These questions are especially urgent with a Presidential election coming up.

Ho.  Ho.  Ho. 

I see you get your ideas from fantasies like "Superman" with lines like "Clark Kent: Mild-mannered reporter for the Daily Planet", so you make Walt and Mearsheimer "mild-mannered political scientists".

MJ, you state that your 20 years of experience in Congress has shown that they are subjected to "constant pressure to support status-quo policies on Israel". Well, members of Congress are subjected to "constant pressure" to support all sorts of lobbies like the farmers which of course leads to higher food prices for everyone, the Greek lobby which because of Cyprus and other problems causes problems with America's NATO ally Turkey, the Mexican lobby which wants liberal immigration policies which affect millions of Americans, etc, etc.
In any event, who says you are correct in saying that "status-quo" policies are wrong? The predecessors of your Israel Policy Forum lobbied for years to bring veteran terrorist leader Arafat to Israel which the Israeli gov't foolishly did, leading to his taking control of the Palestinian population, brainwashing them to support suicide bomber terrorism leading to unprecedented numbers of Jews and Arabs to be killed.
Again, you repeat the canard that most American Jews don't support AIPAC and what you dismiss as "pro-Israel" policies. Again, I repeat that if the voters DIDN'T support these policies, the politicians would have taken notice and done what you want. The fact that they don't is because most American Jews DO more or less support AIPAC's efforts or at least don't object to them feeling that Israel's gov't is the best one to determine what is best for Israel's interests, not MJ and his Israel Policy Forum or other such groups.

I am now going to add something that will no doubt raise the hackles of many who participate in this group, but it has to be said:

In Berlin in 1920 people said the same thing "The JEWS have too much influence". Of course, they were well-meaning Germans, out for the best for their country, just like W & M are looking out for America's interests.

This is a test. My posts don't seem to be posting.

I'm there right now. I think most Israelis are glad that Aipac owns Congress. At the same time, I think they are desperate to have the conflict end so they can get on with building their country. Unlike Aipac, Israelis will support any deal like the Clinton parameters. I dont think they know that Aipac wouldn't.
Mainly, I think that Israelis don't think Americans understand their situation. They do understand that so long as the American government is providing the aid, America has the right to weigh in on what Israel needs to do. Or give back the money.

Eddie George, you are right. But I stick to the common usage so that people know what I'm talking about.

Every day, my confusion deepens as I ponder the question, "Why should I care?"

You raise an important issue here. You are correct, the election results can be interpreted as supporting a "Leftist" position. However, that is a major over- simplification. For example, the Israeli newspapers today are reporting that Olmert has agreed, in his discussions with Abu Mazen, to the principle of 100% withdrawal to the pre-67 lines, acceptance of responsibility for the "suffering of the Palestinian people" in the War of Independence without accepting the Right of Return (let's see if Abu Mazen will accept that!) and handing over Judaism's holiest place, the Har HaBayit (Temple Mount) in Jerusalem to the Palestinians. Sharon explicitly rejected all these concessions before he left the scene. Does that mean that those who voted for Sharon's Kadima party support these far-reaching concessions? Or let's go back in time, to the 2003 elections. Sharon EXPLICITLY rejected the idea of a unilateral withdrawal from Gush Katif in the Gaza Stip which Amram Mitzna and the Labor Party were advocating in the election campaign. Sharon won a huge victory in the election. He then turned around and did the opposite of what he promised and destroyed Gush Katif. Is this what the voters who voted for Sharon's Likud wanted?

The fact is that Israeli voters are more "right-wing", or what you call "pro-Likud) than the media presents it and are a majority in Israel. The fact that Sharon and the Likud betrayed their voters in 2005 by destroying Gush Katif left "Right-wing" voters very confused as for what to do. I, along with many people I know ended up voting for parties that did not cross the electoral threshold and so we are not represented in the Knesset at all. We did this in order to register a protest vote. Many others did not vote at all. This election had the lowest turnout in history, so what you call the "pro-Likud" camp is largely disenfrachised in the Knesset and in public life (i.e. the media and the coercive arms of the government).
However, this group is still present in the body politic. Those in power are aware of this. This explains why the gov't has been slow to deal with the wrongly-labelled "illegal outposts" in Judea/Samaria (they are almost without exception NOT illegal but this is not the place to get into the details of this matter). Now Sharon gave a committment to his master in the White House, President Bush, to take these down (who says he has a right to give away people's homes like this?) and we keep hearing that there is constant pressure by the White House to do something about it. It must be remembered that many Jews in Israel have searing memories of the destruction of entire communities in Gush Katif that were built up with blood, sweat and tears over more than 3 decades, on land that was Jewish long before the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 and seeing Arabs burning down the synaogogues there. Many also remember the police violence at Amona where many idealistic people, including decorated army veterans and officers were severely beaten on orders from Olmert because his polticial spin advisers thought it would help him in the upcoming election. Actually, he dropped in the polls sharply after that.
These things have built up a LOT of anger in many Israelis and the gov't does have to take this into consideration, even if they despise this part of the population.

The bottom line is that things are more complicated than they seem in the media, and what you call the "pro-Likud" Right is more powerful, both in Israel and the US, than many think.

MJ:

You lament the hysteria where little exists. Yes Foxman is doing his thing, but most people are doing anything but being hysterical.

For a comprehensive overview, and I believe an appropriate assessment of the W and M book by another American Jewish dove, I encourage all of you to check out what Dan Fleshler has written over at Realistic Dove.

There are other ways to address M and W. This American Jew spoke to 300 congregants this past Saturday in my former conservative Jewish congregation out in Plainview, New York. Yea, out there on Long Island, in the belly of the beast.

I addressed W and M's upcoming book and their thesis and I took on their assertion, as I have done at TPM, that the Israel Lobby is what drove America to the Iraqi desert. But I also cautioned that W and M are not anti-semites; that we had to listen to what they were saying; that AIPAC et al does exercise extraordinary influence in Washington; and that with this extraordinary influence comes a responsibility on the part of the American Jewish community to always make sure that we place America's interests first.

I concluded by stating, perhaps for the first time ever from the bima at that shul, that I unequivocally recognize the national aspirations of the Palestinian people, and that doing so was in America's interest. And afterwards I was greeted with hugs and tears from dozens of people who live in that longest of islands in the belly of the beast.

MJ, you have an important message to share, but you just don't do it on the Cafe. You stoke flames here MJ, and you're doing it again. I respect you and what you do in real life. But I think you play games with emotions on the TPM Cafe. I don't mean to offend you but I think you and I have been honest with each other in the past and there's no reason to cease doing so now.

Bruce S. Levine
New York, New York

MJ: First, thanks for a great post and analysis, as always. What you say is so commonsensical, it's hard to see why anyone would disagree with it.

As to the lobbyist argument, however, I have a question. WM agree that lobbying of all kinds is legitimate under our current system; that many if not all interest groups do it; that lobbying sways public policy in ways that aren't necessarily good for the public.

Recently, there was an article in WaPo about the baby formula lobby getting the government to dilute a government ad campaign warning about the dangers of NOT breast feeding. The consequences of this lobbying effort could be poorer health for millions of babies.

So, my question is this: If MW feel that the "Israel or Likud Lobby" has "too much power," what do they think is a practical, legal and Constitutional solution to the problem? No lobby is going to pull its punches, because its JOB is to influence policy.

My thought is: Congresspeople with the courage to think, act, and speak for themselves according to what they think is right. They may lose some money; they may cause lobbyists of all stripes to fund their opponents. And kissing good-bye to big checks is hard.

But Dean and Obama have shown that it is possible to raise huge sums directly from small constituents via the Internet, in effect, bypassing the big money people. This can be done now without any of the difficulties of passing public funding of elections.

My worry with MW's thesis is that it easily leads to the scapegoating of one group--especially if MW don't have a legitimate solution to propose. Simply saying that one group has too much power doesn't help much if: 1) they are doing what all lobby groups do; 2) they aren't doing anything illegal or untoward. What is one to do: Ask them to try less hard to put across their agenda?

So my question to MW would be...what do you propose?

Your comments are welcomed.

Well MJ, you are absolutely correct that I do not understand Hebrew well enough to read the Hebrew press. I do read Haaretz in English and I do read the Jerusalem Post. I also read the Forward regularly and the Jewish Week. I take the WSJ for what it is worth.

So if you want to cite to "hysteria" it's your post. Show it, but when you do so, don't forget that you are hardly the only American Jew who is not screaming fire in the moviehouse in response to this book.

And, now, since I've been told that all I do on here is talk about Israel, I yield the floor to all who have something else to say.

Shabbat Shalom and G-d Bless America.

Bruce S. Levine
New York, New York

It makes no sense for the US to give "NATO-like" guarantees to Israel. The whole concept of NATO is "collective security" and "an attack on one is like an attack on all". The problem with your proposal, MJ, is that Israel's enemies include (supposed) "friends" of the US like Saudi Arabia and Egypt (notwithstanding Egypt's so-called "peace agreement" with Israel). How can the US go to war with its own Arab allies? Thus, such guarantees would be meaningless and would really mean the end of Israel as an automous, sovereign state.

I have family who live in Israel, love the country, and love the people. But I do not agree that Israel is essentially right-wing.

I find the diversity of views on the occupied terrritories staggering - e.g. I have a cousin who lives on the West Bank, and another cousin who refuses to visit the family because he regards the occupation as immoral - but underlying all the differences is a recognition that the Palestinians' situation is not acceptable either. With the last election, where Kadima and Labor emerged as the dominant political parties, I believe this showed that in terms of security and the peace-process, a majority of Israelis are on the same page.

My main point however is that defining the AIPAC lobby as pro-Israel is problematic. And I happen to think pro-Likud is a better label, but I am open to other suggestions.

"...if the voters DIDN'T support these policies, the politicians would have taken notice and done what you want." Really? Where's the approval rating of Congress right now - at about 10%? What's the gripe from the public? Congress is not doing what the voters want done. Congress, it seems could care less what the voters want. Members of Congress do care tremendously about the money coming into their coffers and are certainly well-aware of where it's coming from.

AIPAC supporters are politicians' cash cows. Multi-million dollar campaigns will eventually bring in the votes - unfortunately.

Well, MJ is big Fat lier, He made a promise not to comment on Israel and he broke his promise.
with the comments that spread hate.

In any case, I challenge people who don't like AIPAC,
go to http://aipac.org/
and point to any lies, objectionable/right wing opinions or anything else that you don't agree with.

"For the vast majority of us who care deeply about Israel"

MJ, you don't care about Israel.
In your previous post you promoted guy who advocated one state solution and the return of refugies to Israel. With friends like MJ, Israel doesn't need enemies.
You don't have to care for Israel, but please be honest, why you have to pretend?

I doubt we have any collective-security agreements with S.A. or Egypt.

And consider that several members of NATO have fought vicious wars against each other in the fairly recent past, before the treaty.

BTW, why the scare-quotes around the Egypt-Israel peace? Did they fight a war we missed, after signing the treaty?

"I assert that W&M are anti-Semitic, and if you disagree, then so are you, unless you are just lying instead." Is this just too-subtle-for-me satire?

yeah, it was quite amusing to hear Foxman confirm what W+M said just minutes earlier; you can't criticize Israel or the Israel lobby in any way whatsoever without being compared to anti-semites, if not called an anti-semite. Foxman is an ass. Israel is NOT a sacred cow.

Ya know, davai, this discussion thread was going along quite nicely on topic, reasonably intelligently and civilly, until you brought up the the personal stuff.

How about pretending that you don't know any of these people? Because, in actuality, you don't. It's always when it gets personal that forums turn to shit. (I honestly don't know why people don't see that, and instead go looking for sparring partners and their converse, camaraderie, and look to pick out individuals to stereotype and turn into straw men to knock down. Sticking to attacking the argument, not the person, always seems to work out so much better.)

You're most welcome, and I'll take a look at my in-box. Thank you also for the Realist Dove site...looks very interesting.

How does it come to pass that both nations are led down the dark path by so-called "experts" who have been so consistently wrong in their predictions?

How can it be anti-semitic to criticize AIPAC's level of influence when most Jews in Israel and the US do not share their goals?

Call it Kool-Aid or snake oil, it's time to spit it back in the faces of those who would lie to us and manipulate our democratic process in the service of another nation, or small group of nefarious special interests.

MJ made a promise not to comment on Israel?

Someone who works for the IPF isn't going to comment on Israel?

I'd be very surprised if he made that kind of promise.

I'm just a some-time reader, so maybe I missed it. Maybe you can reprint it.

On September 7, 2007 - 11:03am mjrosenberg said:

You should care because this damn conflict can blow back on us here in America (it already did once, at least in part).

I dearly hope you are not referring to the attacks of 9/11, even with your cute disclaimer "at least in part." Yes, I thought when the planes hit that it must have something to do with Israel and the Palestinians, and so was surprised that BinLaden's first statement(s) did not reference the Palestinians at all. As I remember it was almost an afterthought by the time he got around to dragging your favorite conflict into his list of grievances, many days later.

I just don't buy into the idea, posited by some of your friends, that if we would just sever our relationship with Israel all would be hunky-dory. I suggest those in search of non-opinionated history read this George Friedman piece on stratfor.com -- http://tinyurl.com/yvmxk4 -- which contains actual facts.

Am I wrong? Show me.

UPDATE: I found this in a piece by Robert Fisk written 9/22/01 for the Sydney Morning Herald.

But this crime was perpetrated - it becomes ever clearer - to provoke the United States into just the blind, arrogant punch that the Pentagon is preparing.

Bin Laden has described to me how he wishes to overthrow the pro-American regimes of the Middle East, starting with Saudi Arabia and moving on to Egypt, Jordan and the other Gulf states. In an Arab world sunk in corruption and dictatorships - most of them supported by the West - the only act that might bring Muslims to strike at their own leaders would be a brutal, indiscriminate assault by the US.

Bin Laden is unsophisticated in foreign affairs, but a close student of the art and horror of war. He knew how to fight the Russians who stayed on in Afghanistan, a Russian monster that revenged itself upon its ill-educated, courageous antagonists until, faced with war without end, the entire Soviet Union began to fall apart.

It strikes me that the terms used here are misconstructed.

The "Israel Lobby" is no such thing. That lobby doesn't represent anything more than a single faction of the Israeli body politic.

But by claiming to represent all of Israel it deforms both American and Israeli politics.

Perhaps we should rephrase. Call it the "Likud-Israel Lobby" or the "Barking Mad Israel Faction Lobby".

I think we need to come to grips that Israel is a larger and more diverse place politically.

I also begin to think that the extremist faction that controls the lobby, uses it not just to manipulate and deform behaviour in America, but with America as a lever, they have an advantage in Israeli politics that is unjust and undeserved.

The sooner they lose that privileged place in both American and Israeli politics, the better for everyone.

MJ,
1. How can you explain your support for NIR ROSEN who advocate the destruction of Israel and still call yourself a friend of Israel:
"NIR ROSEN: What needs to happen at this point is a one-state solution, where Palestinian refugees are allowed to go back to their homes, where Israel is a state for Jews and non-Jews alike, a state for its citizens. And this one-state solution is inevitable."

2. I do not support particulal policies, I as well as most of the friends of Israel (Jews and non-Jews)support Israeli people and trust their wisdom.
It doesn't mean that from time to time they make mistake. In examples you provided Iraeli people and their leaders possibly made mistakes.
What it had to do with lobby? Do you think that American friends of Israel should second guess every decision of Israeli people and their leaders?

"Nobody has convinced me that the best course for a secure and safe Israel is a different one then a negotiated peace with the Palestinians."

Can you point me to any website of any
"Lobby" organization that doesn't agree with your statement?

If America assumed a position of complete neutrality and disengagement, any conflict there wouldn't blow back here, any more than it would blow back on, say, Japan or Inner Mongolia.

We no longer have any strategic interest in Israel. We have a strategic interest in the oil owned by the people who seem to hate Israel. But as for Israel itself, as with Iraq, they hate us because we are there. There's no rational reason for us to be there, not at our current levels.

And as with Iraq, I think that if we weren't there big brothering the situation, it would force the combatants to choose between total war and rational diplomacy. Our support only enables and perpetuated the hate on both sides.

I agree with you - we should guarantee the security of Israel through some sort conditional NATO-like agreement. We should also offer the same guarantee to Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordon, Lebanon and Egypt. We will protect Israel from Syria and Syria from Israel - that sort of thing. But that should be the limit of our involvement in the region.

I'm guessing that MJ is on the left of Beilin.
How many people voted for people like Beilin
in the last elections?
What do you know about AIPAC that suggests to you that they now are pro-Likud and not pro-Kadima or pro-Labor?

" Unlike Aipac, Israelis will support any deal like the Clinton parameters. I dont think they know that Aipac wouldn't."

Any prove? What was Aipac position in 2000?

"who live there the same rights"
Everybody who lives in Israel have the same rights.

And the common usage validates the right and demeans the left - that rhetoric is a huge part of the problem. A lot of people assume that the overwhelming majority of Israelis support the ultra-right positions because of rhetoric like yours. The Israeli left - which is healthy and huge - gets virtually no attention in the media either here or in israel. And if we are to resolve this problem, then we must give as much attention as possible to the israeli voices that support an aggressive peace policy with the Palestinians. Something like 48% of Palestinians support the basic treaty offered up by Clinton and then the Geneva Initiative and something like 64% of Israelis do. That's enough to do business but I guarantee you most people following this discussiion would expect the numbers were reversed.

It's incredibly important to sort the Israeli right out from the interests of Israel in general. To do otherwise, is to smear a decent and unheard people with the actions and inclinations of sociopaths with megaphones and money.

"We will protect Israel from Syria and Syria from Israel - that sort of thing. But that should be the limit of our involvement in the region"

:-)

Their basic point is simple. Israel is not worthy of American support.

No they do not argue that. They only argue that Israel is not worthy of the level of American support it currently receives.

renato,

I'm just waiting for someone to call me an anti-semite....

Trollish as this is, I take back my initial zero rating, because, on further consideration, renato is only being much more honest than the routine pretentious whining about "stifling debate."

The term Walt and Mearsheimer use is "the Israel lobby". To focus only on the pro-Likud portion of that lobby would be to distort their point. They do not argue that advocacy and lobbying on behalf of another country is unusual or illegitimate; nor are they primarily concerned with whether that lobby is extremist or gives excessive support to right-wing Israeli governments as opposed to left-wing Israeli governments - that is a separate issue. Their point is simply that the entire Israel lobby has, in their view, too much influence on the foreign policy of the United States.

Take any other country you want and the point is the same. Suppose there is an organized pro-Poland lobby. Suppose that lobby supports the interests of Poland as seen by the broad mainstream of public opinion in Poland, so that there is nothing extremist about it. If that lobby were to grow very, very powerful, then US politicians would begin to defend a foreign policy that was more and more in line with the preferences and interests of mainstream Poles. The lobby might even grow so powerful that US foreign policy almost never diverged from Polish preferences.

But clearly, the interests of the United States and Poland at least sometimes diverge. Certain things that are good for Poland might not be good for the US, and vice versa. If then, the US practices a 100% Poland-approved foreign policy, it is probably not practicing a foreign policy that is consistently in the best interests of the United States.

This is all Walt and Mearsheimer are saying, as I understand them. They think that the Israel lobby has reached such a position of strength that they have been successful in getting the United States to pursue Israel-friendly foreign policies that are not, in fact, in the best interest of the United States. The point would probably remain, even if the Israel lobby leaned more toward the Israeli left wing than they do now, because no matter what kind of government leads Israel, Israel's interests and US interests are not in perfect harmony.

Hmmm,

..."anti-semitic" does NOT mean "anti-Jew".

Linguistic integrity aside, Jews did not invent the term "antisemitism" and all its forms.  People who have no use for Jews did.

Mr. Rosenberg, while you're at it, please refer me to an AIPAC publication that criticized-- in even the mildest terms-- Israelis for executing the 1979 accords with Egypt, the 1981 Israeli withdrawal from the Yamit settlement in the Sinai as part of that treaty, the 1994 treaty with Jordan, the 2000 withdrawal from Lebanon, the 2005 Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, and the 2007 meetings between Prime Minister Olmert and President Abbass.
You lie through your teeth when you make AIPAC the bogeyman because you KNOW that if the democratically elected Government of Israel decides to do a deal for peace, AIPAC will not criticize it or any American politician who supports that deal.

Having worked at AIPAC for 4 years, as editor of Near East Report, I can tell you that it does not divulge its strategies in its publications. Wise operators do not put it in writing!

bslev,

So, my ignorance [sic] aside, where is the hysteria that MJ asserts he has seen?

The hysteria seems most prevalent where manufactured by Walt's and Mearsheimer's publishers (see the Forward editorial).

Perhaps MJ thinks there should be a presumption of hysteria, and the burden should be on those who dispute the presumption to rebut it?

Haven't you heard?  9/11 changed everything.  Guilty-until-proven-innocent is a much easier standard than the other way around.

It's not an honest explanation.

Isn't it fair to say that the main goal of a peace treaty is peace? The friendship-building measures are good, too, and I suppose Israel could raise the issue of Egypt not fulfilling these goals. Has it?

Hmmmm,

If you put a light on a house, it does not make it a lighthouse.

If you put butter on a fly, it does not make it a butterfly.

I am sure that you must know this and simply choose to consistently ignore it, but "anti-semitic" does NOT mean "anti-Jew".

I'm not saying it's the best word to mean what it means. However, you can't simply declare that the word means something other than what it actually means. did you look it up in the dictionary? Did you do any research what so ever on the origins of the word?

You clearly have not. So, I find it particularly strange that you include, with your incorrect information, the smarmy comment about "must know this and simply choose to consistently ignore...". Seeing as how the dictionary is readily available both in print and online, I believe the charge of intentionally ignoring the actual meaning of the word falls on you.

In case you are just too lazy, the following is from the American heritage dictionary:

an·ti-Sem·ite (?n't?-s?m'?t', ?n't?-)
n. One who discriminates against or who is hostile toward or prejudiced against Jews.

—Related forms
an·ti-Se·mit·ic /?æntis??m?t?k, ?ænta?-/ Pronunciation[an-tee-suh-mit-ik, an-tahy-] adjective

"anti-semitic." The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. 07 Sep. 2007.

Hmmmm, Please let us know what you think about this.

So, there is no protection against Hisbolla?

Got a suggestion? Everybody else's efforts have failed.

How does a city protect against random murders? It increases police presence, along with community relations work so the presence is welcome, and throws in social and economic programs. 

The best protection would be a healthy society on Israel's borders. Israel likely can outlast the resentment it faces, but only if it doesn't add to it.

My IPF readers do not need to be enticed into reading my piece by a headline. They are IPF people.

At TPM, I, like all bloggers, go for a good headline. That is why headlines were invented.

"The best protection would be a healthy society on Israel's borders"
Then you don't need NATO protection.

A "5" for candor. But the IPF article has a headline too. Must be quite a distinction to be an "IPF person" as distinguished from bloggers at the TPM Cafe. Maybe you'd like to be really candid and explain the difference between your two groups of loyal readers.

Israel can protect herself against territorial aggression, but something tell be that you think that going after Hisbolla in Lebanon is territorial aggression.

No, it wasn't that because Israel did not capture territory. I accept that there was little choice, politically, but to react somehow to Hizbollah. The actual reaction chosen was not apparently very effective, and had many critics.

What's your suggestion?

Hysteria - absolutely!

A small blogger outlined W&M on his blog. Out of nowhere, two never-before-seen posters showed up, taking up the cause of bashing W&M.

One good thing came up out of it for me, I became aware of for the first time, of the fraudulent Joan Peters' "From Time Immemorial". That work was debunked, in part, by Israelis. The fraud seems to be primarily American in origin.

Made it very plain that "Americans claiming to represent Israel" and "Israelis" are two very different things.

The first drive of any institution is survival. I doubt AIPAC would ever want a situation to arise where it is irrelevant, which could arise e.g, if everything quietens down in the Middle East and Israel is just another small country in a community of nations; e.g., think of Latvia or Lithuania in Europe. It would be an exceptional breed of leaders in AIPAC to sincerely be working to making themselves irrelevant. (I've yet to see such human beings.) AIPAC remains relevant only as long as Israel is a indispensable ally in a dangerous region.

I also think that if we citizens of America - if we want to reduce the powers of lobbies in Congress and on our politics in general - we are going to face opposition from guess whom - lobbyists - of which AIPAC is one.

----

To the person who asks what methods are there of determining US interests (aside from counting heads), the answer is that if we're dealing with reality then reality determines it; e.g, no matter how many Americans thought/think invading Iraq is a good idea and in America's interest, it does not make it so.

Mr. Greenbaum is claiming that Walt and Mersheimer's basic point is that Israel is not worthy of American support. As this is not their basic point at all, everything else he writes is irrelevant.

At the core of their argument is that many of the positions advocated by the "Israeli lobby" are not in the long-term interest of Israel and are opposed by the majority of American Jews. But according to Greenbaum, it appears that attacking things that most American Jews disagree with, or that harm Israel, is anti-Semitic because institutions like AIPAC and the ADL are holy and can do no wrong, and anyone who says otherwise must be driven out of the public square.

Overall, Israeli people have shown
wisdom and ability to correct mistakes.
Compare to American people who re-elected Bush.

So I don't think I or you have a better suggestion how to achive peace.

It's drearily predictable that these people will pull out the "anti-Semitic" card any time AIPAC's undue influence over U.S. policy is questioned or even mentioned. The problem is, we're talking about Israel here--not Jews. And Jews aren't the only Semitic culture on the planet.

The pro-Israel lobby rivals even the Church of Scientology when it comes to preemptively smearing anyone who dares to question their righteousness. And now that they seem to have weaseled their way into the fanatic evangelical movement via far-right wackjobs like John Hagee, they pose an even bigger threat to sensible U.S.-centric policy.

It's really time to for U.S. politicians to stand up to the graymail. But will it happen? Probably not. Word is, digging too deep or putting up too much opposition can be a career-ending move. Just ask Jimmy Carter how much power they wield.

OTOH, who cares if he broke the promise?

Nothing was riding on it, yes?

It's clearly an area he's interested in--his life's work, I'd imagine--so it wasn't likely that he'd keep that promise.

But again, who cares.

Ah yes, the 21st Century version of the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion." Oh, with a whole bunch of footnotes (note to all: Even Ann Coulter has footnotes).

Actually, I'm not going to argue that the authors of this book are anti-Semitic, because I haven't read it (although until someone complains about the influence of the pro-Ireland lobby -- and check out the immigration statistics if you doubt one exists -- I'm a little unimpressed with the counter-argument.) The more important point is ... what's the point? So you argue AIPAC has too much power. Tell us: How is that power exercised? I was a congressional aide for a long time too. I had many meetings with AIPAC, and we had a lot of Jews in our district. They have no more real power than any other large-ish lobby ... $5,000 PAC contributions and a message that is only heard by maybe 5% of the population. Tell us too: What would you do about it? I think Exxon-Mobil has too much power. I can't think of much that would work in terms of decreasing it. Can you? And if you can't, what's the point other than to bash Israel? Why aren't you bashing, oh I don't know, China or Russia or or that matter Sierra Leone for human rights violations.

This is why Jews particularly sensitive to anti-Semitism, like survivors and children of survivors, see persecution here. Whenever Jews band together to try and defend themselves and stick up for their rights, like in creating Israel or giving to AIPAC, they get bashed.

By the way, I completely agree that Israel should settle with the Palestinians along the lines of the Clinton plan, give up those horrible settlements and move on. So do most Israelis and so did the Israeli government at the time. It was Arafat who turned it down.

This is an interesting point. And I agree with you. But I think we also get into the weeds a bit on this one, and I'll try to explain why...as soon as I can be coherent about my concerns.

No, no one reasonable thinks that what is going on is on the par of the good old Protocols. What is going on is not secret or unpredictable, it's just that large elements of it just can't survive exposure to sunlight and proper public questioning.

No one says Israel is empirically unworthy. But most or close to all of the arguments the 'Israel lobby' advances are halftruths not worthy of the respect they're given. ("Israel is a democracy", "Israel has Western values", "Israel is a civilized society in a barbaric environment", "Israel is a Jewish state".) In the end serious Western support for is predicated on sympathy/guilt for Jewish suffering, for maybe another generation or two, and politically just about unexploitable, personal-level regard for undegenerate Judaism as a way of life. A.J. Heschel's example outweighs a hundred Meir Kahanes and Joe Liebermans. But will not be enough to outweigh a thousand.

The 'pro-Israel' lobby admittedly doesn't work in a vacuum. The reason many of its bad appeals work is because most Americans have liked the colonial-messianic historical parallelism between the two societies. Both societies have lived by unsustainable selfimages and onesided historical selfrepresentations of a majoritarian class. Both are seeing their triumphalism broken by an unstoppable resurgence of the aboriginal peoples and their messianic or dominionist aspirations failing from within. Their long term decline- well, evolution and slow social, cultural, political, and economic synthesis with their opponent- is masked by reactionary desperations and political backlashes to the Right.

If you read the appropriate American "Christian" literature, and Jewish publications like "Commentary", you can see the basic corruptions to both illustrated quite clearly. The arrogance and entitlement and sense of superior knowledge and power is, of course, the similarity in form. 'We' should nuke Iran, the clever stupidity and moral dissolution of the liberals, the deeper wisdom of killing morally good things like universal health insurance for children, et cetera. But the roots are all about leveraging the power now available to resurrect a past and aggressively 'defend' and create more iniquities in the present. I think we all know the neo-Puritan crud the Christian Right wants. On the 'pro-Israel' side, the unstated (and unstateable) ideal seems to be a hegemonic state which wages war against and annihilates Hitler and Stalin retroactively, that routs and disperses the barbaric Arabic hordes with ease, and a society essentially an idealized, fundamentally secularized, version of the not-so-very-Semitic-looking Ashkenazim of the Jewish Pale.

About all I have to say about the "anti-Semitism" charge is that it seems to be mostly a preferred defense against critiques of morally dubious tribal behaviors and objection to its dogmas. It seems to get used routinely by the Ashkenazi side in the continued German Jewish-Ashkenazi spats, e.g. Dershowitz calling Finkelstein an anti-Semite. I just hope that running misuse doesn't degrade the charge of anti-Semitism to a corrupt and morally dubious one in the public mind.

not so. What about the neighborhoods in Tel Aviv that do not allow Arabs to buy homes.

Did I know that most Jews voted Kerry? I don't remember; I'll take your word. I'll believe it, and say it implies "most Jews" is not synonymous with AIPAC.

The question on this thread is AIPAC, right? Was it obvious they had no position? I thought it pretty obvious they were pleased to see Bush re-elected.

I'll admit no personal expertise on the issue, no special insight or connections, but I do resent being told what is obvious and what I know.

I don't think I agree with you here.

Formally, yes, this appears to be their argument. But let's suppose that AIPAC were a left-leaning organization pushing the US to mediate a lasting agreement between I-P with a sovereign Palestinian state being one of the goals.

Let's suppose further that Israel were actively pursuing peace with the Palestinians and even investing lots of money to build up Palestine into a vibrant economy.

Let's also suppose that Israel were trying to spread peace and prosperity throughout its immediate region and were working hard at developing technologies solving the ME and African water crisis.

Even in this case, Israel's and the US's interests would sometimes diverge.

But, would MW, or anyone else, be arguing that the US was too involved with Israel--was too supportive of Israel? I think not. The beef is fundamentally political and policy-oriented. MW don't like the lobby's politics (rightwing) and don't like Israel's actions toward the Palestinians and, perhaps, its other Arab neighbors.

Seems a strong point. Since it is filtered through Wilkerson, and he is mainly arguing about Iraq, he may be soft-pedaling when he says: "...the main point of their communications was not that the US should immediately attack Iran..."

I've heard a bit here and there that implies the Iran warnings are a little less cautious than implied, but you do make the point that Bush was not doing Israel's bidding, more the opposite.

I think the corect numbers are between 60% to 80% of Israelis as well as American Jews as well as most Americans in public polling

That is why I am leaning more and more to the one state with equal rights for all religions kind of solution."

There is already one state, Israel with equal rights for all religions.
There are also bunch of Arab States without equal rights for all religions.
There are also West Bank ang Gaza that can be independent or join any of Arab states, such as Egypt or Jordan if they decede to live in peace in Israel.

I hope you don't mean that there should be one state in Middle East including all Arab states and Israel or some kind of state incliding Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, West Bank, Gaza, Egypt and Israel.

Arafat turned down the Camp David offer in the summer of 2000 and a great many people think he was right to do so. His unwillingness to jump on the possibility of a better agreement at Taba is where I think one could blame him. He thought the new Bush would be like the old Bush and that he could get a better deal with him than under Clinton. A bad miscalculation. But I don't think that Bush and Sharon should be absolved for their share of the blame, as if Sharon's total lack of interest in offering the Palestinians a fair peace offer is somehow acceptable while Arafat's dithering is morally wrong. Bush, of course, is blameless, because he's too stupid to know what he's doing.

Well, it's expectable for a country at war, which is what most of Israeli society thinks it is.

Problem is, it's a war it won't win. But the government carries on as if it might. It's convinced that the sequence of events that matter are segregation, Palestinian attacks, Israeli incursions, killings of armed Palestinians, armistice, retreat, negotiated pseudopeace.

The Palestinian view is unclear to me. But I think the real game is for Israelis to quietly negotiate an inofficial, identical, and decency-based peace with one Palestinian faction after another, starting with the most willing. The military back-and-forth is a background.

It's probably too sophisticated for either side to pull off, with too many people willing to sabotage it. But the concept and attempt would be an acknowledgment that war is not the totality of the present condition of both sides, let alone the truth of coexistence in the long run.

First, just to be clear, Mearsheimer and Walt are not even remotely left wingers. They are foreign policy realists.

It is probably true that if Israel pursued all of the policies you describe, and both these policies and strong US-Israeli relations were supported by the Israel lobby, Walt and Mearsheimer might not be writing books and articles complaining that the Israel lobby was having too much of an influence on the foreign policy of the United States. But that is because in that case, even though the interests of the United States and Israeli policies would still sometimes diverge, they would not diverge nearly so often, or to such a degree as they do now. That's because in those counterfactual circumstances, Israel would itself have many more friends in the region, and would be pursuing policies that were much more conducive to happy US relations with the rest of the region. Being a great friend of Israel would thereby carry less of a burden, and help to cement relations with the rest of the region, not undermine them. Therefore, if the Israel lobby were the main domestic actor responsible for the US pursuing these beneficial policies, it's influence would not be excessive, but just right.

I'm still reading the book, but I believe that in its bluntest terms, the W&M case comes down to this: there are a lot more Arabs and Muslims in the Middle East than Israelis, and they are spread out over a larger area. Those Arabs and Muslims sit on top of a lot of very valuable oil, and occupy geopolitically strategic locations. Consequently, it would behoove the United States to have lots of Arab and Muslim friends in the region. Our current relationship with Israel severely damages our ability to establish and maintain those relationships. Since the degree of US support for Israel is largely explained, they think, in terms of the influence of the Israel lobby, that lobby is therefore having a harmful and excessive influence on US policy.

But imagine an alternative world in which Israel and its Arab and Muslim neighbors were all very, very friendly, and in which the Arab and Muslim states still possessed great amounts of oil, just as in our world. And imagine that the Israel lobby was quite powerful, and was promoting continued good relations with the states of the Middle East. But suppose an even more powerful Christianist lobby in the United States was working to undermine US relations with Muslim peoples and states, and to provoke a new Crusade. In that case, Walt and Mearsheimer would probably be writing a book called The Christianist Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy in which the Christianist Lobby was criticized for its excessive influence on US foreign policy, and its methods of influencing US foreign policy were described in great detail. They would be talking about how politically difficult it is to criticize the Christianist lobby in the United States, and how a politician's doing so ran the risk of that politician being smeared as anti-Christian, and targeted for punishment and defeat. The Israel lobby would be the good guys in this story, pushing US policy in a more beneficial direction.

So, Walt's and Mersheimer's point is that the United States has concrete interests in the region that are seriously damaged by its current intense support for Israel, given the relationship Israel actually has with the peoples in the region. It's a mistake to think Walt and Merasheimer are motivated by the plight of the Palestinians, left wing sentiments about anti-imperialism and oppression, or any of those other reasons for criticizing Israel that are popular on the left. Nor that it is primarily a question for them about who is right in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. They look at these issues in a much cooler, realpolitik manner.

Walt and Mearsheimer do recognize that US support for Israel is often defended by others in moral terms. Although I don't think these moral considerations play much of a role in Mearsheimer's and Walt's own thinking, which is heavily oriented toward strategic considerations, they consider the moral case on it's merits. They describe that moral case as "dwindling" and assert that it is "not compelling."

"Our current relationship with Israel severely damages our ability to establish and maintain those relationships"
I'm not sure it's true. Give me example of oil producing country with whom US have bad relationship because of Israel?

BTW, What about Venezuela?

Well, MJ broke his vow, and I call him on it.
He invited people to do that.

As you can look up in this thread I made a lot of arguments that were not personal at all.

But I have to admit that I don't like MJ bacause as he almost admited that his comments are hysterical in order to get better rating.
I don't like people like Rush Limbaugh for the same reasons.
I think he is the worst offender among TPM conributers.

The US gave Israel its guarantee after the 1956 war that it would keep the Straits of Hormuz open. When push came to shove in 1967, the US failed to live up to those guarantees.