Shalom. These two fancy professors—one from a University in Chicago, one from Harvard—write up a of sneer book in Israel, Mearsheimer and Walt. The book is called ‘The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy.”
They are basically trying to stifle the people who advocate for the Israel and United States and say that America’s support of Israel has been bad. It is a terrible book following the heels of US past former president Jimmy Carter slam of Israel and clearly there is a group in America that wants to not let people who understand the significance and importance and beauty of Israel have a voice.
To have particular bylaws of the government, New York Times had book reviewed last week about how awful this Mearsheimer and Walt book is. First of all, it cannot be ignored because once, the Chicago professor was a Harvard professor. And because they argue that the Jewish lobby pushes policy and directions that jeopardized US national security.
Let me just go through Gelbs arguments and then I will read you some reviews about how awful this book is Gelb says—“This commentary could not be more serious, and I believe that the authors are mostly wrong, as well as dangerously misleading. Former President Jimmy Carter made similar points, if rather hotly and self-righteously, in his recent book. Mearsheimer and Walt, together with Carter and their phalanx of backers at universities and research institutes, have to be answered on the merits.”
He says, “No one familiar with their extensive scholarship or their lives ever accused them of harboring anti-Semitic sentiment until this book. “They asked for trouble”—by the way they make their arguments, by their puzzlingly shoddy scholarship, by what they emphasize and de-emphasize, by what they leave out and by writing on this sensitive topic without doing extensive interviews with the lobbyists and the lobbied.”
Then Gelb went on to say specifically, “First of all, publishing one-liners is not some kind of evidence is not the stuff of good scholarship. They move on to one story after another, premised on the lobby’s domination of United States policy, but they rarely back that premise up.”
“There is not much discussion about the $2 billion yearly aid package for Egypt. The United States regards this $5 billion as insurance between Israel and Egypt, against an Egyptian-Israeli war, and it is cheap at double the price.”
“But instinctively and without being lobbied, “ Gelb says, “American presidents do not want to gang up on Israel, since virtually every other state does so. While most countries hammer Israel for crackdowns on the Palestinians, they hardly ever criticize Palestinian terrorists or other Arab terrorists and say little about the misdeeds of Arab and Muslim dictators.”
Gelb continues, “As for the American government, the record clearly shows that when Israel crosses certain important lines, Washington expresses its displeasure in public and, even more so, in private. Mearsheimer and Walt just don’t mention that.”
Something that Gelb is out towards is the Israeli democracy often corrects any problem, like the Supreme Court recently ordering the moving of the barrier which has been terrific and suspending and stopping suicide bombing but there were issues that it were brought down and that was infringing on Muslim land. You never find anything like that in any Arab country.
Then Gelb continues, “More troublingly, they don’t seriously review the facts of the two most critical issues to Israel and the lobby — arms sales to Arab states and the question of a Palestinian state — matters on which the American position has consistently run counter to the so-called all-powerful Jewish lobby.” So, clearly the lobby does not work, most of the time, and Mearsheimer and Walt will not leave that out.
“But at a deeper level, one ignored by Mearsheimer and Walt, these problems would not disappear or seriously lessen if Washington abandoned Israel. The main source of anti-Americanism and anti-American terrorism is America’s deep ties with highly unpopular regimes in countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and Iraq.”
But Gelb continues, “Similarly, Mearsheimer and Walt mostly dodge the question of how to fix this problem. They don’t want to abandon Israel, they say, but they do want the United States to distance itself from Israeli policies. What does that mean? Talk to Hamas and Hezbollah or terrorists? Committed to the destruction of Israel? What is there to talk about?”
Then, “As for pressing Israel to turn over the territories and accept Palestinian statehood now” who do you talk to—from us or the far less popular Fatah party? And what concessions do they want Israel to make besides the one they already agreed to?
In the Clinton days—Ehud Barak, the Prime Minister, gave up 98%. He was willing to 98% of the West Bank and Arafat started into fight a war. What do they want Israel to do? And, they all wanted to go away.
“Historically, the prime effect of the relationship between the Israel and the US has been to provide Arab leaders and discontented Arabs with an excuse for not putting their own houses in order.”
“I doubt,” he says, “Mearsheimer and Walt believe that if Washington stiff-armed Israel, this would induce Arab leaders to address their real problems.”
Then he says, "There is the issue of nuclear arms,” yes, Israel nuclear ability leads to some hurdles. But—“they should know the driving force between Hussein’s quest for arms had a little to do with Israel’s nuclear weapons than with the threats he saw from Iran and the United States. The same is true for Iran today.”
“America’s central strategic problem in the Middle Area—the reason to worry about our future terrorists, nuclear proliferation—is that we need our corrupt and inept unpopular with Arab allies,” that is the real problem and Mearsheimer and Walt never deal with that.
And so in all, when you think about this book, it is completely shoddy, their evidence is specious. They completely misanalyses the situation. It is ridiculous.
And America’s support for Israel is based on moral, ethical, political reasons. It is the only democracy in the whole area. It helped United States over and over and over when it flew up Soviet Arms to the Cold War period, any Arab countries. Its technological advances are helping the whole world.
And of course these two people, it seemed now to be anti Semitic based on this book should have been quoted in the question and ignore all of that.
Now a few reviews, Tim Rutten from the L.A. Times—“Anyone familiar with the tortured history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will have a hard time recognizing the history that these two rehearse (Mearsheimer and Walt). Every hoary old Israeli atrocity tale is trotted out, and the long story of Palestinian terrorism is rendered entirely as a reaction to Israeli oppression. The failure of every peace negotiation is attributed to Israeli deviousness under the shield of the American Israel lobby. There is nothing here of Palestinian corruption, division and duplicity or even of this unhappy people’s inability to provide a reliable secular partner.
The author is kind contradict themselves. They write all kinds … they say, “Al Qaeda would hammer its swords into ploughshares and Bin Laden would lay down with the lamb if only the United States would come out from under Israel’s thrall.” I mean that is ridiculous, “bologna” it says.
David Remnick, New Yorker—“Where many accounts identify Bin Laden’s primary grievances with American support of the “infidel” authoritarian regimes in Islamic lands, Mearsheimer and Walt align his primary concerns with theirs. They give you the sense that, if the Israelis and America and the Palestinians come to terms, Bin Laden will return to the family construction business”
“It’s a narrative that recounts every lurid report of Israeli cruelty as indisputable fact but leaves out the rise of Fatah and Palestinian terrorism before 1967; the Munich Olympics; Black September; myriad cases of suicide bombings; and other spectaculars.”
Steve Huntley of the Chicago Sun Times—“The two go to lengths to try to rebut any suggestion of anti-Semitism. But you can't read The Israel Lobby without realizing that whenever two interpretations exist for some action by Israel or its supporters, Mearsheimer and Walt automatically default to the darker view,” and on and on and on. “It is a ridiculous book.”
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