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In today's Washington Post magazine, Glenn Frankel revisits the controversy surrounding the Walt-Mearsheimer paper on the "Israel Lobby."

In the days after its appearance, what was missing from the debate was an analysis of their arguments using the rigorous standards of scholarship that the two professors assumedly adhered to as chaired professors at Harvard and Chicago, respectively. That is, what gave their comments any weight was that by virtue of their academic affiliations and accomplishments, it was assumed that their conclusions were arrived at via careful study and analysis. Indeed, their academic posts are what gave this paper any life.

Finally, Marc Landy -- a political science professor from Boston College -- brings to bear to the Walt-Measheimer paper the type of academic rigor expected from these august academicians. And he finds their paper -- unsurprisingly -- to be severely lacking.

Unfortuntely, it took some time for the Landy analysis to be published because unlike Walt-Measheimer's work, it was run in a peer-reviewed political science journal.

We can -- and should -- debate the roll of ethnic groups in American politics, the nature of the US-Israel relationship, and just about anything under the sun. As we have seen this past week, there is so much in flux and at stake that a spirited discussion is not only healthy, but virtually mandatory.

But, as MJ Rosenberg points out, there are arguments, and there are attacks. That is not to say that Walt-Mearsheimer fall into the low ranks of the small minority of anti-Semitic posters to this site and others, but it is to say that if Walt and Mearsheimer were unwilling to adhere to the academic standards that their profession follows, then one must question their motives in writing this piece the way they did.

And let the debate begin.


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...then one must question their motives in writing this piece...

 And your motives are...

One might ask why you find the truth inconvenient, NotSoLiberalVoice???

FYI, if one clicks on the name of the author, Marc Landy, it takes you to a site where you can download the article. I was able to do so free of charge, by using guest access.

The paper doesn't seem all that rigorous to me, it's more sort of riddled with logical non-sequiturs. A quick example:

However, to the extent that Mearsheimer and Walt actually consider power questions, they provide ammunition for the other side. “Israel is the strongest military power in the Middle East (8).” They concur with the finding of an Israeli study that “the strategic balance decidedly favors Israel (8).” Under such conditions, the United States would be expected to side with the strongest regional military power, the one capable of advancing our interests, Israel.

Or maybe the US might be expected to check the ambitions of the strongest regional military power? Landy gives us no hint as why the one part of his argument follows from another.

Nor does it help that Landy's first attempt at a counter-argument is a counter-factual: what if Israel did not exist? This is a useful debating point perhaps, certainly it elevates the sense that Mearsheimer and Walt are threatening Israel, but it is hardly a rigorous treatment.

And elsewhere Landy suggests that they undermine their own realism, because:

"Mearsheimer and Walt’s opposition to Israel stems from an even less “real” source than foreign public opinion, sympathy for the underdog."

Never mind that it is a perfectly "realist" position to hold that creation of an underdog is an inherently destabilizing action.

Must do better.

I also want to note that I have followed the past weekend's flame war with some frustration (and also some considerable amusement - it's very TPMCafe to speak affectedly, whether of knuckle sandwiches or of meetings on the field of honor). It's very clear to me that the "attacks" and the "anti-semitism" are very much products of MJ Rosenberg's own mind, and don't stand up to examination. The commenters here are far more nuanced than you give them credit for and you are damned lucky to have them.

...why you find the truth inconvenient

How do I put this?

Because....

because...

it's so damned inconvenient.

You see, Mary, all these years I've been searching for THE TRUTH. And now to find it where I least expect it, in an analysis about the Israel Lobby. And to find out the Israel Lobby is not really a special interest group meant to influence our foreign policy but a group of philanthropists who only want to emphasize the goodness of all mankind.

Forgive me Mary, how could I have been so blind?

To me the author seemed pretty reasonable. He was evaluating Mearsheimer and Walt's paper from the position on which it's authority was based. Every college freshman knows that one is expected to adhere to standards, and the two professors work was lauded because of the expectation they adhered to such standards.

The realist position is supposed to be unbiased, and based on realist fact. Israel might be the strongest military power in the region, but it is surrounded on almost all sides by hostile governments and has been almost continuously under besiege by terrorist groups... thus the impetus for building a strong military force. As to the creation of an underdog, the Palestinian people, one could say had an underdog status long before the modern state of Israel came about. And the fact that one can hardly point the finger of blame at Israel for this fact.. One could also posit that the Jewish people have had an underdog status for centuries.. one can continue in what would be no doubt a vicious circle on the subject.

Their ridiculous rationale that in part bin Laden attacked us on 9/11 because we support Israel.. considering bin Laden's nonchalance about how the Saudi's, the Jordanians have mistreated and abused the Palestinians living in those countries kind of tosses that rationale out the window.. one has to wonder at Mearsheimer and Walt's true intent in their paper on the subject.. they haven't seemed very credible to me at all.

As I've said before, I'm with Max and Noam on this one, and they're both jews I think, and one of them at least a lot more of Zionist than I am.

So diss the London Revew of Books if you want. I couldn't download the paper, but the abstract reads like pseudo-science.

"[this paper] examines the claim that U.S. Middle East policy is at variance with U.S. national interest and tries to understand how that claim jibes with the principles of the Realist School of international relations theory to which the authors belong"
What the hell does that mean?

Do I have to remind you as well as JMM and that idiot Rosenberg that that as long as there have been Zionists there have been Jewish Anti-Zionists? Do I have to take your kowtowing to peer review seriously when you make your money as a policy hack?. What next, Benny Morris vs. the NY Review? Please, son, grow up. Israel is tossing this administration's hard nosed anti-intellectualism and sheer stupidity back in it's face. " 'Little' Israel is surrounded by an Axis of Evil!"
And you offer Bantustans and racial nationalism.

I'm a Jew, asshole.
Remember it.

Meh,

Its been a while since I read the original paper, and I was waiting for a scholarly analysis to see where the weak points are. This, unfortunately, is not it. Its a pretty light argument that substitutes a sneering tone for analytical depth.

Rather than argue against Bush’s decision to treat 9/11 as the reason to declare war on terror, they trivialize terror’s importance. “Terror is a tactic employed by a wide array of political groups; it is not a single adversary. The terrorist organizations that threaten Israel (e.g. Hamas or Hezbollah) do not threaten the United States except when it intervenes against them (as in Lebanon in 1982) (5).

Surely there is room for conceiving of Middle Eastern terrorism as more
complex than “a single adversary” without so underestimating its significance as
to view it as a mere tactic employed by otherwise disparate and unrelated groups.
Mearsheimer and Walt cling to this desiccated understanding because to provide a
richer account of Islamist Fundamentalism, its use of terror and its broader
ambitions, would require them to perform the mental exercise suggested above. It
would force them to confront the fact that even if Israel were to disappear, the
hostility of Islamism to liberal democracy is so profound as to pose a serious
threat to the United States, and indeed to all similar regimes.

OK, he presupposes a priori that Islamic Fundamentalism is a unified whole. It would be nice if he defined "Islamic Fundamentalism" (big or little "f"), or terrorism. Since he is using words he doesn't define to establish connections he doesn't explain it is difficult to understand what he is attempting to establish. "Islamic Fundamentalism" can consist of suicide bombings in Israel, or women in Cairo deciding to take classes in Islamic virtues. Terrorism is about as amorphus a word as you can find.

Sure, they're using common sense meanings of words, and general understandings of complex phenomena to advance their argument. That's exactly what academic writing shouldn't do - defining your terms, supporting your assertions with facts and logic is what seperates scholarly research from Fox News.

I'm not suggesting that Mearsheimer and Walt are beyond reproach, and their article may very well be torn apart by a well researched, well argued paper. But this ain't it.

Oh no... not again.

Look, I disagree with Walt and Mearsheimer's thesis.
But I am tired of the "Rosenberg had a bad day" meme.

Crybabies you all.

Read Haaretz, a newspaper that's miles ahead of the NYT in the honesty and courage of its reporting. Read Gideon Levy, a man of tremendous strength and integrity, who, in the middle of a war, doesn't hesitate to say that his own government has lost the plot. (Something unthinkable in the US.)

And I wish, I wish... if only our own pundits stateside were not such weasels, such cowards.

I am every bit as pro-Israel as Rosenberg (and no, I don't consider myself a self-hating Jew) but his whining is pathetic. Israel has been cursed with abysmal leaders for decades. Its politics stinks. Why anyone who says so gets accused of antisemitism is completely beyond me.

. . . one must question their motives in writing this piece the way they did.

And let the debate begin.

Heck, yeah! Let's get that debate going! Just as soon as we drop a few ad hominem insinuations, that is. Because that's exactly what's needed to make it a productive discussion.

This is embarassing, both post and comments. Why are so many pro-Israel, well, wildly pro-Israel, posters at TPM trollers?

Walt-Measheimer wrote a fairly insightful paper though too qualified and too short to fully rewrite the recent history of recent US-Israeli relations. (Not that any one paper or one book can be "authoritative" enough to rewrite an already complex and volumous history.) Does anyone at all deny that the blood runs deep between the US and Israel? Or that--certainly throughout the cold war--the US and Israel played all sorts of games? Or that the US-Israel lobby isn't more complex and larger than, say, the French or Dutch lobby?

Give me a couple dozen more Walt-Measheimer papers/disputes/discussions--do those guys even have a book contract yet?-- and I'll be more convinced that the recent history of recent US-Israel events is well-known and well-documented enough for there to be consensus view.

Baer's casual dismissal of Walt-Measheimer is embarassing, asuming, you know, his motivations and all. And the comments are just as silly. Walt-Measheimer doesn't decide much, one way or the other, but it's worth reading. Or worth reading, asuming and all. Who knows? Maybe the tale of James Linville's trip to London before the war really was to coax Perry Anderson into publishing stuff in LRB that's half-assed and generally bad for the careers of academics who question the neocons. But that's a bit far fetched, no? I mean, really, when you take into account motivations and all.

"then one must question their motives in writing this piece the way they did."

Mr Baer, I'd be grateful if you clarified what you mean here - are you saying these men are anti-semites, or are you not?

I understand you are pro-Israel if only the Israelis would die more quietly. How rude of them.

The idea that the Palestinians have just been waiting for a deal that does not include Israel disappearing is what is the fantasy. The you buy into the Edward Said post modern Arabist drivel is too bad.

Israel has been opportunities for a deal especially after 1967. However the deal was not with the Palestinians but with Egypt. That deal required another war and Sadat.

I wish the American Left was lot more informed and did not buy into the idea that the whiners in the world such as the Arabs are in the right and should not be treated as grown-ups.


Daniel A. Greenbaum

If you really want to "let the debate begin," you might want to offer at least a brief synopsis of the Landry piece. Just a line or two summarizing his argument, maybe. Or even just a couple of hints or clues.

Many academics publish in non-peer-reviewed journals like the LRB. Some academics even publish on non-peer-reviewed weblogs, for that matter. Are you willing to say that they all do so because they are "unwilling to adhere to the academic standards that their profession follows"?

Daniel , elsewhere I  defended you against the charge of being indifferent to deaths in Lebanon , saying that the commentator shouldn't say something he probably wouldn't actually believe it he thought about it..

So I'll say  to you about

 whiners in the world such as the Arabs

That I don't think you believe the implication that all or most Arabs are whiners.. So don't write it. 

Yeah , evolution , diet , chance or whatever can produce a somewhat higher percentage of a particular characteristic in a particular race at a particular time. But never to the extent that it's intellectually respectable to write that "Jews are shrewd" " Hindu's are hard working" etc.when there are also plenty of gullible jews and idle hindus. 

Why should "whiners" be a label you feel free to apply to Arabs ?  To use a somewhat cheap argument: right now our soldiers in Iraq surely include Arab Americans. Would you say that to them ? If you wouldn't you shouldn't write it here.

Clearly you're a smart guy with strong positions which you wish to express. If , in addition , you actually want  to convince your readers write what you really believe not what it's fun to type.

 

 

My apologies for the sarcasm. I don't know why I respond to this poster at all.

On July 17, 2006 - 6:54am DanielGree said: I understand you are pro-Israel if only the Israelis would die more quietly. How rude of them.

Hummmm.
All I can say Mr Gree is slander much?
At this rate we'll soon have a complete theory of Liberal Blood Libel.

You're better than this.

You're better than this.

This is what I wonder about. People on this site are called anti-semitic in a broad and ugly way. Yet true hate speech has no gatekeeping rebuke. There is no equivalent hatespeech "anti-semitic" term to humiliate people who participate in hating Arabs, Lebonese, Canadians, Americans,... nothing.

Just a polite, "You're better than this."

Actually, I'm okay with this. Instead of shouting "anti-semitic" just say, "You're better than this" when you encounter something offensive.

This isn't argument, this is provocation. I thought one of the noble purposes of this site was to provide a comments section where readers could discuss and comment on well written and well reasoned essays and opinions of others who are just as passionate and interested in politics.

Now somehow, we're turning into some kind of bolshevik committee where we haul fellow members up to the front of the room and question their motivations and make accusations from which they have to defend themselves.

That doesn't add to the discussion, it multiplies the discord and ratchets up the noise level to where no one is listening to the other person because they can't be heard over the shouting and name calling. We're hurting each other with personal attacks and there is no need for that - there's enough pain, hurt, name-calling, accusations and flaming going on in the world without adding to the misery. The very least we can do is be civil to each other.

LiberalVoice,

People on this site are called anti-semitic ina  broad and ugly way.

So what?  Zionists are routinely generalized as extremists, Jews as traitors, and Israelis as racists with none of the outcry over charges of antisemitism.  I don't really understand the outcry over characterizations of antisemitism, whether real or imagined, anyway.  The claim that it "stifles debate" comes off as ridiculous whining.  Certainly, it's not like the characterization of antisemitism itself amounts to an accusation of genocidal Nazism, as the dramatics of the routine outcries suggest ("Methinks they doth protest too much," nu?), anymore than characterizations of racism amount to full fledged lynch mob behavior.  There are degrees, as in all types of cognitive maps and emotional baggage.

It is quite obvious that some TPMCafe contributors, such as transhuman, jexter and others, historically have had issues with Jews participating either as an equal member of the family of nations, or within the crazy quilt of American special interests.  Fine.  Whether their perspectives are antisemitic or not hardly factors in the rise or fall of their argumetns anyway.  And it certainly has no real bearing on the course of the debate, such as it is. 

So what? Zionists are routinely generalized as extremists, Jews as traitors, and Israelis as racists with none of the outcry

Well they shouldn't be. Nor should those who criticize Isreal's actions be routinely characterized as anti semitic.

Yeah , some of the TPM comments do appear to be anti semitic and you and the rest of us should point that out. Which will be a lot more effective if we only say that when we mean it instead of it's being "routine".

Did Mr. Baer read the article in question? From his description, I'd think not. Landy offers no point by point refutation. The article is in its substance an argument for another reading of SOME of the evidence presented. That argument is by no means irrefutable; whether it is even persuasive depends on the assumptions that one brings to the paper. Nor is the dismissal of one lobbyist's claim that Jews ended Chuck Percy's senatorial career as something "not even [the lobbyist's] mother would believe" a rigorous standard of evidence.

False alarm!

flavius, I commend (using such formal language cause of your nomiker!) your challenge to daniel, however I would point out a slight difference with the other comment on the other thread--I have never seen daniel single out and bait a member by name on thread that the member has not even commented on, stating a presumption to know what the member would think on an issue, something very nasty at that.

Keep on keeping on, I give up. :-)

let the debate begin. (Kenneth Baer)

Go debate with someone else. I don't agree with everything in the Walt-Mearsheimer piece; but I'll discuss it elsewhere. When you "question their motives," I stop listening. I'm not reading any more garbage about anti-semitism at the TPM site.

So what?

Oh, I agree completely. I am not Jewish and have not been imprinted with an anti-semitic parser in my speech and hearing processing. I am quite indifferent to these complex, nonsensical whines myself. However, I am always curious as to what magic terminology [aside from obvious to anyone hate-speech] triggers the inevitable whining.

But in deferrence to a site that I enjoy participating in I think you can agree with me that it is unfortunate that the discussion is reduced to schoolyard epitaths like we've witnessed in the past few days.

Zionists are routinely generalized as extremists, Jews as traitors, and Israelis as racists with none of the outcry over charges of antisemitism.

Is this a test? Lots of people get accused of these things who are not Zionists. And Zionists are sometimes the accusers. What are we to make of this?

I don't really understand the outcry over characterizations of antisemitism, whether real or imagined, anyway. The claim that it "stifles debate" comes off as ridiculous whining.

I think it sells. It diverts attention from whatever the original comment was or might have been to teary eyed admonishments about THE HOLOCAUST, and so on whether the original comment had anything to do with WW II or not.

These accusations I think go a long way in fund raising efforts to rid the world of anti-semitism. The trouble is that the industry of prevention is so profitable it seems to seed itself in business opportunities. No?

There are degrees, as in all types of cognitive maps and emotional baggage.

Again, I agree. And whining about anti-seminism and accusations of anti-seminism in the free world is creating a new genre of absurd anti-semitism as entertainment, intellectual blackmail, sympathy whining, and other categories that really expand the entertainment value of the genre.

And it certainly has no real bearing on the course of the debate, such as it is.

Well, you and I enjoy healthy debate and an open exchange of ideas and I'm grateful for that. I would rather people address the issues honestly than couch in fear that everything they say has some subliminal nefarious meaning.

I don't think most people are being mean or hateful in their comments. Sometimes they're just misguided - just like you and I are sometimes.

fair comment

LiberalVoice,

I would rather people address the issues honestly than couch in fear that everything they say has some subliminal nefarious meaning.

Like...,

It diverts attention from whatever the original comment was or might have been to teary eyed admonishments about THE HOLOCAUST, and so on whether the original comment had anything to do with WW II or not.

Here you jump to conclusions.  Now if one calls an adversary a Nazi, you would have a point.  But again, antisemitism itself hardly rises immediately and necessarily to the level of the Final Solution -- just as racism hardly rises immediately and necessarily to the level of KKK lynch mob mentality.  Wilhelm Marr, the author of the term antisemitism, was motivated by an opposition to what he saw as a Judaizing influence on Austro-German politics, economics and culture.  Assertions of Jewish domination over US foreign policy are in alarming harmony with such an ideology.  But as bigotted as he was, I know of no evidence that Marr ever advocated genocide.  That came a good half-century later. 

flavius,

Yeah , some of the TPM comments do appear to be anti semitic and you and the rest of us should point that out. Which will be a lot more effective if we only say that when we mean it instead of it's being "routine".

Too bad it doesn't work that way.  I can be called a thug, a racist, a troll, etc., but if you point out what you may find antisemitic, you will be flagged for stifling the debate.  Heads they win, tails we lose.  You'll see.

Somehow, I don't think "anti-semitism" began with Wilhelm Marr.  Or maybe, it did -- which would imply that medieval anti-Jewish "pogroms" were not "anti-semitic."

Maybe, we should drop the term, entirely. 

Somehow, I don't think "anti-semitism" began with Wilhelm Marr.

Ellen, do not take my word for it.  By all means, look it up.

Here you jump to conclusions.

Here, I'm just pointing out that some posters immmediately begin brow-beating anyone who protests being called anti-semitic with guilt-trip rhetoric about that person's insensitivity.

Part of the anti-semitism dance is that the accused is expected to accept the slander to pretend to ease the guilt of the survivors who sat on their hands while atrocities were taking place.

But as bigotted as he was, I know of no evidence that Marr ever advocated genocide.

I have said nothing to imply that one has to advocate exterminating Jews to be authentically anti-semitic. Let's agree that that's ten on a scale of one to ten, advocating killing is a ten. From what I can ascertain, 1-9 are degrees of bigotry against Jews.

How would you define the low-end of the scale? And where does Israel come into the characterization?

 

Israel Lobby Watch

 

Let not your lying eyes lose sight of this quote from Dianne Feinstein, who claimed in response to a recent email from me on the criminal collective punishments in Gaza...

Relations between the United States and Israel are crucial to stability in the Middle East, where the road to peace and prosperity continues to be fraught with many obstacles.  In this regard, Congress has placed considerable importance on the maintenance of a close and supportive relationship with Israel. Sen. Dianne Feinstein  7/11/06

I asked Sen Feinstein to explain for me just how these relations were "crucial to stability" and why Congress placed "considerable importance" on them.

While I am waiting for her answer, maybe Ken Baer would like to take a shot. After all, that is the linchpin of the M/W thesis...the strategic interests of the US

 

Or delete and prove my case that way.

 

Your petard..my hoist

I wasn't disputing your knowledge -- only the meanings to be drawn therefrom.

 

Zionista,

Your replies [and others like you, Jew and non-Jew] give me the impression that you exercise the label of anti-semitism not so much as a categorical condemnation of something concrete but rather as a personal disposition toward encountering an argument that you so vehemently disagree with that you reach for the anti-semitism pressure relief valve.

I'm not trying to dispense a cheap shot here but this disposition seems to include a victimization argument, we lose.

For Americans who view the world materially, it is difficult to see the loss you speak of. Do you believe you are worse off in some way than 99% of the world's population? There's no evidence of such a thing.

And this is what offends intelligent people. To have so much and to insist that you're being discriminated against somehow simply defies logic.

What Racist has won? What thug has won? Are you serious?

LiberalVoice,

I have said nothing to imply that one has to advocate exterminating Jews to be authentically anti-semitic.

But you did say that those who accuse others of antisemitism tend to do so in the name of the Holocaust:

I think it sells. It diverts attention from whatever the original comment was or might have been to teary eyed admonishments about THE HOLOCAUST, and so on whether the original comment had anything to do with WW II or not. 

LiberalVoice,

How would you define the low-end of the scale? And where does Israel come into the characterization?

Sorry, but I just don't see it in rigid linear terms.  However, I would say that assigning nefarious intentions to the nature of Jewish interests is a reasonable foundation of antisemitic tendencies.

Where I would say that Israel comes into an antisemitic (or otherwise bigotted) characterization is in the rejection of the legitimate national expression of Jewish identity that qualifies the Jewish people for the same right of national self-determination in their native region that is assumed of Arab peoples (or any other peoples with legitimate national aspirations, for that matter).  An extension of this idea is that Zionism is a monolithic expression of its most extreme elements, despite the fact that most Israelis, Zionists and Jews reject the idea that Jewish and Arab national rights are mutually exclusive in the former British Mandate.

Israel Lobby Watch

 

Baer or anyone else...my email  address is there for any and all who wish to "discuss"

But you did say that those who accuse others of antisemitism tend to do so in the name of the Holocaust:

No. I said, "THE HOLOCAUST, and so on".  The so on being the important part you selectively parsed out.  But come now, would the label anti-semitic have any veracity without that moral understatement?

In America the Holocaust is imprinted into every schoolchild's brain to the ignorance that the Jewish Holocaust is  most eminant among human atrocities.  And equally imprinted is the idea that slighting a Jew amounts to "anti-semitism"!  Is this news to you?   This coupling isn't co-incidental and it isn't my invention.

But you're stalking a way to pull out that wildcard aren't you because anyone who refuses to accept your nonsense must be, well...

go ahead and say it.