[Mb-civic] The Myth of the Jewish Lobby

[Harold Sifton]

      This was re-printed from the Toronto Star

      I would like to read this paper 'The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy' before commenting on this.

      Cheers, Harry
     
        
             


           
     
The myth of the Jewish Lobby
Canadians must guard against buying into this caricature, says Anna Morgan
Apr. 16, 2006. 01:00 AM


Those who oppose censorship usually endorse the marketplace of ideas. But one thing about the market, it can reject a product — not because it's banned, but because consumers just don't like it. 

A recent study, co-authored by professors John Mearsheimer, the academic dean of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, and Stephen Walt of the University of Chicago, claims the United States consistently acts against its own interests. 

Titled The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, the paper has been criticized by editorials in the American media, ranging from The Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post to Z-Magazine. The latter, an Internet favourite of left-leaning academics, featured Noam Chomsky. He praised Mearsheimer and Walt's "courageous stand" but did not find their thesis convincing. 

Chomsky's reluctance probably stems from the fact that the study endorses U.S. imperialism in a new form. Their criticism of Washington's pro-Israel bent takes an unusual twist. It's not the plight of the Palestinians, but the plight of the Americans, that is the focus of the study. 

Why is America not acting in its own self-interest you might ask? Apparently, the Israel Lobby (using the same capital letters as Mearsheimer and Walt) is diverting America from its true world destiny. The argument is especially interesting because it comes from two professors schooled in realpolitik, a political theory based on the premise that, as human institutions, states always act in their own self-interest. According to Hans Morgenthau, the grandpère of realpolitik, nations "think and act in terms of interest defined as power, and the evidence of history bears that assumption out ..."In the Mearsheimer and Walt study, realist theories fall flat when it comes to America and Israel. In this lone instance, the world's strongest state neither thinks nor acts on its power, but rather has been forced to serve a small minority with interests unaligned with its own. 

According to the two authors, the Jewish Lobby is anywhere and everywhere. It includes journalists, editors, think-tank scholars, Jews and non-Jews. It has managed to divert the most powerful country in the world from achieving its real self-interested goals. 

It's not surprising that the study has been endorsed by those who hold anti-Semitic and anti-Israel views, including white supremacist David Duke and a senior member of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood. 

Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan leader, has said that the work is "a modern Declaration of American independence" and that it validates his earlier works. Needless to say, Mearsheimer and Walt aren't pleased by Duke's endorsement. 

But they're probably pleased with the attention they're getting. The article, which appears on a Harvard website with a disclaimer, was published by the London Review of Books. 

In an interview with Forward, a U.S. Jewish newspaper, Mearsheimer says that "the pro-Israel lobby is so powerful that he and co-author Stephen Walt would never have been able to place their report in an American-based scientific publication." In other words, they are complaining that their work is being censored. 

According to them, not only have the Jews managed to turn the foreign policy of the world's most powerful nation against its own best interests, they have also managed to commandeer and control every single academic publication in the country, bar none. No wonder Duke likes these guys. 

There are signs that Canadians are also susceptible to this kind of thinking. When the Conservative party, which criticized the Liberals' soft approach to terrorist organizations, condemns the intransigence of Hamas, who gets the credit and the blame? 

When Canada, always a supporter of multilateral institutions, seeks to rebalance the UN's lopsided position on a certain foreign conflict, which lobby is said to have pressed the government into service? Do I need to answer? 

No one has censored this broadly read study, but sensible readers should shop elsewhere in the marketplace of ideas. The public needs to guard against buying into the Jewish Lobby caricature, lest we all become Dukes of this hazard.
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