UPI Monday, 20 March 2006
WASHINGTON — Two of America's top scholars have published a searing attack on the role and power of Washington 's pro-Israel lobby in a British journal, warning that its "decisive" role in fomenting the Iraq war is now being repeated with the threat of action against Iran . And they say that the Lobby is so strong that they doubt their article would be accepted in any U.S.-based publication.
Professor John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago , author
of The Tragedy of Great Power Politics and Professor Stephen Walt
of Harvard's Kenney School , and author of Taming American Power: The Global Response to U.S. Primacy, are leading figures in American
academic life.
They claim that the Israel lobby has distorted American policy and
operates against American interests, that it has organized the funneling
of more than $140 billion dollars to Israel and "has a stranglehold" on
the U.S. Congress, and its ability to raise large campaign funds gives
its vast influence over Republican and Democratic administrations,
while its role in Washington think tanks on the Middle East dominates
the policy debate.
Score blackmail tactics
And they say that the Lobby works ruthlessly to suppress questioning
of its role, to blacken its critics and to crush serious debate about
the wisdom of supporting Israel in U.S. public life.
"Silencing skeptics by organizing blacklists and boycotts—or by
suggesting that critics are anti-Semites—violates the principle of
open debate on which democracy depends," Walt and Mearsheimer
write.
"The inability of Congress to conduct a genuine debate on these
important issues paralyses the entire process of democratic deliberation.
Israel 's backers should be free to make their case and to challenge those
who disagree with them, but efforts to stifle debate by intimidation must
be roundly condemned," they add, in the 12,800-word article published
in the latest issue of The London Review of Books.
The article focuses strongly on the role of the "neo-conservatives"
within the Bush administration in driving the decision to launch the war
on Iraq .
"The main driving force behind the war was a small band of neo
conservatives, many with ties to the Likud," Mearsheimer and Walt
argue." Given the neo-conservatives' devotion to Israel , their obsession
with Iraq , and their influence in the Bush administration, it isn't surprising
that many Americans suspected that the war was designed to further
Israeli interests."
Leading neo-conmen named
"The neo-conservatives had been determined to topple Saddam even
before Bush became president. They caused a stir early in 1998 by
publishing two open letters to Clinton , calling for Saddam's removal from
power.
The signatories, many of whom had close ties to pro-Israel groups like
JINSA (Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs) or WINEP (Washington
Institute for Near Eastern Policy), and who included Elliot Abrams, John Bolton,
Douglas Feith, William Kristol, Bernard Lewis, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Perle
and Paul Wolfowitz, had little trouble persuading the Clinton administration
to adopt the general goal of ousting Saddam.
But they were unable to sell a war to achieve that objective. They were
no more able to generate enthusiasm for invading Iraq in the early months
of the Bush administration. They needed help to achieve their aim. That
help arrived with 9/11. Specifically, the events of that day led Bush and
Cheney to reverse course and become strong proponents of a preventive
war," Walt and Mearsheimer write.
The article, which is already stirring furious debate in U.S. academic and
intellectual circles, also explores the historical role of the Lobby.
'Interests of another state'
"For the past several decades, and especially since the Six-Day War in 1967,
the centerpiece of U.S. Middle Eastern policy has been its relationship with
Israel ," the article says.
"The combination of unwavering support for Israel and the related effort
to spread 'democracy' throughout the region has inflamed Arab and Islamic
opinion and jeopardized not only U.S. security but that of much of the rest
of the world. This situation has no equal in American political history.
"Why has the U.S. been willing to set aside its own security and that of
many of its allies in order to advance the interests of another state?"
Professors Walt and Mearsheimer add.
"The thrust of U.S. policy in the region derives almost entirely from domestic
politics, and especially the activities of the 'Israel Lobby'. Other special-
interest groups have managed to skew foreign policy, but no lobby has
managed to divert it as far from what the national interest would suggest,
while simultaneously convincing Americans that U.S. interests and those
of the other country—in this case, Israel —are essentially identical," they add.
They argue that far from being a strategic asset to the United States , Israel"is becoming a strategic burden" and "does not behave like a loyal ally." They
also suggest that Israel is also now "a liability in the war on terror and the
broader effort to deal with rogue states.
"Saying that Israel and the U.S. are united by a shared terrorist threat has
the causal relationship backwards: the U.S. has a terrorism problem in good
part because it is so closely allied with Israel , not the other way around,"
they add.
Question Israel 's democratic values
"Support for Israel is not the only source of anti-American terrorism, but it is
an important one, and it makes winning the war on terror more difficult. There
is no question that many al-Qaida leaders, including Osama bin Laden, are
motivated by Israel 's presence in Jerusalem and the plight of the Palestinians.
Unconditional support for Israel makes it easier for extremists to rally popular
support and to attract recruits."
They question the argument that Israel deserves support as the only democracy
in the Middle East , claiming that "some aspects of Israeli democracy are at odds
with core American values. Unlike the U.S. , where people are supposed to enjoy
equal rights irrespective of race, religion or ethnicity, Israel was explicitly
founded as a Jewish state and citizenship is based on the principle of blood
kinship. Given this, it is not surprising that its 1.3 million Arabs are treated as
second-class citizens."
The most powerful force in the Lobby is AIPAC, the American-Israel Public
Affairs Committee, which Walt and Mearsheimer call "a de facto agent for a
foreign government," and which they say has now forged an important alliance
with evangelical Christian groups.
The bulk of the article is a detailed analysis of the way they claim the Lobby
managed to change the Bush administration's policy from "halting Israel 's
expansionist policies in the Occupied Territories and advocating the creation
of a Palestinian state" and divert it to the war on Iraq instead.
They write "Pressure from Israel and the Lobby was not the only factor behind
the decision to attack Iraq in March 2003, but it was critical."
"Thanks to the lobby, the United States has become the de facto enabler of
Israeli expansion in the Occupied Territories, making it complicit in the crimes
perpetrated against the Palestinians," and conclude that "Israel itself would
probably be better off if the Lobby were less powerful and U.S. policy more
even-handed."
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