in the broader Middle East that reflected Israel’s preferences. Since the early 1990s, for example, American policy toward Iran has been heavily influenced by the wishes of successive Israeli governments. Tehran has made several attempts in recent years to improve relations with Washington and settle outstanding differences, but Israel and its American supporters have been able to stymie any détente between Iran and the United States, and to keep the two countries far apart. Another example is the Bush administration’s behavior during Israel’s war against Lebanon in the summer of 2006. Almost every country in the world harshly criticized Israel’s bombing campaign—a campaign that killed more than one thousand Lebanese, most of them civilians—but the United States did not. Instead, it helped Israel prosecute the war, with prominent members of both political parties openly defending Israel’s behavior. This unequivocal support for Israel undermined the pro-American government in Beirut, strengthened Hezbollah, and drove Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah closer together, results that were hardly good for either Washington or Jerusalem.
Many policies pursued on Israel’s behalf now jeopardize U.S. national security. The combination of unstinting U.S. support for Israel and Israel’s prolonged occupation of Palestinian territory has fueled anti-Americanism throughout the Arab and Islamic world, thereby increasing the threat from international terrorism and making it harder for Washington to deal with other problems, such as shutting down Iran’s nuclear program. Because the United States is now so unpopular within the broader region, Arab leaders who might otherwise share U.S. goals are reluctant to help us openly, a predicament that cripples U.S. efforts to deal with a host of regional challenges.
This situation, which has no equal in American history, is due primarily to the activities of the Israel lobby. While other special interest groups—including ethnic lobbies representing Cuban Americans, Irish Americans, Armenian Americans, and Indian Americans—have managed to skew U.S. foreign policy in directions that they favored, no ethnic lobby has diverted that policy as far from what the American national interest would otherwise suggest. The Israel lobby has successfully convinced many Americans that American and Israeli interests are essentially identical. In fact, they are not.
Although this book focuses primarily on the lobby’s influence on U.S. foreign policy and its negative effect on American interests, the lobby’s impact has been unintentionally harmful to Israel as well. Take Israel’s settlements, which even a writer as sympathetic to Israel as Leon Wieseltier recently called a “moral and strategic blunder of historic proportions.” Israel’s situation would be better today if the United States had long ago used its financial and diplomatic leverage to convince Israel to stop building settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, and instead helped Israel create a viable Palestinian state on those lands. Washington did not do so, however, largely because it would have been politically costly for any president to attempt it. As noted above, Israel would have been much better off if the United States had told it that its military strategy for fighting the 2006 Lebanon war was doomed to fail, rather than reflexively endorsing and facilitating it. By making it difficult to impossible for the U.S. government to criticize Israel’s conduct and press it to change some of its counterproductive policies, the lobby may even be jeopardizing the long-term prospects of the Jewish state.
Excerpted from The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt. Copyright © 2007 by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt. Published in September 2007 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC. All rights reserved.

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Excerpted from The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy by Mearsheimer, John J. Copyright © 2008 by Mearsheimer, John J.. Excerpted by permission.
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Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 1st edition (September 2, 2008)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 496 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0374531501
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0374531508
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 13.6 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 1.1 x 18.25 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #243,484 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Stephen M. Walt
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John J. Mearsheimer
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John J. Mearsheimer is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, where he has taught since 1982. He graduated from West Point in 1970 and then served five years as an officer in the U.S. Air Force. He then started graduate school in political science at Cornell University in 1975. He received his Ph.D. in 1980. He spent the 1979-1980 academic year as a research fellow at the Brookings Institution, and was a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard University's Center for International Affairs from 1980 to 1982. During the 1998-1999 academic year, he was the Whitney H. Shepardson Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.
Professor Mearsheimer has written extensively about security issues and international politics more generally. He has published six books: Conventional Deterrence (1983), which won the Edgar S. Furniss, Jr., Book Award; Liddell Hart and the Weight of History (1988); The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (2001, 2014), which won the Joseph Lepgold Book Prize and has been translated into eight different languages; The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (with Stephen M. Walt, 2007), which made the New York Times best seller list and has been translated into twenty-four different languages; Why Leaders Lie: The Truth about Lying in International Politics (2011), which has been translated into twelve different languages; and The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities (2018).
He has also written many articles that have appeared in academic journals like International Security, and popular magazines like Foreign Affairs and the London Review of Books. Furthermore he has written a number of op-ed pieces for the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times dealing with topics like Bosnia, nuclear proliferation, American policy towards India, the failure of Arab-Israeli peace efforts, the folly of invading Iraq, and the causes of the Ukrainian crisis.
Finally, Professor Mearsheimer has won a number of teaching awards. He received the Clark Award for Distinguished Teaching when he was a graduate student at Cornell in 1977, and he won the Quantrell Award for Distinguished Teaching at the University of Chicago in 1985. In addition, he was selected as a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar for the 1993-1994 academic year. In that capacity, he gave a series of talks at eight colleges and universities. In 2003, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
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Sahra Badou

Time for a lobby for the American people!

Reviewed in the United States on October 12, 2007

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This is really a fascinating book that is sure to cause many heated debates. For one, the authors have already been labeled anti-Semites. According to the authors, anyone with views that go against the interests of the Jewish State Israel is immediately accused of being anti-Semite. Jimmy Carter was accused of being an anti-Semite for pointing out the brutality the Jewish Israelis bestow on the Palestinians in his book `Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid'. Don't be surprised to see comments on this site accusing reviewers, who are merely pointing out their views or simply reviewing this book, to be anti-Semite. As one reviewer correctly pointed out, opposing Bush doesn't make someone anti-American just as opposing Sharon, Netanyahu, Barak and Olmert doesn't make someone anti-Semite. The authors say, "Indeed, there are signs that the reflexive charge of anti-Semitism is beginning to lose its power to stifle debate." (p. 195). The authors further say, "Let us be clear: anti-Semitism is a despicable phenomenon with a long and tragic history, and all people should remain vigilant against its resurgence and condemn it when it arises...But it is essential that we distinguish between true anti-Semitism and legitimate criticism of Israeli policy..." (p. 196).

Another accusation I often see is a comment that the reviewer did not read the book. Because the reviewer's point of view does not correspond with the reader's, do we conclude that the reviewer did not read the book? It is our right, at least from a democratic viewpoint, to express our views and beliefs without prejudice.

Jews believe that because they have suffered so much during their history, especially recently during the Holocaust, which is one of the most horrific periods in modern history, that special treatment must be given to them. In that case special treatment should be given to all people of the earth. Are you honestly going to tell me that the black slaves suffered less than the Jews? Or that the innocent Japanese men, women and children who either died by atomic radiation or lived for years together with their off spring with radiation poising fared better than the Jews during the holocaust? What about the atrocities committed in the Gulag and the extermination of the North and South American indigenous Indians? Ever hear of the Zápara? When Henry Ford figured out how to mass-produce automobiles, the demand for inflatable tubes and tires soon found ambitious Europeans heading up every navigable Amazonian stream, claiming land with rubber trees and seizing indigenous slave laborers to tap them. In Ecuador, the Zápara men were chained to trees and made to work until they fell dead of exhaustion. Zápara women and girls, taken as breeders or sex slaves, were raped to death. After this rubber genocide only a few hundred Zápara were left alive, out of hundreds of thousands! Anyone lately is talking about the Zápara Holocaust?

History is filled with atrocities committed against mankind. No one nation or race fared better than another--each had their share of atrocities. Today, it is the Palestinians' turn to taste the evil that man does, and by no other than a race who knows better than the rest of us in recent history what suffering is! John Donne sums it up nicely in the following poem:

No man is an island, entire of itself
every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main
if a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were,
as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were
any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind
and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls
it tolls for thee.

One would think that the Jewish people would be the kindest and most understanding people in the world. They have been through the most atrocious experience recently during World War II and the evil of Hitler during the Holocaust. Even before Hitler Jews were persecuted and discriminated against in Europe. Their history is also one of hardship since its beginnings some 5,000 years ago. Yet, according to the authors, the Jewish Israelis are very brutal towards their Palestinian neighbors. Not only has their land been taken in the 1940s, they are still confiscating Palestinian land and building settlements on them, and murdering women and children in the process. This is really sad and surprising, given the Jewish people would be the ones most understanding about human suffering, and what it is like being persecuted, being left without a nation, discriminated against, and murdered! This is the Palestinian Holocaust!

The Jewish religion is a beautiful religion, and the root of the two other great religions--Christianity and Islam. It is a monotheistic religion, and Jews know well that upsetting God or going against his will--or in other words, sinning--has grave consequences on them, as their history in the last five thousand years has shown. Furthermore, both Islam and the Jews regard Prophet Abraham as their father. The Jews are descendants of one of Prophet Abraham's son, while the Moslems are descendant of another of Abraham's sons. Jews and Muslims are therefore cousins. This has been shown today by DNA testing. One can also go further back in history and claim that both Jews and Muslims are descendants of Adam and Eve, whom both believe to be the first humans. So why all this bloodshed between cousins, and between people kneeling everyday to the same God and following the teachings of the same prophets (Muslims believe in all of the Jewish prophets)? Is all this fighting for land? Is it worth burning in hell (Jews believe in hell) for the sake of calling a piece of land theirs? Isn't this a materialistic view, as opposed to a spiritual one?

The authors point out that the majority of the people living in Palestine before 1940 were Muslim Arab Palestinians. After the war against them by the Jews and the formation of the Jewish State, Israel, Jews slowly started catching up with the Palestinian population. This is not because their birth rate gave them an advantage, quite the contrary, but because the present majority of the Jews living in the occupied territories are not native to this land, but came mainly from Russia and Europe. Modern Jews were therefore imported into Palestine. This is a conquest of a land they were not living on in the first place--sort of like the Europeans taking the land of the American Indians and today claiming it is theirs. In other words, the majority of the Jews living in what was formerly known as Palestine are not indigenous to this land.

So the authors ask, `why is the United States supporting Israel?' The authors make clear from the beginning that should the sovereignty of Israel be threatened, the United States should come to its aid. But why is Israel receiving special treatment from the United States when it is behaving in ways contrary to American ethics and democratic values? As the authors, as well as Jimmy Carter, point out, the brutal treatment of the Palestinians by the Israeli army goes against all American values and ethics. Yet the United Stated blindly supports Israel, even when it is not to its national interest. In fact, no country in the world receives such a special treatment from the US. The authors say, "Since 1976, six Israeli leaders have addressed joint sessions of Congress, a higher total than for any other country. A trivial indicator, perhaps, but it is still striking given that these six leaders represented a country whose 2007 population was less than that of New York City... Yitzhak Rabin was right: America's generosity toward Israel is 'beyond compare in modern history'...the United States and Israel may well have the most extraordinary tie in international politics." (p. 48).

The authors point out that it would be better for the US to distance itself from Israel, and to oppose Israel when it behaves in an immoral way, just like it does with other countries of the world. But as the authors point out, this is not an easy task given the Israel lobby on US land.

US politicians are afraid of the Israel lobby. The Israel lobby can tip the balance on whether a certain senator or president is elected! And no US politician can criticize Israel in fear of being labeled an anti-Semite! Yet it is Israel that is a very racist country. The authors point out recent polls where the majority of the Israelis view the Palestinians as an unclean and inferior people. This is how whites viewed blacks during slavery. The authors also point out that the Palestinians live in a big jail and at the mercy of Israel for food, water, medicine, electricity, and fuel. No one can enter or leave Palestine without the permission of Israel. The Palestinians living in Israel, and thus holders of Israeli passports, are discriminated against. They are treated by the government as a second class people, with neglect, oppression and suspicion. This permanent second-class status contradicts the idea of a multi-ethnic society which Americans associate which freedom and democracy.

The authors emphasize that Jews have a right to exist in a state of their own within internationally recognized borders but so do the Palestinians. However, according to the authors, Israel is a state determined to colonize all of Palestine, to deny Palestinians their rights, and to dominate the region, and thus to avoid peace. The authors point out that since the present policies of the state of Israel, many of which are condemned worldwide as illegal and immoral, do not conform to international law and UN resolutions, they should no longer be supported by the US, for this would be dangerous for the future of the country for it encourages hatred and terrorism directed toward the US. The authors say, "in fact a good case could be made that current U.S. policy conflicts with basic American values and if the United States were to choose sides on the basis of moral considerations alone, it would back the Palestinians, not Israel." Israel is one of the world's worst human rights violators.

The authors point out that the media has convinced the American public that US and Israeli interests are identical and any opinion to the contrary is unacceptable, outrageous and intolerable. Criticism of the government of Israel has been tacitly but effectively prohibited in the U.S. However, the media in Israel has been more forthcoming.

Interestingly, the authors point out that many in Israel oppose the brutal treatment of the Palestinians, and in fact oppose US support in defense of Israel's actions. In fact, Israeli newspapers often publish articles about the brutal treatment of the Palestinians. More articles in favor of the Palestinians and against the brutality of the Israeli army are published in Israel than in the US.

Israel is the strongest nation in the Middle East, and one of the strongest nations in the world. It also is a nuclear nation. No country in the Middle East can win a fight against Israel, even if they all joined force together. With its nuclear arsenal, no country could possibly envision conquering it, let alone erase it from the pages of history, as the Iranian president has often foolishly said. Israel is safe, and can take care of itself, and does not need US support.

According to the authors, the Iranians have been pushed to obtain nuclear weapons. What if Canada is suddenly conquered by China or Russia? Wouldn't the US try to undermine the new Russian or Chinese friendly government? The US invaded two countries neighbors to Iran--Afghanistan and Iraq. It also has bases in neighboring Arab countries, such as Qatar, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. It also placed Iran as a terrorist and rogue state, and threatens to hit it. Under such circumstances, isn't it normal for Iran to try to militarize itself? Wouldn't the US have done the same if it was under a similar situation?

According to the authors, it is the Israel lobby that pushed the US to go to war against Iraq, and it is now pushing the US to go to war against Syria and Iran.

Israel does not act in the best interest of the US, yet because US politicians need the Jewish vote to win elections, they blindly support Israel. By supporting Israel, the US is distancing itself from the rest of the world, mainly from Arab countries. Instead of being an asset to the US, Israel has become a liability. After World War II and during the cold war, Israel was an important military base for the US against the USSR. However, with the cold war over, Israel can't be used as a military base for fear of upsetting Arab countries. For this reason, during both US wars against Iraq in 1991 and 2003, Israel was not used by the Allied Forces as a military base. The authors ask, "What strategic importance is Israel now with the cold war over?"

According to the authors, Israel is the number one nation with a spy network within US borders. It is a well known fact that Israel has sold stolen US military technology to China. Israel continues to spy on the US today.

The authors conclude that while the US should insure Israel's existence, it should treat Israel no differently than it treats other allies. In other words, the US should forgo its so-called "special relationship" with the Jewish state.

Words are indeed mightier than the sword.

I agree with one reviewer who asked, "When will there be a Lobby for the American people?"

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The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy: A Review about the Survival of the Fittest and Standing the Test of Time

Reviewed in the United States on October 1, 2017

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Once upon a time, there were 2 American entities that came together to specifically create a new, third entity called IL by the process of discourse. These two creator entities are named MW (MearsheimerWalt), and their offspring was born abroad in the UK – specifically at the London (Times) Review of Books in 2006.

Quickly, this new IL offspring gathered strength through the gentle nurturing from its parent organism MW, who carefully and methodically rebutted invader organisms from killing off their newly-born entity.

In fact, as more invaders attacked the newly-born IL offspring, creator-entity MW sprang into parenting mode, to help IL become even larger, healthier, and more robust through more highly-refined written and oral discourse.

As a result, MW had to endure the crucible of more IL refinement and continued defense against the invaders, to enhance IL’s further growth and robust qualities. One year later in 2007, the IL entity became even bigger, healthier, and more robust; and so to celebrate this new phase, it had a name change and an even newer re-birth place for this tempered form of the entity: it grew from its first physical form of 32 pages (including rebuttals) born in London to its current form of an astonishing 496 pages by means of a new but international midwife, Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, at its New York office. IL has become so famous that it landed on the coveted #1 Best Seller list position in the New York Times. This position affirms IL’s veracity. IL’s full name now is: The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.

This comparison (using genetics [with a little alchemy sprinkled in], ancient world history, and Darwin’s ‘survival of the fittest’ to create a new entity) is exactly what happened to Professor John Mearsheimer (University of Chicago) and Professor Steven Walt (Harvard University) in their odyssey of creating a book that no one would dare write before because of the affects of foreign-country interest groups in the US from the Israel Lobby, AIPAC. There is a related group that has also had its tentacles on US campus ME Studies departments from the early 2000s, trying to know what professors were teaching their students and trying to politically either back up or remove those professors whose ideas went against theirs. There has been no public, nonacademic discourse and correction to this activity because universities rely on funding, and money speaks volumes (over discourse). This public free-speech activity (all sides of it) needs to be discussed, especially according to how each comment relates all of our country’s established frameworks/ documents of power (including the Constitution). This affords all participants with a very lively and rich discourse experience in which all participants will learn much from each other. Some of the most educated and important people in the US have views on this topic and ALL of them are worth reading and listening to via all formats (books, articles, journals, videos, podcasts, etc.) All of these people’s views combined with those from Mearsheimer and Walt in this book are part of an important knowledge base that needs to be tapped, understood, and added to in later Mearsheimer-Walt book editions. In short, because there has been much change in this country since this book was first published in 2007, the book has stood the test of time, and these changes need to be included in a revised, later edition.

Mearsheimer and Walt’s book: The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy is now recommended classroom reading in most poli sci, government studies, ME studies, diplomacy and diplomatic studies preparation programs in institutions of higher education, both in the US and those abroad. Why? Because it is the first book of its kind to look carefully at one foreign country (Israel) and how it affects the behavior and actions of another (the US/ US taxpayers, the group that subsidizes the foreign country) in terms of policy and aid. It also affects who is elected to US Congress and who stays elected.

As with most topics, this book generates needed discourse about countries (those with money and those without it that need it as aid from another, wealthier country), policies, lobby groups, money/ funding, aid, political parties and issues, diplomacy, and how all of these influence and intermingle, to create a larger world-system of which both the US and Israel are a part.

Mearsheimer and Walt have created this book to shed light on a topic that was ready to be illuminated. Once this book was published, like its UK germination stage phase, it (and the authors) went through the second crucible tempering in which the authors had to defend their ideas on US soil, successfully defending them against opposite forces.

This book has passed muster again through this process. Simultaneously, there were videos made of university and diplomacy ‘Round Tables’ with Q/A sessions at the end that are found online for the general public as well as academia. In these, the authors successfully defended their theses, resulting in a further strengthening of their ideas. Also, the comments of all people whose opinions were directed at the two became known, with some of the public agreeing and some disagreeing. Through this process, participants could learn more things about what they believe in, why, and some will even re-edit/ amend their own initial ideas.

Unfortunately, a culling of professional-academic personnel has occurred since the early 2000s, in which some professors and writers have been professionally ousted from their positions in academia and related areas (writing) for their stances against this foreign lobby group. This, alone, warrants the reading of this book and its future revised, edition.

Because this book is so interesting, I have bought extra copies to give to friends to read and later discuss. Afterwards, we form groups and engage in critical thinking and dialog to further hone our knowledge about this topic. Included in this activity is that we all watch designated on-line videos, listen to podcasts, read articles and journals, etc., to enhance what we learn from reading this book.

I thoroughly recommend this groundbreaking book for anyone who has an interest in our country and how it relates to foreign countries.

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Top reviews from other countries

Mr. D. J. Walford

Re-defines the term "Special Relationship"

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 3, 2012

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A really sound and constructive analysis of the relationship between the United States and Israel. However, the concluding argument is not necessarily one which you would expect.

The authors cover many topics such as the military, diplomatic, financial and legal aid handed to Israel by the United States over the years. This has ranged from the latest military technology to simple aid to loans which are not expected to be repaid.... ever !! This is a condition they would not accept from the United Kingdom.

However, the most intriguing aspect of the work is just how much the US has been prepared to accept from their "strategic" ally, or is it how little ?? There is documented evidence of how Israel regularly sells on US arms and technology to nations not quite suited to US foreign policy, including China. There is also quite a large amount of data on how much support Israel receives in Congress with the America Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) being particularly influential in the forming of US foreign policy.

The book has further dimensions which you will need to explore yourself and I would certainly recommend it to anyone with a historical interest in international relations.

26 people found this helpful

Benjamin Girth

A valid, well argued analysis

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 7, 2009

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Recently I have read several books on Henry Kissinger and I was intrigued by the position of Israel in 1973. With the Yom Kippur War the `complacency of invincibility' was shattered. Confidence has subsequently been eroded amid relentless low and high intensity violence, nasty and cruel. Militarily the Israeli Defence Force has lost the initiative. Pursuing policies of "lebensraum and untermenschen" respect for Israel has declined precipitously. The Israeli and Jewish response has been to create a "very special relationship" with the United States. Since 1976 Israel became the largest annual recipient of American military assistance, a position it has retained since. US diplomatic backing is almost unconditional. Yet Americans "recognize that support for Israel is one of the main causes of anti-Americanism around the world "(p10). This book is a review of this complex, controversial and emotional relationship. It is worth remembering that the American Jewish population is estimated to be 5 to 6m, about 2% while in Israeli the Jewish population is c 5.5m (just 75% of the total). Here is the paradox, such a small number of people having such a massive impact on international politics.

This is a fascinating and informative academic essay, it is not anti Semitic and should not be shouted down which it has. To start with the conclusion nothing done by the Lobby is wrong per se, largely in the open and within the Constitution they exert pressure to advance their own interests. The Lobby is very well organised, any US congressional politician is risking electoral suicide if they oppose Israeli interests. Has the United States become a client state of Israel; is this the sort of plural politics the Founding Fathers envisaged?

The book explains how the "Lobby" (a crude term for a "loose coalition of individuals and groups" ....p viii, and well defined in Chapter 4) have regrouped and responded essentially post 1973. Equally it shows how the political structure of United States has been compromised by aggressive ideological activists, well funded and organised. Mearsheimer & Walt explain the mechanics, this not a conspiracy theory it is about the US political process. Read the book to form your own opinion but it allows you to answer three questions: is the Israeli Lobby good for America, is it good for Israel and will it secure an equitable peace in the Middle East. This is not just Jewish politics; the Lobby encompasses the Radical right, Neocons, Christian fundamentalists and Christian Zionists. Collectively they see a world most of us do not accept, many of their arguments are dishonest, devious or dangerously partisan. For me the analysis says much about the failure of alternative lobbies (the Arabs, American big business interests) to counter the Israeli voice and an absence of any counterweight opposition. "America's intimate embrace of Israel... is not making America any safer or more prosperous. To the contrary unconditional support for Israel is undermining relations with other US allies, casting doubt over America's moral vision, helping inspire a generation of anti American extremists" (p 77). The book deals with politics but also the economic and moral aspects.

The Lobby comprises enthusiasts/extremists. That's true of most lobbies, animal rights through to NRA etc etc. What the authors illustrate is the impossibility of an objective debate within the US political system that is critical of Israel and an acceptance of the Israeli agenda determining the US response in the Middle East and beyond. Israel, as we are always reminded, is a democracy but one that through their electoral system gives a disproportionately loud voice to radicals, hard liners, and the crazies. Has the Israeli Lobby marginalised intelligent, compassionate liberal Jewish opinion? Apply common sense "the minority was permitted to speak for the mass and become the dominant voice of Jewish politics " (p126). That is the tragedy. I found their conclusion to be well argued and a positive agenda for change but - as the authors indicate - an unrealistic one.

25 people found this helpful

Franz Bieberkopf

A lobby,not a conspiracy

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 27, 2009

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Walt and Mearsheimer have done the public-in the US and elsewhere-a service by writing about what has been,for far too long,a taboo subject.
Contrary to what some reviewers say,their account of the Israel lobby starts from the view that there is nothing wrong in individuals or groups who support Israel lobbying and trying to persuade politicians,the press or the public of the rightness of their views.It is US democracy in action,good old-fashioned politics,and everyone else does it.It's almost impossible to read an article about US politics which doesn't discuss the farm lobby,the labour lobby,the banking lobby or whatever other lobby.
The problem is that there is,in effect,no opposition to the Israel lobby (not all of whom are Jewish,as the authors point out).Any "Arab lobby" or "Palestinian lobby" in the USA is pathetically weak and poor in comparison with pro-Israeli groups.So,the most extreme and confrontational policies of the Israeli government are tolerated,supported or,at most,attract verbal displeasure from the US government-there's no benefit in supporting Palestinians,no loss in supporting Israel.Same with the financial munificence of the US taxpayers to Israel.
Great work of political analysis,and ignore the cries of "anti-Semitism" you may sometimes hear directed at this book.The authors point out that particular canard has been used so frequently and so loosely by pro-Israeli apologists as their response to anything and anybody that opposes anything the Israeli goverment does.

34 people found this helpful

Baraniecki Mark Stuart

Congressmen For Sale.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 13, 2010

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Steven Rosen, the former AIPAC official, illustrates AIPAC's power for the New Yorker's Jeffrey Goldberg by putting a napkin in front of him and saying, "In twenty-four hours, we could have the signatures of seventy senators on this napkin." As Mearsheimer and Walt make clear, this is no idle boast, and they go on to say, "As will become clear, when issues relating to Israel come to the fore, Congress almost always votes to endorse the lobby's positions, usually in overwhelming numbers".

They note AIPAC President Howard Friedman telling the organization's members in August 2006, "AIPAC meets with every candidate running for Congress. These candidates receive in depth briefings to help them completely understand the complexities of Israel's predicament and that of the Middle East as a whole. We ask each candidate to author a "position paper" on their views of the U.S.-Israel relationship - so it is clear where they stand on the subject."

One congressional candidate (Harry Lonsdale) who went through this vetting process recounts that, "I found myself invited to AIPAC in Washington, D.C. fairly early in the campaign, for "discussions". It was an experience I will never forget. It wasn't enough that I was pro-Israel. I was given a list of vital topics and quizzed (read grilled) for my specific opinion on each. Actually I was told what my opinion must be, and exactly what words I was to use to express those opinions in public..... Shortly after that encounter at AIPAC, I was sent a list of American supporters of Israel..... that I was free to call for campaign contributions. I called, they gave, from Florida to Alaska."

AIPAC also keeps track of congressional voting records and direct funds to opponents of congressmen who don't follow their line.

Apart from Congress, Mearsheimer and Walt show successful Jewish activists in key government positions (particularly from the 1970's onwards), such as Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Elliott Abrahams, David Wurmser and Lewis "Scooter" Libby in the Clinton and Bush administrations. This political combination managed to steer George Bush, sideline Condoleeza Rice, and bully Colin Powell into the Iraq war . The authors show the enormous frustration of the CIA as their intelligence was distorted to support the lie of Iraqi WMD and start an unprovoked war that was not in the interests of the United States.

A feeble Congress votes record aid budgets to Israel (currently four billion dollars a year), with loans being converted to grants, and quick acquiescences to Israeli demands that aid be paid up front (which means the U.S. has to borrow it to give to them), and to the Israeli refusal to account for how it was spent, both necessary conditions for other aid recipients.

The whole process is supported by Jewish Think Tank activists such as Daniel Pipes, Michael Rubin, and Joshua Muravchik at the American Enterprise Institute, and prominent journalists such as William Kristol, Michael Ladeen and Norman Podhoretz who are now agitating for America to declare war on Iran (and subsequently Syria and Saudi Arabia although they are not so open about this).

In their conclusion, Mearsheimer and Walt ask what can be done about the outlandish failure of the American government to act in the interests of America. They doubt that the Israel Lobby will relinquish its power in the press, campaign finance or government, so they suggest pressure for more open discourse, which seems to be happening. It was initially impossible to publish this book in America but it did eventually see the light of day after an article in the London Review of Books and an unprcedented 275.000 downloads of the working paper on Harvard's Kennedy School of Government website.

The authors see the (remote) possibility of congressmen treating Israel like any other country and they also show that the majority of American Jews aren't Likudniks and opposed the war in Iraq. They didn't like the AIPAC / Wolfowitz group but of course they lost out to the activists, so its not clear where all this goes, apart from generating some rumbling at the other end of the spectrum (for example, Robert Griffin's, "The Fame of a Dead Man's Deeds" ). At present, Israel is greatly favoured while congress directs America to carry the massive cost of her wars in addition to generous transfers of aid.

11 people found this helpful

The Establishment Fears Investigation

Source packed and very informative. Must read for those who are interested in US Foreign Policy

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 18, 2012

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This book that has its origins in 2002, before getting published in 2008 in paperback, is a must read for those who want to understand how US Foreign Policy operates. Although the book was published in August 2007, it is still relevant today, especially with growing tensions with Iran and Syria, alongside the Arab Spring.

Who are the Israel Lobby? What is the aim of the Israel Lobby? Who funds the Israel Lobby? Why does the American taxpayer fork out billions in Aid to Israel, who are supposedly one of the richest nations in the world? Is the Israel Lobby one unified bloc, or a mixture of different groups and organisations?

The book answers questions along those lines - and many more - and the authors are not shy in putting forward the sources and evidence. Critics call it "anti-Semitic" but it is far from it. The word Anti-Semitic, like the word Racist, is used, abused and thrown around to silence critics and close off any debate. Sadly for them, the ad hominem attacks don't work. In fact the authors recognise Israel but believe in taking a different path as opposed to previous and current US administrations.

A very good starter book for those who want to find out WHO the Israel Lobby are. Heavily recommended.

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