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

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.

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.

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.

. . . 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.

"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?

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"?

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

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.

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. 

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!

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.

fair comment

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.

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

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

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,

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.

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. 

LiberalVoice,

Your replies 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.

Really?  You and I are having an argument now, right?  Do you feel as if I am accusing you of antisemitism?

Oh, I thought you might call me a thug. I guess I was wrong about you.

Let me drop in a little comment.

Likud is not Israel. Attacking Likudnik policies is not anti-Israeli, it is not anti-semitic, yet Likudniks and their US supporters always wheel around and claim that it obviously is. From my perspective that is the source of much of the heat that inevitably enters this debate - any criticism of the specific expansionist and in some dark corners eliminationist policies of the Israeli Right immediately get turned around as supporting suicide bombers. And I am afraid Mr. Baer is not sufficiently careful to stay out of this trap.

To say that Likud and its ally AIPAC have too much influence over the NeoCons and so current US foreign policy is an observation that has a great deal of backing and has little to nothing to do (from the outside at least) with the religious composition of the prominant NeoCons, and everything with the validation of Likudnik policies by this Administration and this Congress.

From my perspective Likud (standing here for the Israeli Right generally) and its attendent Settler Movement has done nothing for Israel but bring death and destruction. People can twist and turn but the fact is that you cannot combine the notions of Greater Israel and universal suffrage for people born within those borders and a Jewish State. The demographics work against it, there just are too many Palestinians. And the potential 'solutions' to that are fairly dark.

To repeat Likud is no more Israel than the Republican Party is the United States. No matter what Michael Medved would say on both.

Personally I am leaning towards Olmert on this one, but Bibi is still out there waiting to pick up the pieces and reinstute Likudism which remains a danger to the long term existence of Israel as a democratic state. And if that is enough to convict me of being anti-Israel and anti-semitic so be it.

But at least I don't have a link in my favorites to yigalamir.com celebrating the assassin of an elected Prime Minister. Nor do I advocate gathering at the grave of a person who gunned down 19 defenseless people in a mosque:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/685792.stm
"Graveside party celbrates Hebron massacre"

This isn't black or white, there is ugliness in operation on both sides, and pretending that either side is simply a victim or deserves unquestioning support is to ignore a lot of historical context.

This is an example of use of personal insults and derogatory language that will get you suspended from the site.

Take a time machine if available, go to Poland in the 19th century, go to an inn's public room, and utter the word hep. Observe reactions.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

What the professors should have told us - but didn’t
The Arab Lobby
Maurice Ostroff

On May 29, 2006 a Google search for the words “Mearsheimer and Walt + lobby” yielded 57,900 results all because of a paper, “The Israel lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” by Harvard professor Stephen Walt and University of Chicago professor John Mearsheimer. In a response to critics, the authors admitted they knew their paper was likely to generate a strong reaction. Originally published in March by the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government, an edited version in the London Review of Books (LRB), rocketed the authors to instant fame.
Strangely, although the paper bears the prestigious imprimatur of Harvard, it departs seriously from the standards of scholarship expected of the universities to which the authors are affiliated. In the 82 page working paper the authors evidently seek to build a case to confirm their preconceived views, that an Israel lobby unduly influences US foreign policy against its interests. No effort was made to substantiate their inaccurate accusations and they completely failed to present comparisons between the relative influences of Israeli lobbyists and the many other lobbies which influence Washington.

But the most important aspect of the document is the relevant information that was omitted. The authors’ obsessive focus on the Israel lobby shifts attention from real dangers confronting the USA and the Western world by the powerful Arab Lobby and the Muslim extremism manifested in the recent Danish cartoons furor. By this exclusion, the professors’ vicious attack on the Israel lobby serves as a dangerous smokescreen, dulling the public’s awareness of the serious dangers, which cry out for attention. If the professors are seriously concerned about undue influences on Washington, there is no excuse for overlooking these real dangers.

It is a sine qua non that scholarly integrity and intellectual honesty require a readiness to suppress one's biases and to follow the facts wherever they lead, taking care not to avoid evidence which may contradict preconceived views. Yet the professors were unable to conceal their collective bias as manifested, for example, in their refusal to acknowledge that the Israel government is located in Jerusalem. They wrote about relations between "Tel Aviv and Washington”, rather than “Jerusalem and Washington”, evidently fearing that the latter might be interpreted as recognizing Jerusalem as the Israeli capital.

It is incredible that in their academic study the professors ignored for example, the dramatic stranglehold of OPEC, the blatantly monopolistic cartel which threatens the world economy. This stranglehold began with OPEC’s decision to use oil as a political weapon in 1973 when the price was $2.60 per barrel. After October 1973, when the Arab members of OPEC imposed their oil embargo against the West, the price quadrupled to about $12 by January 1974 and is now soaring well above $60. All this, while, believe it or not, production costs average about $6 per barrel for non-OPEC producers and $1.50 per barrel for OPEC producers (Bulletin of Atomic Scientisis May/June 2005). Not surprising that Saudi Arabia's revenue rose from $5 billion in 1973 to a record high of $93 billion in 1980.

Of course there is a Jewish lobby, in fact there are several. Some even oppose each other. But it is plainly unscholarly to denounce any lobby in a serious 82 page document, without critically evaluating its position relative to the many competing influences, which are integral to the Washington scene.

In a note in his diary, former President Carter disclosed how, in 1977, the Arab lobby pressured him while he was involved in the negotiations between President Sadat and PM Begin. He wrote about Arab Americans "They have given all the staff, Brzezinski, Warren Christopher, and others, a hard time.”

After the 1967 war, the Arabian American Oil Company ARAMCO established a fund to present the Arab side of the conflict. In May 1970, ARAMCO representatives warned Assistant Secretary of State Joseph Sisco that American military sales to Israel would hurt U.S.-Arab relations and jeopardize U.S. oil supplies.

In 1973 Mobil published an advertorial (an advertisement written in the form of an objective opinion editorial) in the New York Times, promoting Arab interests. In July, the chairman of Standard Oil of California (SOCAL then, Chevron now) sent a letter to the company's 40,000 employees and 262,000 stockholders asking them to pressure Washington to support "the aspirations of the Arab people." The chairman of Texaco called for a reassessment of U.S. Middle East policy.
When the October 1973 War broke out, the chairmen of the ARAMCO partners sent a memorandum to the White House warning against increasing military aid to Israel. ARAMCO has maintained its public relations campaign since 1973, and has become involved in occasional legislative fights, such as the AWACS sale,

So too, the professors have ignored many prominent Arab lobbyists who have had and continue to have intimate access to US presidents.
For example On July 19, 2005 The Hill, a newspaper about the U.S. Congress, highlighted the activities of Fred Dutton, former Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs and special assistant to President Kennedy. It reported that one of Dutton’s chief chores since 1975 had been to serve as a lobbyist for Saudi Arabia. In that role, he sought to persuade Congress to approve two major arms sales to the kingdom.

In an obituary to Clark Clifford (October 11, 1998), the New York Times spoke of him not only as a key adviser to four presidents, but also as a powerful lobbyist for Arab sources. In his memoir, "Counsel to the President" Clifford wrote that he advised clients “What we can offer you is an extensive knowledge of how to deal with the government on your problems. We will be able to give you advice on how best to present your position to the appropriate departments and agencies of the government." Clifford, a paid lobbyist, made about $6 million in profits from bank stock that he bought with an unsecured loan from Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI). In 1978, he helped BCCI acquire First American Bank. Clifford as chairman, reassured the Federal Reserve Board that there would be no control by BCCI, which he also represented, but ten years later, evidence disclosed that BCCI did indeed secretly control the parent company of Clifford's bank. BCCI had in the meantime been accused of fraud, drug money laundering and bribing bank regulators and central bankers. It was reported to have $20 billion in assets shortly before its shutdown, but liquidators were unable to find many of its assets.

Axis Information And Analysis, (Aia), which specializes in information about Asia and Eastern Europe, rated Prince Bandar Bin Sultan as the most influential foreigner in the USA. As head of the Saudi embassy in Washington in 1983, he was an important participant in backstage intrigues, clandestine negotiations, and billion-dollar deals relating to US interests in the Middle East, with broad links among high-ranking officials in the State Department, the Pentagon and the CIA. Bandar’s father, Sultan Bin Abdul Aziz al Saud, was a leading figure in the ruling dynasty, which decides the extent of military cooperation with the United States.

The authors’ claim that US policy towards Israel contributes to America's terrorist problem also deserves critical examination. As far back as November 2002, Alex Alexiev, in an article published by the United States Committee for a Free Lebanon (USCFL) pointed out that, Riyadh, flush with oil money, became the paymaster of most of the militant Islamic movements, which advocated terror. In its aggressive support for radical Islam, even the most violent of Islamic groups, like Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, receives Saudi largesse. He claims that official Saudi sources indicate that between 1975 and 1987, Riyadh's "overseas development aid" averaged $4 billion per year, of which at least $50 billion over two and a half decades financed "Islamic activities” exclusively. The SAAR Foundation, alone, which has been closed down since 9/11, received $1.7 billion in donations in 1998.

Compared to these numbers, the miniscule Israeli PR budget of about $4million is laughable.

In addition, there are of course several Arab American advocacy groups, of which the two most influential are the Arab American Institute and the recently merged American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and National Association of Arab-Americans, not to speak of the immense power behind the Arab oil wealth. The professors appear to mirror the message of this lobby, which argue that aid to Israel is a waste of taxpayers' money.

There is a perplexing ambiguity in the authors’ article. They write that they explicitly stated that by itself the Jewish lobby could not convince either the Clinton or the Bush administration to invade Iraq, but that there is abundant evidence that the neo-conservatives and other groups “within” the lobby played a central role in making the case for war. Does ”within” imply that the neo-conservatives and unnamed other groups are components of an all-embracing Jewish lobby?

Later in the article they claim that were it not for the Jewish lobby, the US would almost certainly not have gone to war against Iraq in March 2003. However, according to Aia, it was Bandar Bin Sultan who in 1990-91, pushed President Bush the elder, to start the military campaign against Iraq. This crucial information throws an entirely different light on the conflicting influences under which Washington operates. Or do the authors consider Bin Sultan part of the Jewish lobby?

Nor should one ignore the influence of the many other non-Arab lobbies with which the Jewish lobby must compete. Though not specifically concerned with Middle East politics they exert powerful influences on Washington, some of which may indirectly affect the Middle East. The American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) for example, has over 34 million members, whose $10 annual membership fees create a mighty financial tool for promoting its causes in Congress. The ACLU and The National Rifle Association are also extremely powerful lobbies.

Steven Emerson, the internationally recognized expert on terrorism and national security and a leading world authority on Islamic terrorist networks has provided detailed account of Arab influence in his book “The American House of Saud”. He analyzes in depth the power of Arab petrodollars amounting to $661 billion between 1973 and 1984. Emerson is recognized as having specifically warned about the threat of Osama Bin Laden's network in Congressional testimony in 1998.

In a review of Emerson’s book, Daniel Pipes writes that Emerson chronicles anti-Israeli activities undertaken in recent years by prominent Americans who were receiving or prepared to receive Saudi money. They include J. William Fulbright, who wrote an article in Newsweek about the Camp David Summit in 1978 advocating a position very similar to that of the Saudi government. Although at that time he was a registered agent of the Saudi government and although he listed his Newsweek article with the Justice Department as an activity on the Saudis' behalf, Mr. Fulbright identified himself in the article only as a former U.S. Senator practicing law in Washington, D.C.

Other major figures tagged by Mr. Emerson as having joined the chase for Saudi money include Spiro Agnew, Bert Lance and Jimmy Carter. Mr. Emerson argues that Mr. Agnew - previously well disposed toward Israel - began fulminating against "Zionist influences in the United States" as part of his successful effort to attract Saudi business. He shows that Bert Lance received a $3.5 million loan from a Saudi financier, which he did not sign for. Subsequently, Mr. Lance spoke of "the great Jewish ownership of the press." And Mr. Emerson juxtaposes Jimmy Carter's effusive praise of the Saudi government in 1983 with the willingness of a Saudi financier to pick up the $50,000 tab for a Carter Presidential Library benefit.

A number of former ambassadors to the Arab countries are also on the Saudi payroll. Mr. Emerson documents that one of them, Andrew I. Killgore, said in public that his company did not do public relations work for Saudi Arabia when in fact it did. Offered a chance by Pipes, to respond, Mr. Killgore did not deny the charge. Instead he accused Pipes of wishing to "silence" him.

The Israel lobby pales by comparison

In a March 29, 2006 op-ed in the LA Times Max Boot, a Senior Fellow in National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations succinctly summed up the issue. He wrote:

“It's true that the U.S. has paid a price for supporting Israel, but it has paid an even bigger price for supporting other embattled allies. The U.S. has sent subsidies but never soldiers to protect Israel unless you believe, with Mearsheimer-Walt, Pat Buchanan and David Duke, that the invasion of Iraq was a Zionist plot. We have sent troops to save, among others, Britain, France, South Korea, South Vietnam, Kuwait and Kosovo. Today we risk war in defense of nations from Latvia to Taiwan, even though there is no good reason why their fate should matter to us any more than that of Israel. Perhaps Mearsheimer and Walt will write another paper exposing the tentacles of the Latvian lobby. Or are they only exercised about the power of the Hebrews?

After finishing their magnum opus, I was left with just one question: Why would the omnipotent Israel lobby (which, they claim, works so successfully "to stifle criticism of Israel") allow such a scurrilous piece of pseudo-scholarship to be published? Then I noticed that Walt occupies a professorship endowed by Robert and Renee Belfer, Jewish philanthropists who are also supporters of Israel. The only explanation, I surmise, is that Walt must himself be an agent of those crafty Israelites, employed to make the anti-Israel case so unconvincingly that he discredits it. "The Lobby" works in mysterious ways.”

"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."

Am I not allowed to be offended by such comments?
Am I not being accused of being a self-hating Jew? And how else should I respond?
Yes, there are arguments, and there are attacks. Which has Mr Baer written here?

nice howler in Marc Landy's piece: he disputes cited text (elipsis is his):

"Foreign elites consistenly view US policies as too supportive of Israel. ... In a letter to Tony Blair, 52 former British diplomats called Bush and Sharon's policies one sided and illegal."

It is nice to be liked. But, from a Realist perspective the appropriate response to evidence of unpopularity is "so what"? Exactly how are United States interests harmed by such expressions of popular disapproval, especially when expressed by those living in regimes that are not based on popular approval? How many divisions do 52 retired civil servants command? One expects tougher stuff from realists.

It is a delicious example indeed. 52 retired civil servants living in regimes that are not based on popular approval? Are we to believe that the chaps are spending their declining years in Belorus or Myammar? Or that the vaunted British parliamentary system is a sham?

One could suggest that a scholarship method that is based on heaping invectives requires some matching of the invectives with their targets. The fact that some critics hailed from undemocratic countries does not mean that all of them do. A similar mismatch can be noticed on the same page:

[oil embargo is hardly possible] Oil is a commodity to be bought and sold. There is little likelihood that cash strapped Middle Eastern countries...

The likelihood of an oil embargo may well be small, but surely not because Middle Eastern oil producers are "cash strapped". A decade ago, with oil at 15 USD/bbl, they were indeed cash strapped. Now, with oil having 5 times larger prices, major oil producers rather uniformly export twice as much as they import and they have problems with proper and safe investing of the surpluss cash (an interesting topic, as we had a habit of confiscating the stash of money of a country in conflict with us). Yet, further down

If [,,,] Saudis feel empowered to invoke the threat for a variety of political ends, such a potential disruption of the oil supply poses an intolerable risk to U.S> national security. The realistic thing to do is deal with it by force, not simpering acquiescence.

If I understand Landy, would Saudi change their opinion how to dispose with some of their property (to wit, oil), we should take it by force.

Marc Landy may appear to be a raving idiot, but should we casually reject his scholarship? Is it proto-fascist cult of force or indeed, "clear eyed realism"?

The opinion that Landy refuted claims of Mearsheimer and Walt depends on the answer.

Each discipline's practice of peer review varies. I'm most familiar with those in computer science/network engineering, and in medicine. It's not at all uncommon for a reviewer there, human subject research an obvious exception, to repeat the actual experiment and see if results are consistent. This certainly will be harder in...well, social science doesn't really fit what I want to say. I can plausibly see someone in psychometrics or cognitive psychology try to repeat an experiment, but it's impractical in more macro disciplines such as sociology, cultural anthropology, and social psychology.

In networking, there are several methods for peer review. For conferences and traditional journals, it's much the same as for other sciences. For network engineering, the peer review process is very open. To have something on a standards track, one submits a draft to the appropriate working group of specialists. Comments are made on the mailing lists, and variously the authors reply, incorporate the comments, or both. One colleague, borrowing from karate, refers to this as a "full-contact design review." Eventually, a consensus forms (or not) in the Working Group, and a Last Call is issued. Typically, people from outside the WG may respond to Last Call. The document then goes to a subject matter Area Director, who possibly brings in independent experts, and then submits it to the Steering Group, which checks for consistency among Areas.

Since these deal with real protocol implementations, there are three levels of Standard, each level requiring the demonstration of more interoperable implementations, as well as publication by the implementers of problems they had building the software.

I find it a pretty rigorous process.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

Mary from RI probably doesn't deserve the ratings she's getting here.  The entire post is taken from a post on a different website.  The three lines on the top are an attibution, but because she doesn't use text,  quotes or block quotes or bold face or other typographical tools to indicate that this is a long quotation  it looks as if the words are hers.  Here is a link to the original on Israel-Palestina Info.   It also appears on The Arab Lobby My guess is that she got it from the latter.  Either way, the views and the ways they are expressed belong so someone else, and if one disagrees with them he/she should recognize that he/she's disagreeing with the original author.  Providing a different point of view mho is a neutral thing.  Had she penned these words herself, then it would be appropraite to use the rating system to indicate whether what she wrote was a 4,3.2.or 1.

Mike

I'm still a humble grad student, so have no first hand experienec with the peer review system. However, having read a lot of articles and books that have gone through the process, my impression is that it weeds out the completly insane and incoherant. There is a lot that gets through that has mistakes, faulty logic or is otherwise problematic.

I would suggest that Mearsheimer and Walt might have published "The Israeli Lobby" in the London Review of Books because (I assume) it gets a little more circulation than your average academic journal. Did they want to provoke discussion among Political Science academics, or the general public?

"Is There a Text in This Class?"

And all this time I thought we read to confirm our biases. :-) 

Yes, and if the paper is lacking in merit but makes it through the gate anyhow, one can be pretty sure that a rebuttal will follow. One other point, so far off topic that I should boot myself to Peoria, but there's no place around here to discuss stuff like this and it's among my consuming passions. In my original post I said that the disciplines evolve across time. Consequently, I think there is a difference between the review process in relatively new disciplines like computer science or information science and relatively ancient ones, like History. It would be fun to return to thinking about this in 20 years...heck, I'll only be 85 by then so I could still be here.

My Ph.D. is in American Studies, a discipline which is a little over 60 years old now. The American Studies Association was formed by a marriage of the disciplines of History and English--Historians who felt history was too political and Literature experts who felt current methodologies lacked historical context. More recently a group of scholars in American Studies, who felt traditional American Studies was too elitist, created the discipline (or sub-discipline) of Popular Culture.

This has nothing to do with David Horowitz's Center for the Study of Popular Culture. I see it has changed its name, a testimony to the ego of its founder. I should have a point, I guess. The point is that the world doesn't exist in disciplines we create them to impose some sort of conceptual order on experience. The trouble comes when we mistake the method for the subject or when we forget that we created the disciplines in the first place and let them govern us beyond all reason.

Mike

However to state without evidence other the Jewishness of the American in question, that they are Likudnics, and by implication disloyal to America, is anti-Semitic.

Afterall part of the point made by Mearsheimer and Walt, which Lundy does not bother with, is that neo=Cons basically act in Israel and not America's insterest.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

You read the article? It does not destroy every point as it does not deal with all of them. You leftout his discussion of how few Jews there was in Percy's district, the ways in which Percy alienated Reagan Democrats in Illinois and that Paul Simon was a very good candidate. Perhaps you missed something?

However, it undermines everyone he addresses. I agree that it does take an Ph.D in political science to know that the "Israeli Lobby" was terribly supported.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

The casualness with which people at this site treat the death of Jews, at least if they are Israelis I find appalling. It is not slander it is pathetic truth.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

"I understand you are pro-Israel if only the Israelis would die more quietly.

Hey, Josh - does this qualify as "extreme rhetoric"?

Does this sort of comment "cheapen the site"?

"The casualness with which people at this site treat the death of Jews, at least if they are Israelis I find appalling. It is not slander it is pathetic truth."

Hey, Josh - does this qualify as "extreme rhetoric"?

Does this sort of comment "cheapen the site"?

"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."

By adding the phrase "that the member has not even commented on", you redeem the sentence.

Otherwise it is utterly false. He's done that to me repeatedly.

Zionista

Thank you for the vigorous defense. I see you were rated a 1 by three people. It would suggest that those raters, probably those complaining being perhaps accused of anti-Semitism, are rather hypocritical.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

I'm lost in what seems a logical fallacy. If there was no conflating of Judaism with Zionism, the issue of Likud, or any other Israeli party, wouldn't even arise.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

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

This is disingenuous in the extreme.

Zionists are followers of an IDEOLOGY, not an ethnic or racial group. They are accused of "extremism" in the same manner that "Islamic jihadists" are accused of "extremism", as is the neocons. To compare that to the charge of being a racist by being "anti-Semitic" is simply nonsense.

"Jews as traitors" - by whom, and when, and why? More importantly, TO WHOM? Not to mention that I don't recall ever calling Jews as a class "traitors" to anybody. I consider Zionists to be "traitors to their race" because their actions will inevitably cause harm - at least perception wise - to Jews in the Middle East and elsewhere.

"Israelis as racists" - Here you have a point, albeit a weak one. In normal discourse, while one can use the phrase "some" to preface every reference to a demographic, most people don't. To be precise, SOME Israelis ARE racists. So are some Arabs, some Palestinians, some blacks, some whites, some Asians and probably some of every single other ethnic or national or racial demographic one wants to name.

Again, this is irrelevant to the charge of "anti-Semitic". Especially since I have never to my recollection described "Israelis" as racist, even though some of the policies of the Israeli government apparently are.

The point is that if you accuse someone of being "racist" OR "anti-Semitic", you need to be able to POINT to a statement or action that specifically 1) singles out the group being denounced; 2) establishes that the group being denounced is being denounced BECAUSE they are either of a specific racial or ethnic or religious group.

And you and the rest of the ZIONIST THUGS here haven't done ANY of that - which is precisely why I refer to you as "Zionist thugs". It is your Zionist EXTREMISM that causes you to label everyone "anti-Semitic" EVEN when your critics have gone to considerable lengths to EXPLICITLY exclude Jews in general from being at fault.

"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."

I won't speak for anyone but myself. I have repeatedly stated that I have no problem with ethnic Jews, and based on my philosophy of Transhumanism, that is clearly my stance. You have chosen to IGNORE that and accuse me of being "anti-Semitic" without the slightest bit of evidence other than my being a critic of the policies of ZIONIST EXTREMISTS.

That makes YOU a ZIONIST EXTREMIST because you are denouncing people without any evidence for your own IDEOLOGICAL reasons.

And you can stuff it up your ass.

THAT last, Josh, is "extreme rhetoric", resulting from the "extreme rhetoric" being employed by others here that does indeed "cheapen the site".

Mike,

I haven't rated Mary from RI but if I did I would be tempted to rate her 1 or even 0 precisely because she does quote screeds of boilerplate from other sites.

The rating system is supposed to apply to the quality of a post as much as, if not more than, the matter of its argument. Long posts are seldom justified except by the earnest virtue of the poster.

Stuffing the thread with words from another writer whom you haven't even bothered to introduce is an insult, tantamount to demanding that the whole community sit behind in detention and read works that the poster believes are "improving".

In short, the correct etiquette, practised on thousands of blogs, is to introduce the writer and the text, to select an extract which makes the point you wish to emphasise and to provide a hyperlink to the rest. If the text is offline, and you have had to type it all in yourself then so be it, but you should make mention of this.

Given Josh's implied preferences given his support of Rosenberg's rant, I don't think you have to worry about being banned.

I could be wrong, but my suspicion is that I'm far more likely to be banned than you.

But you really do need to tone it down and I think most people here agree with that.

Broad brush again. Be specific. I regret the death of generic Jews I don't know, I regret the death of Fur people in Darfur, and I regret the death of Americans with heart disease. On the other hand, I worry daily for the safety of one Sierra Leonean, the one member of a clan that I consider extended family, the one who hasn't been able to get out of Freetown.

I especially regret the death of my stepfather-in-law, (a Southern Baptist, if that matters) with all the "if onlys" that, while I usually talked to him weekly, I happened not to call for two weeks. He kept going to a chiropractor for "back pain", with symptoms so characteristic of a ruptured internal organ that anyone with serious medical background would have told Clay to call 911 and move as little as possible. I did get to speak to him when he was terminal. If I had talked to him earlier, at the time, he still would have had no better than a 50% chance of living through the operation, but that's a lot better than the alternative. I do hope I never meet the chiropractor.

Am I somehow treating the deaths of Jews more casually than the death of other innocents to whom I have no personal connection? If so, tell me how I'm doing it. Otherwise, put away your broad brush.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

This is a very good question - I also might point out what they considered the timeliness of such an article.

I give 4s and only 4s whether I agree with the poster or not. I think any well reasoned argument or pithy comment should be given an excellent rating, because I for one, always learn something new or get a reasonably good laugh. There are some good writers posting here!

I think it has to do with the maturity of the discipline... and by maturity I mean simply how long it has been around. I read Thomas Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolution years ago, and an essay, the title of which I forget, applying the theory to history. I've used it myself to explain the relationship between classicism and romanticism in both architecture and music.  Classicism evolves by paring away to the bare essentials.  Succeeding generations become sparser and more formal, and when there's nothing left to pare away and one has come as close as possible to pure form the paradigm shifts to a form which evolves by elaboration.  Think Greek Revival to Victorian Eclictic to Modernism to post-Modernism and you'll see what I mean.

The basic idea is the paradigm shift. A hypothesis is created and elaborated. But no matter how it becomes elaborated, it cannot fully explain the phenomena it was attempting to explain. When the original theory can bear no more weight the paradigm shifts, and the old theory give way to a new explanatory framework. The world hasn't shifted, but the way of explaining it has.

I think it is something like that with the disciplines. When I was in Graduate School in the 1960s I had a friend who was majoring in a brand new field--bioengineering. Problems which were intractable in either field became solvable in a hybrid discipline. I think I see something similar developing as information theory emerges as a separate discipline. Computer people have a stake in it, so do librarians, and so do philosophers. Were I a young guy I'd be interested in it myself. After aeons of information paucity, we're trying to figure out how to cope with information overload, to the point where we're not quite sure what we mean by information any more.

Mike

What a peculiar arguement. There are many here who question the motives of American Jews. The traditonal stab in the back, dual loyalty argument. there is also a very casual attitude toward the death of Jews. It tends to go hand in hand with deny Israel's legitimacy and a very slippery use of history. The result that Israel's existence is wished away as if it were somehow unique.

Then of course there is this: "Crimes and Corruptions of the New World Order News
Any cocksucking Zionists out there? Bring it on, mutherfuckers" I won't embarrass this individual by using his name.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

Modern Zionism was founded by various theoreticians such as Herzl, and the British issued the Balfour Declaration, supposedly in part to thank Chaim Weizmann for his contributions to the British war effort. The Balfour Declaration of 1917, of course, was partially in conflict with the secret Anglo-French Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916. Sykes-Picot, of course, conflicted with the also secret Hussein-McMahon Correspondence of 1915-1916.

We have here two European powers and, at one point, the Sharif of Mecca negotiating, in conflict with one another, spheres of influence regarding the remnants of the Ottoman Empire.

Balfour may have decided it was the Jewish ancestral home, but was there a referendum of world Jewry? I'd only take a serious "yes" vote in that from those Jews who agreed to move to then-Palestine. The partitioned state vote in 1948 formalized this, but what proportion of the world's Jews immediately moved to Israel?

Is it not rather basic Jewish theology that the ultimate relationship is between man and YWVH? Perhaps with the exception of Hasids and other sects, the majority of Jews need no intermediary to the divine; there is no requirement for pilgrimage comparable to the Hajj. Ironically, the role of "clerics" in both Judaism and Islam is as judges and scholars, not priests.

I have every confidence that if an asteroid struck the Eastern Mediterranean, killing everthing for hundreds or thousands of miles, Judaism would survive. It is an idea, a set of beliefs, not a place.

Further, Israel chooses to be fairly irrelevant to Reform and Conservative Jews, as well as certain Orthodox. This is a result of political needs to build coalitions, not a consensus on theology.

How is it that more Jews live outside Israel than in it? The Greater New York area alone has about 1/6 of the total population of Israel.

In summary, some Jews have a strong emotional connection with Israel. A subset have a stronger connection that become citizens, and renounce dual citizenship. Based on their action, a very significant number of Jews, throughout the world, demonstrate by action that they are already in their own states. I find Zionist theoreticians to have an arrogance that they can define the beliefs of every Jew in the world.

From an international policy standpoint, other than for domestic political reasons, it is appropriate to treat Israel as a generally friendly country, but one which will act first in its own perceived interests, including espionage against the United States. It has every right to do this, certainly by Machiavelli's dictum "If you would be moral, be not a Prince. If you would be a Prince, you cannot be moral." In my opinion, however, it has no special moral superiority over other democracies.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

I am sure there are Black people that don't liek Africa. Yes there have been Jews for religious reasons who don't support Israel. There were American Jews in the 1940s fearing an anti-Semitic backlash in the United States did not support a Jewish state in Palestine. There have been Jews on the Left influenced by the Soviet Union and more recently by the post-modern views of Chomsky, and Said who have opposed Israel's existence. Never quite explaining where the Israels should have or should now go. However, despite the existence of some opposition by a few Jews to Israel you would agree that the vast majority of Jews as the vast majority of non-Jewish Americans support Israel?

Daniel A. Greenbaum

 ...I find appalling...

 So how do you like John "Wayne" Bolton who says...

"I think it would be a mistake to ascribe moral equivalence to civilians who die as the direct result of malicious terrorist acts," he added, while defending as "self-defense" Israel's military action, which has had "the tragic and unfortunate consequence of civilian deaths".

I love teaching the freshies.  That way, I get to corrupt them before anyone else does.

Heh.  I once was comparing notes with a couple of other students who shared the same undergrad advisor (history prof).  We decided that, collectively, we were more cynical than our classmates.  Our advisor overheard and said, quite simply, "Ah, but that's because you've been corrupted by the power of corrosive questioning."

The phrase has stuck with me -- not just for the alliteration, but because that kinda summarizes my education.  (Not the corruption part, but the questioning part.) 

And for the record, our advisor sounded quite pleased and rather proud of us -- if not himself. 

PSA: There is a Users' Help Forum.

I know admire several Israeli trauma surgeons, and, on a medical mailing list, get details of brutality that won't come in the general media. The last thing they do is whine, but, instead, keep sharing their experience and ideas in dealing with suicide bombers, rockets, and other ways to disrupt frail human bodies. They have my total respect.

Where I might find whining would be American Jews that insist Israel is the Jewish State, but for some unknown reason remain American citizens. It would seem if one sees Israel as essential to one's Jewish identity, one would want to go aliyah.

Those Jews that recognize Judaism as a religion, a faith inside, and that stay in America by choice are my brothers. I treat as extended family a mixed Christian-Muslim clan from Sierra Leone, who have overcome tremendous obstacles to become Americans. Now in their second generation, there's one boy of the sort that can achieve anything of which he can dream. I value such people immensely, as well as my closest friend, the matriarch, who works as a humble nursing assistant, but is one of the most healing people I know.
--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

Here's the e-mail I received:

Dear Mrs. XXXXXXX,
I much hope you enjoyed downloading the article and reading it very much. If so helpful it would be to you, please to contact our sales manager in Nigeria and sending him your friends government numbers and numbers of your banks where we can send more articles. We would like to publish these many papers but the political climate in our country makes us hide them in a secret file on our sales manager poorly old Mac. We would share these with the world for a modest fee you can put in a bank account we can both share. We want only a small living and not draw attention to us so after deduction of our fee you could have the rest for your time of troubles. Please send the information I obtain to the Nigerian Business Express Book Publishing Ltd. So many thanks.

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I probably won't be commenting much at this site anymore. After some back and forth, I have a new Nigerian business partner and I'll be pretty busy with purchasing vacation homes and whatnot.

Fascinating meta debate on the relative merits and efficicies of different peer-review systems.

Is it or is it not a good idea for the United States to give Israel lots of money? I say not. Is there, or is there not an Israeli lobby that aggressively wants the US do give Israel lots of money? I say their is.

There are lots of heavy hitters writing here. What are your answer to those questions?

That there isn't an aggressive Israeli lobby that wants the US to give Israel lots of money?

Or that their is one but that's okay, because the US should give Israel lots of money for some (unexplained) reason?

Or that their is one but its activities have no bearing on what the US actually does?

Or that there may or not be one, but so-and-so (who thinks there is) has failed to prove it because their magazine article didn't meet this or that standard of evidence?

Why can't anyone seem to talk about this without beating around the bush or slinging the A word around?

--

-- All successful revolutions are the kicking in of a rotten door. (John Kenneth Galbraith) --

He's a symbol - like Chomsky.

Everybody who isn't in agreement with Chomsky hates Chomsky for the simple reason that they aren't smart enough to counter his arguments. (I'm saying nothing about the correctness of his arguments here, only about his opposition.)

The same applies to Said.

It's not surprising the two are usually mentioned in the same sentence.