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Today's
Stories
February 11,
2008
Cockburn /
St. Clair
Lessons
for Obama: When is a Delegate Not a Delegate?
February 8
/ 10, 2008
Paul Craig
Roberts
Does
the GOP Have Aces Up Its Sleeves?
Patrick Cockburn
Will Moqtada al-Sadr's Truce Hold?
Mike Whitney
The Great Bust of '08
Anthony DiMaggio
How the Press Covers Waterboarding
Andy Worthington
The Guántanamo Trials: Where are the Terrorists?
Linn Cohen-Cole
Hillary, Will You Renounce Your Ties to Monsanto?
Firmin DeBrabander
Notes from the Foreclosure Front: Suing Your Way to Solvency
Cpt. Paul Watson
The Other Whaling Industry: How Greenpeace Cashes In on the Suffering
and Deaths of the Great Whales
Kenneth S. Pope
Why I Resigned from the American Psychological Association
Jacob G. Hornberger
American Soldiers Will Pay the Price for Bush's Torture Policy
Robert Bryce
Beyond Group Think on Climate Change: If More CO2 is Bad ...
Then What?
P. Sainath
The Last of the Buccaneer Editors
Allan Nairn
Give Me Back My Land
Fred Gardner
/
Pebbles Trippet
"The District Attorney of Shasta County Doesn't Know the
Law!"
Andrew Wimmer
Growing Up Catholic: Ignorance is Death
Robert Fantina
America's Disgrace: the Case of Omar Khadr
David Michael Green
Partycide in Six Easy Steps: Watch the Democrats Destroy Themselves
Kevin Zeese
Is Dennis Kucinich Being McKinney'd?
Peter Morici
Wall Street Gives Bernacke a Vote of No Confidence
Chris Driscoll
Could Nader be the Come-Back Kid of 2008?
Prairie Miller
Black August: Bringing George Jackson's Life to the Screen
Poets Basement
Davies and Buknatski
February 7,
2008
Patrick Cockburn
Why
Baghdad Will Explode Again
Bill Christison
Potholes Bigger Than Ever for Palestinians
David Anderson
NBC's "To Entrap" a Predator: Perverting Justice for
the Sake of Ratings
Ron Jacobs
Innocent Flesh: Recruiting Kids to Kill
Nikolas Kozloff
Hugo Chávez's Coca: It's the Real Thing
Jane Rockefeller
The Moral Economy of an Anti-Poverty Foundation
Andy Worthington
On Waterboarding: Two Questions for Michael Hayden
Dave Zirin
Instep Intifada
Saul Landau
The "Honestest" Candidate Since Lincoln
Susie Day
Our Blob in the White House
Website of the Day
George Carlin on Voting
February 6,
2008
Cockburn /
St. Clair
Super
Tuesday's Vote for Chaos
Ben Rosenfeld
Informant Games: The Disturbing GreenScare Case of Briana Waters
Vijay Prashad
An Intellectual Hustler Lays It All Out
Joe Bageant
Nine Billion Little Feet on the Highway of the Damned
Michael Donnelly
What White Women Do In Private Voting Booths
Allan Nairn
Does the US Need a Civilizing Mayan Invasion?
Kathryn Gray
Wilderness on Edge: The Fate of Donner Summit
Ray McGovern
Powell's UN Fiasco
Sheldon Richman
The Whining Empire
Paul Cantor
/ Roger Sparks
A
Presidential Aptitude Examination
John Chuckman
Political Bits and Pieces
Website of
the Day
Save the Albatross
February 5,
2008
Winslow T.
Wheeler
The
Chaos in America's Vast Security Budget
Tariq Ali
Why I Will Not Participate in the Turin Book Fair
Stephen Soldz
The Secret Rules of Engagement in Iraq: Did Rumsfeld Authorize
War Crimes?
Chris Floyd
Strange
Fruit: America's Gulag and the Good War
William S. Lind
Saddam's Secret War Strategy: Die and Win
Martha Rosenberg
Live From the Killing Floor
Heather Gray
Conversations with Georgia Voters
Ayesha Ijaz
Khan
Obama, Bhagwandas and the Battle for a Secular Politics
David Macaray
Unions Need to Stop Being So Nice
Eliza Ernshire
Making Music and Laughing Till the Tears Run
Brenda Norrell
Hated Nation
Website of
the Day
The Things I Used to Do
February 4,
2008
Marc Levy
Winter
in America
Patrick Cockburn
The Bird Market Bombings
Saree Makdisi
Strangling Gaza
Uri Avnery
From Stalingrad to Winograd
Alan Farago
Let's Get Bambi! Someone is Slaughtering Florida's Key Deer
Ben Tripp
Spare Change: the Whine of the Progressive Voter
Paul Wolf
Civil Wars North and South
Paul Craig
Roberts
Why Were the 9/11 Tapes Destroyed?
Joshua Frank
MoveOn's Obama Endorsement: Why There's No Hope for Change
John Halle
Whither Progressive Democrats?
Website of the Day
How to Cheat in School
February 2
/ 3, 2008
Alexander Cockburn
Hot
Democratic Properties
Pam Martens
Bankers
Gone Bonkers: Global Finance and the Insanity Defense
Ralph Nader
The Great Clinton-Obama Debate: Questions They Weren't Asked
John Ross
Hilaria
vs. "El Moreno"
Wajahat Ali
Hillary, Obama and the Clash of Civilizations: an Interview with
Imam Zaid Shakir
Robert Fantina
A Colony by Any Other Name: Iraq as Stepchild of the American
Empire
B. R. Gowani
Not All Veils and Guns
James L. Secor
China in Winter: On the Western Edge of the Great Snow
John V. Walsh
The Invisible Green Primary
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Barack's Bubble, Bubba's Trouble
Dave Zirin
Who Stole the Super Bowl's Soul?
Jeremy Scahill
Blackwater and Blood
Fidel Castro
Reflections on Lula
Joe Allen
Tet Reconsidered: the Turning Point in the Vietnam War
Stephen Lendman
Life in Occupied Gaza
Patrick Irelan
What Happened to the Streetcars?
Andrej Grubacic
Ziga Vodovnik
Caligula's Horse: the USA, New Europe and Kosovo
Josh Karpoff
Dead Soldiers and the Antiwar Movement
Ron Jacobs
Carl Oglesby's War
Paul Krassner
Tom Waits Meets Super-Joel
Website of the Weekend
Company Woman: Hillary and Wal-Mart
February 1,
2008
Ray McGovern
The
Iniquities and Inequalities of War
Diane Farsetta
The Wild Career of James "Dow 36,000" Glassman
Patrick Cockburn
The
Most Dangerous Country in the World for Journalists
Tariq Ali
Et
Tu, New York Times?
Allan Nairn
Eating Dirt for Lunch in Haiti
Rannie Amiri
Collective Punishment in Beirut
Ramzy Baroud
People Power in Gaza: They Simply Did It
Kenneth Couesbouc
The Mother of All Snowballs
Peter Morici
Recession Looms
Mumia Abu-Jamal
Witha "Brutha" Like This: Bill Clinton as White Negro
Rosemary Jackowski
27 Reasons Nader Should Run for President
Scott Campbell
Direct Action to Stop the War Re-emerges
Website of the Day
Betes et Hommes
January 31,
2008
Saul Landau
Return
to Afghanistan
Andy Worthington
Horror at Guantánamo
Mike Whitney
Rate Cut as Dagger: America's Teetering Banking System
Jeff Ballinger
Sustainability for Dictators Initiative? Clinton Praises the
"Suharto of the Steppe"
Tiffany Ten
Eyck
The Saga of the Freightliner Five
William Loren
Katz
Waterboarding:
Torure or Mystery?
Alan Farago
Why the Republicans are in Deep Trouble
Col. Dan Smith
Oh Say Can You See the 2009 Budget?
China Hand
Slouching Toward Islamabad
Dave Lindorff
The Usual Suspects Once Again
Wadner Pierre
Fake Democracy in Haiti
Website of the Day
One Big Union
January 30,
2008
Cockburn /
St. Clair
McCain
vs. Clinton?
Christopher
Ketcham
The Genius of the Development Industrial-Complex
Robert Weissman
America By the Numbers: The Shameful State of the Union
Neve Gordon
An Experiment in Famine
Paul Craig Roberts
Regulation or Deregulation, Which is Worse?
Joanne Mariner
How Anti-Terror Laws Threaten Free Speech
David Macaray
Labor's Only Real Weapon
Liaquat Ali
Khan
Is NATO Committing Genocide in Afghanistan?
Raymond J. Lawrence
Prankster-in-Chief: Bush's Troubling Non-Verbal Communication
Dan Bacher
The Collapse of the Central Valley Salmon
Website of the Day
Onward Through the Fog
January 29,
2008
Franklin C.
Spinney
Bush's
New War Budget: the $70 Billion Hand-Off
Mike Whitney
The Great Credit Unwind of 2008
Alan Farago
Buyer Beware: Florida, the Candidates and the Latin Builders
Association
Patrick Cockburn
"The Americans Bring Us Only Destruction"
Gary Leupp
"We Can't Afford to Let Them Spill the Beans:" a Sibel
Edmonds Timeline
R. F. Blader
A
World Without Abortion: USA v. Romania
Ahmad Faruqui
Musharraf's Post-Electoral Prospect
Fran Shor
Obama, the Kennedys and "Change We Can Believe In"
Jeremy Scahill
Secret Trials and Criminal Convictions: the Ordeal of the Blackwater
Protesters
Allan Nairn
Bush's
SOTU: Entitlement, Justice and the War of All Against All
Website of the Day
The Ghost of Rambo
January 28,
2008
Patrick Cockburn
Return
to Fallujah
Paul Craig
Roberts
The End of American Liberty
Allan Nairn
The Breaking of the Gaza Wall
Eyad al-Sarraj
/ Sara Roy
Ending the Stranglehold on Gaza
Martha Rosenberg
Obit for the "Front Page" City
Corporate Crime
Reporter
How They Rip Us Off
David Michael Green
Kristolizing Iraq: What a Great Freakin' War
Jennifer Van
Bergen
What's Left?
Nancy Oden
Survival Tips for Hard Times
Divya Karnad
Saving India's Sea Turtles
James L. Secor
Pissed About Pistorious: Why the Olympics Needs a Gimp
Website of
the Day
Yellow Journalism?
January 26
/ 27, 2008
Uri Avnery
Worse
Than a Crime
JoAnn Wypijewski
How the Clintons Lost It, Whatever the Outcome in S. Carolina
Ralph Nader
Ambition, Power and the Clintons
Paul Craig
Roberts
How Bush Destroyed the Dollar
Paul Watson
I'm Proud to be a Pirate!
John Ross
Murder and Cover-Up in Mexico
Fred Gardner
Ross v. Raging Wire: Employer's Right to Fire Workers Held Sacred
by California Supreme Court
Allan Nairn
Little Hands with Fever: Some Consequences of Poverty Death
Joshua Frank
Why Bush Wants to Legalize the Nuke Trade with Turkey
Binoy Kampmark
Société Générale and the Economic
Meltdown
James T. Phillips
America's Sick Comedy: Bringing the War Home
Stan Cox
The Depressing Truth About Anti-Depressants
Eamonn McCann
Hillary's Lie: "I Brought Peace to Northern Ireland"
Ron Jacobs
The Horizons of History: What's at Stake in Bolivia
Seth Sandronsky
California's Health Care Crisis
Ben Terrall
The Future is Unwritten
Poets' Basement
Tripp, Gardner, Gibbons and Davies
Website of
the Weekend
City of Immigrants
January 25,
2008
Douglas Valentine
Operation
Two-Fold: How the CIA Infiltrated the DEA
Patrick Cockburn
US Troops Will Be In Iraq for 10 More Years: an Interview with
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari
JoAnn Wypijewski
Down to the Wire in South Carolina
Heather Gray
Are We Seeing a Racial Shift in the South? Conversations with
South Carolina Voters
Marjorie Cohn
Senate Democrats Poised to Fold to Cheney on FISA
Erica Rosenberg
Environmentalists Out on a Limb: the Perils of Collaboration
Alan Farago
Jeb Bush Goes Nuclear
Robert Weissman
Reclaiming Economic Freedom
Laura Carlsen
Wild Cards: Mining the Hispanic Vote in Nevada
Stephen Lendman
Israeli Repression in the Hebron
Website of the Day
The FIX is In
January 24,
2008
JoAnn Wypijewski
Obama
as Anthologist of Uplift
Paul Craig
Roberts
President Hillary
Alexander Cockburn
Hillary Wants to Talk About Dirty Legal Dealings? Remember Her
Nursing Home Scam?
Kathleen Christison
One and Two State Solutions and the Myth of International Consensus
Jeff Halper
Power to the (Palestinian) People!
Stanley Heller
The Siege of Gaza is Broken
George Wuerthner
The Moronic Sport: ORVs on the Public Lands
Patrick Cockburn
Desperate Iraqi Farmers Turn to Opium
Jeff Sher
Just How "Good" is Your Health Insurance?
Patrick Irelan
Musharraf, the Steadfast Ally?
Charles Modiano
Restoring the Anti-War King
Website of
the Day
An Illustrated History of Trepanation
January 23,
2008
David Rosen
The
Great Disappearing Act: the Presidential Candidates and the Politics
of Sex
David Isenberg
Is
It Really So Hard to Believe That Iran Stopped Its Nuclear Weapons
Program?
Farzana Versey
Hillary's
Harem
Paul Craig
Roberts
The Empire That Must Be Obeyed
Alan Farago
Where Did All the Good Times Go?
Allan Nairn
Indonesian Intelligence Service Threatens to Kill Human Rights
Activist
Kenneth Couesbouc
Another Turn of the Screw
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
How the West was Re-Sold
Michael Donnelly
Obama Strikes Back
Norman Solomon
The Power of Love
Website of the Day
Rafah Today
January 22,
2008
Paul Craig
Roberts
Farewell
to Old Economic Nostrums
JoAnn Wypijewski
King Day in Columbia, South Carolina
Al Giordano
Divide and Conquer Politics: How the Clinton Campaign Armed a
Black-Latino Time Bomb in Nevada
Felice Pace
Power Politics in the Klamath: Water, Dams and Salmon
Paul Wolf
Bolívar's Sword
Robert Weissman
Deregulation and the Financial Crisis
Dave Lindorff
The Bush Dollar Trap
Marjorie Cohn
Cheney Impeachment Gains Traction
Richard Neville
Keeping Shakespeare in a Box
Don Fitz /
Zaki Baruti
St. Louis Mayor Booed Off MLK Platform
Ben Terrall
Cindy Sheehan and the Virtues of Divisiveness
Sam Husseini
Stoning Martin Luther King, Jr.
Website of
the Day
Defend the Mapuche!
January 21,
2008
Kevin Alexander
Gray
Playing
the Race Card
Linn Washington,
Jr.
Deferring Dreams, Delusions of Democracy
Pam Martens
How Wall Street Blew Itself Up
David Macaray
Labor's Grim Dilemma: Do We Need a Labor Party?
Uri Avnery
Look Who's Talking
Omar Barghouti
Europe's Collusion in Israel's Slow Genocide
Joe DeRaymond
Protest and Trial in D.C.
B.R. Gowani
Why Islam Should Tolerate Images
Shepherd Bliss
The False U.S. Economy
Jean-Guy Allard
Philip Agee Versus the CIA
Dan Bacher
Leaping Steelhead!
Website of
the Day
Destroyed
By a Rising Flood
January 19
/ 20, 2008
Alexander Cockburn
The
Campaign in Black and White
Saul Landau
Good Time Charlie's War
China Hand
Endgame for Pakistan?
Conn Hallinan
Desert Mirage: What Was the Bombing of Syria Really About?
Ron Jacobs
No Retreat
Dave Lindorff
A Tax Rebate Won't Fix This Mess
Andy Worthington
Canada's Humiliating Double Standard on Torture
Paul Armentano
What's the Going Price for a Joint? More Than You Might Think
Seth Sandronsky
High Crimes and Economics
Michael Donnelly
Dodging Ecocide
Patrick Irelan
The Ordeal of Dr. Safdar Sarki
Martha Rosenberg
The Drug Industry Takes Another Hit
Sherwood Ross
Making the World Safe for Despots: Bush's Global Arms Trade
David Michael
Green
So You Want to be My President, Eh?
James Rothenberg
Unimpeachable: Under House Protection
Daniel Gross
Starbucks Shortchanges Dr. King
Peter N. Carroll
In Memory of Milton Wolff
Susie Day
Croakin' on Hudson
Paul Krassner
Woody Allen Meets Tongue Fu
Poets' Basement
Wolff, Buknatski and Orloski
Website of the Day
Rocky Mountain
Blues
January 18,
2008
Allan Nairn
Killing
Civilians, Carefully
Ralph Nader
When
the Big Boys Get in Trouble, Who Pays the Ultimate Bill?
Joanne Mariner
Terrorism and Preventative Detention
Alan Farago
The Stimulus and the Meltdown
P. Sainath
Pity the Brahmins
R.F. Blader
Beyond Steinem's Feminism
Andy Worthington
A Letter from Guantánamo
John Jonik
Private Insurance is Bad for Your Health
Brian McKenna
Where Even Sharing is Prohibited: Notes from Inside a Michigan
Women's Prison
Daoud Kuttab
This Time Next Year?
Website of the Day
Those South Carolina Voting Machines
January 17,
2008
Paul Craig
Roberts
Leader
and Vassal
Christopher
Brauchli
The FBI's Bills Come Due
Robert Fantina
Leadership, Bush and the New York Times
Patrick Irelan
Eternal War
Paul A. Moore
When the Rich Pay No Taxes
Stephen Lendman
Institutionalized Spying on Americans
Beena Sarwar
Bhutto and the "State Within a State"
Walter Brasch
Buzzwords in the Echo Chamber: Change and the Establishment
Brenda Norrell
Bush Legacy in Texas Sours
Adam Federman
End of the Left?
Website of the Day
Democrats for Romney
January 16,
2008
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Return
of the Native
Franklin Lamb
The Bombing at Qarantina
Julian Sanchez
David Weigel
Who Wrote Ron Paul's Newsletters?
Sharon Smith
Ron Paul and the Left: a Slippery Slope?
Allan Nairn
Economic Indicator: No Free Lunch, No Free Market
Ayesha Ijaz
Khan
How the American Media Enables Bush's Iran Fixation
Andy Worthington
A Strategic Call to Close Guantánamo
Richard Behan
Nancy Pelosi, You Must Impeach!
Website of the Day
Obama the New JFK? He's Not That Bad!
January 15,
2008
Andrea Peacock
Breach
of Trust in America's Most Toxic Town: How the EPA is Rubbing
Poison Into Libby's Wounds
Wajahat Ali
An Interview with Seymour Hersh on Iraq, Bush Foreign Policy
and the Prospects of War with Iran
Joe Bageant
Getting Out the Bling Vote
Ralph Nader
The Candidate Taboos
John Ross
Zero Hour: NAFTA and Mexico's Agrarian Apocalypse
Elaine Cassel
Jose Padilla vs. John Yoo: Can a National Disgrace be Rectified?
Peter Morici
The Fed Needs More Than a New Communications Strategy
Beena Sarwar
Pakistan's Dirty Tricks Brigade
Robert Weissman
Big Business is Even More Unpopular Than You Thought
Binoy Kampmark
Going Tata in India
Dave Zirin
Dennis Brutus Smacks Down the Hall of Fame
Website of
the Day
David Lynch on the iPhone
January 14,
2008
Ishmael Reed
Ma
and Pa Clinton Flog Uppity Black Man
Roger Morris
Burials in the Sind
Uri Avnery
The
Hands of Esau
Mike Whitney
Bush's Voodoo Stimulus Package
Allan Nairn
General Suharto of Indonesia: One Small Man Leaves a Million
Corpses
William Blum
Oh, By the Way, the Iraqis Don't Really Want Us
Alan Farago
A Subprime Wake Up Call
David Macaray
Are Labor Unions Ready for Prime Time?
Eva Liddell
Getting Drunk with Obama
Zoe Blunt
Road Kill: New Highway Blocked by Protesting Raccoons
Website of the Day
Doug and Andrea Peacock on Grizzlies
January 12
/ 13, 2008
Andrew Cockburn
How
the New England Journal of Medicine Undercounted Iraqi Civilian
Deaths
Saul Landau
60
Years of Empire
Corey D. B. Walker
Barack Obama and the Crisis of the White Intellectual
Col. Dan Smith
Bush, Iran and the Magician of the Tarot
Eric Toussaint
The US Subprime Crisis Goes Global
Ron Jacobs
Television, Murder and Vietnam
Fred Gardner
The People vs. Christopher James Chakos
Stan Cox
Don't Take That Pill!
Jacob G. Hornberger
The Warfare State
Ramzy Baroud
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Joseph Grosso
The Anglosphere: a Special Relationship of Elites
David Díaz-Arias
Imagining An/Other Latin American Left
Stacey Warde
Before We Move On ...
Dan Bacher
Pumped to Extinction: the Decline of the Delta Smelt
Michael Dickinson
Georgie in Jesusland
Website of
Weekend
CounterPunchers Protest Outside NYT Offices
January 11,
2008
Dave Lindorff
Did
Hillary Really Win New Hampshire? More Questions About Diebold
Voting Machines
Paul Craig
Roberts
No
Escape from War and Unemployment
Andy Worthington
Six Years of Guantánamo
Kenneth Couesbouc
Banking on Thin Ice
Jeff Ballinger
Inside the Vienna Consensus
Christopher
Brauchli
Lethal Injection, the Supremes and China
Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Paying No Attention to the Presidential Campaigns
Andrew Silverstein
Bush's Weepy Visit to Jerasulem
Marwan Bishara
Bush in the Middle East
Robert Weissman
The First Amendment Gone Wild
Patrick Irelan
Damn the Small Boats!
Website of
the Day
Hillary and the Superdelegates: Or Why She Wins Even When She
Loses
January 10,
2008
Alexander Cockburn
Now
Nader Claims He Didn't Endorse Edwards
Bob Wing
Marqueece Harris-Dawson
Race Within the Race: Obama, the NH Vote and the Specter of Tom
Bradley
Michael Donnelly
White Women Gone Wild?
David Macaray
Three Big Reasons for the Decline of Labor Unions
China Hand
Bush's Delusional Policy Pushes Pakistan to Brink of Catastrophe
Ayesha Ijaz Khan
Saudi Arabia and Pakistan: Brotherly, Friendly Countries?
Rannie Amiri
Obama, Man of Kansas or Kenya?
Website of the Day
Iranian Video of the Hormuz Incident
January 9,
2008
Cockburn /
St. Clair
The
Empire Strikes Back
Dave Lindorff
The Bad News from New Hampshire: Death By Triangulation
John Chuckman
Pardon My Laughter: Watching the US Primaries from Canada
James Bovard
Stomping Freedom: Inside the Martial Law Act of 2006
Alan Farago
As Florida Sinks: the View from the Titanic
Russell Mokhiber
Why Picket the New York Times in DC on Friday?
William S. Lind
Kicking the Can Down the Road in Iraq
Peter Morici
Beyond the Sophistry: Why the Trade Deficit Matters
Josh Reubner
Sudan vs. Israel: Double Standard on Divestment
Mike Roselle
The Pursuit of Happiness
Website of the Day
Bottles of Tears on the Wall: Steve Perry on NH
|
February
11, 2008
A
CounterPunch Exclusive
A Discussion with
Walt and Mersheimer
The
Power of the Israel Lobby
By WAJAHAT ALI
"Let's move over here--in the corner.
It'll be better for us to talk in private. Or else some people
might get the wrong idea," chuckles John Mearsheimer,
a Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the
University of Chicago and co-author of the incendiary book, "The
Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy."
The controversial book's co-author,
Stephen Walt, an Academic Dean at the prestigious Harvard Kennedy
School of Government, smiles and concurs as we all find comfortable
seats in the back end, lounge corner of San Francisco's Prescott
Hotel for our exclusive, in-depth interview.
"The wrong idea"
according to the authors is the inaccurate labeling and smearing
of their reputation as "Anti-Semites." According to
them and their supporters, they've unfairly earned this slander
solely due to their detailed and systematic criticism of an "Israel
Lobby" and its alleged actions in greatly influencing U.S.
foreign policy in the volatile Middle Eastern regions of Israel
and Palestine.
The Anti-Defamation League,
which retaliated by publishing "The Deadliest Lies:
The Myth of the Israeli Lobby" on the same release date
as "The Israel Lobby," lambasted the professors'
work as an "anti-Jewish screed: a relentless assault in
scholarly guise." However, talking to them in person and
later observing their demeanor at a speech followed by question
and answer session held at U.C. Berkeley, the two professors
both appeared very calm, rational, collected and lacking the
stereotypical, passionate vitriol and acidic anger unfortunately
espoused by all parties associated with the endless "Israel-Palestine
conflict."
For anyone with even the slightest experience in dealing with
the "Israel-Palestine" issue, whether that experience
be academic, polemical, political, or even a friendly discussion
over coffee, it becomes glaringly obvious the topic is contentious,
divisive and, dare I say, explosive. To call it a "powder
keg" of a situation would be a glorious understatement.
It is with that understanding and assumption that I conducted
this interview in order to achieve, if it all possible, a rational
discussion about a tragic conflict producing irrational acts
and consequences.
The following is the unedited
conversation and interview with the authors regarding their controversial
thesis, their critics and detractors, the stifling of academic
dissent, foreign policy in the Middle East, and the resulting
profound implications for the United State's relationship with
the Muslim World in the 21st century.
ALI: I guess life must have
been boring for you guys, and you had nothing interesting going
on. So, you decided to spice things up, right? What goes on in
your head that makes you get up one day and decide, "You
know what? I think we're going to tackle the "Israeli Lobby."
(Both laugh.)
WALT: We wrote this not because
our lives were boring, but because we were concerned with what
was happening with American foreign policy and specifically American
Middle East policy. We felt there was an aspect that wasn't get
that much attention in the U.S; the influence of the "Israeli
Lobby" was the elephant in the room that no one was willing
to talk about. We believe this was having unfortunate affects
on the U.S., other countries, and Israel itself, and no one,
especially mainstream circles, would speak or write about it.
We thought we were in positions of relative security and if we
didn't [talk about it], then no one else would.
MEARSHEIMER: Nevertheless,
we fully understood we were grabbing the third rail, and pro-Israeli
forces in the U.S. would come after us in a serious way. We've
not been surprised by the reaction to our piece here in the U.S.
ALI: Ok, for the unacquainted, let's become familiar
with the central thesis of "The Israel Lobby," lay
it out for me and the readers. There's this group you label the
"Israel Lobby." Who are they and why should we, as
average Joe Americans, even care about them?
WALT: The Lobby isn't a single
organization. It is a loose coalition of different groups and
individuals that actively work and try to move American foreign
policy in a pro-Israel direction and try to maintain a special
relationship with the U.S. and Israel. This group includes some
predominantly Jewish American groups, such as AIPAC, the Anti
Defamation League, The Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish
Organizations. It also includes non-Jewish groups like Christian
Evangelicals, such as Christians United for Israel. This is not
a single organization, and they don't agree on every issue, but
they all want to maintain that special relationship. It's an
interest group like other groups we have in U.S.
Interest groups are part of
American politics. So, there's nothing illegitimate or wrong
with what the Israeli Lobby is doing. But, like some other interest
groups, when they have profound impact on U.S. foreign policy,
they may be leading to foreign policies that aren't in the interest
of the country as a whole. So,  Americans should
be concerned about this and other interest groups if they are
leading to policies that are contrary to the American national
interest.
MEARSHEIMER: American should
care about the Israeli Lobby, because it has a profound effect
on the shape of U.S. Middle East policy. We believe by and
large that effect is negative. In other words, the Lobby is pushing
policies not in the U.S. interest and not in Israel's interest
either. The best example of that is the Lobby's influence has
with regards to the occupation and the building of settlements
in the West Bank. The U.S. has opposed settlement building since
the Israelis first conquered the West Bank and Gaza strip in
1967. It has been the official policy of every president
since Lyndon B. Johnson to oppose settlement building, but no
president has been able to put any meaningful pressure on Israel
to stop building settlements. The principle reason is due to
the Lobby, which goes to great lengths to make sure no President
can force Israel to do something that it doesn't want to do.
Since Israel doesn't want to end the settlements, no President
has been able to put an end to the settlement building.
What are the consequences that
result from this? It is one of the main reasons why the U.S.
is deeply hated in the Arab and Islamic world. It is one of the
main causes of America's terrorism problem. It is clear that
Osama bin Laden and Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, one of the main architects
of the 9-11 attacks, were deeply battered by American policies
in the Occupied Territories [in Palestine.] So, we as Americans
should care how the Lobby influences U.S.- Middle East policies,
because it sometimes influences them in a way which is not in
the best interests of the U.S.
ALI: However, doesn't the
publication of your book, the media publicity blitz surrounding
it, the release of Jimmy Carter's "Palestine: Peace not
Apartheid," and Norman Finkelstein's very public criticism
of Alan Dershowitz's "Case for Israel," all provide
examples that a healthy debate about Israel does indeed exist
and the Lobby is either ineffective or not as influential as
you suggest?
WALT: Nobody believes that
the discourse in the U.S. is 100% pro-Israel. That is completely
impossible. Our point in the book and our publication of the
book doesn't contradict this, we contend that conversation and
public discourse in mainstream media circles is overwhelmingly
pro-Israel. It's not to say occasionally you won't have other
voices out there. But the fact is we had trouble getting our
original article published in the U.S., and we have had some
coverage, but relatively little, regarding our book in mainstream
media circles.
We've seen various efforts
made to try and minimize the exposure by getting events cancelled
when were supposed to speak about this, or having media arrangements
fall through. So, it's not to say you can't occasionally get
critical views out there, but the balance of coverage on the
Middle East coverage is pro-Israel. But, if you look at the critical
reviews of the book, the reviews in England have been uniformly
positive. Generally, all across Europe as well. There have been
a number of positive reviews in Israel itself. But the mainstream
reviews in U.S. [is a different story], for example the Washington
Post, the New York Times Sunday Book Review; the New Republic
had a vicious attack comparing us to Osama Bin Laden and Ahmadinejad.
So, getting favorable reviews, including in Israel, is relatively
easy outside of the United States.
MEARSHEIMEHR: Based on reading
our book, one would predict we would get hardly any positive
reviews in the United States, and a lot of positive reviews outside
of U.S., including Israel. That prediction has held up very well.
We have been consistently slammed in the mainstream media inside
The United States, and garnered lots of positive reviews outside
the U.S., which is what the book would predict.
ALI: Is this proof of the
New-Anti-Semitism? Is this the smoking gun evidence that the
whole world is ganging up against Israel and American Jewry?
MEARSHEIMER: The fundamental
flaw with that argument is that the book has received favorable
treatment in Israel itself. One of the most positive reviews
was written in Haaretz itself written by Daniel Levi who is an
Israeli Jew. The most favorable review overall was written by
an Israeli, Yuri Avnery. This is not to say that there are not
people in Israel or U.S. who see our book as evidence of the
The New Anti-Semitism. We don't believe there is a New Anti-Semitism.
We believe there is not a lot of Anti-Semitism in the U.S. or
in Europe itself. And that charge is leveled at critics of Israel
like us and Jimmy Carter, because it is an effective way of marginalizing
and sidelining us. We are not Anti-Semites, Jimmy Carter is not
an Anti-Semite, and the vast majority of people who like our
book are not Anti-Semites, in fact many of them are Jews.
ALI: Briefly describe your
initial journey towards publication at the Atlantic Monthly.
Why did they ultimately reject the draft, and how did you find
a publication home at London Review of Books?
MEARSHEIMER: Stephen and I
decided in early 2002 to think seriously about writing a piece
on The Israeli Lobby and U.S. foreign policy. Then, in the fall
of 2002, we were commissioned by The Atlantic to write that piece,
and we began working on it. We were slowed down by the fact the
Iraq war was about to take place. We couldn't write about it
while it was still happening, because the Lobby was involved
in pushing that war. So, we didn't get a draft of the piece to
the Atlantic until the Spring of 2004. After they saw the initial
draft, they were very happy with it and asked us to make a number
of changes, which we did. We submitted the second draft in January
2005, and shortly thereafter they rejected it. We believe they
rejected it because they came to believe the subject was too
controversial and would cause problems.
ALI: Were you surprised
when it was rejected?
WALT: We differed on this.
I was more surprised than John was. But we were both disappointed.
Again, we had no indication that they weren't going to publish
it, and they had seen all of our previous drafts and had been
very positive about all of them. So, for them to suddenly discover
at the last minute that the entire piece was unacceptable, and
that they didn't want us to re-write it to make it acceptable,
was very disappointing.
MEARSHEIMER: So, the Atlantic
rejected the piece, and of course, surely, they will never say
they rejected it out of fear about how the Lobby would react
to the piece, but rather how the piece was written. We don't
believe that's the case. We believe they got cold feet. After
it got rejected, we talked to a number of journals about the
possibility of getting the piece published somewhere in the 2005.
By the early summer of 2005,
it became clear it would be impossible to get it published in
the United States. So, we put the article away and didn't think
it was possible to get it published in the U.S. Someone gave
a prominent American academic a copy of the piece we had submitted
to the Atlantic, and he knew the editor of the London Review
of Books. He wrote to me and asked me if we were interested in
publishing it there. We talked about it and thought it was an
excellent idea, and we talked to them and made an agreement to
submit it by January 2006, a new version of the article. They
published it two months later in March 2006. I mean, it's interesting
to think had this academic not gotten hold of the final draft
we submitted to the Atlantic, it would have never appeared.
ALI: I want talk about this
"stifling" of criticism. Let's discuss this recent
"Google" speech, where you were scheduled to appear,
but according to you a Google representative at the last minute
told you, "You can't appear without having the other side
represent," and then they cancelled at the last second.
In your opinion, is this "other side" really present?
WALT: As part of the publicity
campaign for the book, our publicist began to setup various venues
to come talk about the book. Three of those agreements were cancelled.
We were cancelled at the Chicago Council of Global Affairs who
had invited us to come and speak. The President of the Council
got in contact with John and said, "In order to protect
the institution, he was canceling the event. The subject was
just too hot to cover," and we can only appear there if
they had someone who would represent the "other side,"
and it was too late to get someone from the other side. I should
mention they've had plenty of people who represent "the
other side" speak at the Chicago Council and those people
spoke on their own. Michael Oren, an Israeli American historian,
for example has spoken on his own without someone else representing
the other side.
MEARSHEIMER: Dennis Ross would
be another good example. And we always say there is nothing wrong
with this.
WALT: We think that's fine.
It's entirely appropriate for Oren or Dennis Ross or lots of
other people to come and speak there. They never said anything
to us or our publicist about having someone there to debate us
when were arranging everything. It was only after the cancellation,
did they mention this. We had an agreement to speak at the City
University of New York also in September, but that also fell
through without an explanation. Finally, we were scheduled to
speak at Google Headquarters here in Mountain View, California,
which regularly hosts an author series where they bring authors
on a variety of subjects to give talks. So, our publicist got
an email the previous Friday late in the afternoon that the event
had been cancelled and didn't give us an explanation.
We were subsequently told that
the decision had been made "very high up in the company,"
and the Google representative said they had never seen an event
like this get cancelled like the way they did. They said they
would be interested in possibly rescheduling us, but we've never
been able to reschedule the event, so clearly, it's not going
to happen. But, just to add a number of other places where we've
spoken, such as the World Affairs Council in Dallas, the Hammer
Museum, The City Club of Cleveland, all these people told us
they had gotten emails, phone calls, or messages protesting our
appearance and suggesting we be dis-invited. To their great credit,
none of these places gave into that kind of pressure. In each
of these places, we appeared without note-worthy incident; we
had good discussions, they asked challenging questions. Some
people agreed with us, some people disagreed with us a lot, but
in all these places we had a very useful discussion and nothing
bad happened at all.
ALI: I want to you hear some comments by your
critics. George Schultz, Reagan's Secretary of State, writes
in the new book "The Deadliest Lies: The Myth of the Israeli
Lobby," -
MEARSHEIMER: That book was
scheduled to be published on exactly the same date as our book
was published on September the 4th.
WALT: Publishers know when
things are going to appear months in advance and once our publisher
made it clear it was going to be on their Fall list, then they
can start preparing "The Deadliest Lies," which is
a very thin book that didn't involve much work, and thus it could
be arranged to have it timed with the release of our book. I
mean, there are no secrets in the publishing world. Nothing unusual
about this.
MEARSHEIMER: The Abraham Foxman
book ["The Deadliest Lies] and the George Schultz preface
in the forward are not based on the book we wrote, "The
Israeli Lobby," because it hadn't been published at that
time. It was rather based on the article that was published [in
2006.]
ALI: Well, he writes in the forward, "those
who blame Israel and its Jewish supporters for U.S. policies
they do not support - are wrong. They are wrong because, to begin
with, support for Israel is in our [The U.S.] best interests.
They are also wrong because Israel and its supporters have the
right to try to influence U.S. policy. And they are wrong because
the U.S. government is responsible for the policies it adopts."
If you both concede that what the Israeli Lobby does is within
the confines of a democratic process, then isn't Schultz's critique
valid? If the Lobby isn't working democratically, then how is
it abusing the process?
WALT: We make it very clear
in our book that what the Israeli Lobby is doing is not an abuse
of the Democratic Process, but we think all Americans have the
right to organize around political causes they believe about.
But the fact that it is legitimate activity doesn't mean it is
in the best interest of the country. Lots of other interest groups
have skewed American policy in a way that is not good for the
country as a whole. We never argue, and we don't believe what
the Lobby is doing is illegitimate, inappropriate, or not Democratic,
it's just that the effects are harmful to the United States.
Now, if George Schultz disagrees
with us, then he can make that argument and we can have a debate
on it. One of the reasons we wrote the book is to try and encourage
debate. "Whether or not unconditional support for Israel
is good for the U.S. or not? Was it making Americans safer? Was
it Americans more popular around the world? Was it improving
our relation with allies in The Middle East and elsewhere?"
If all those are true, then, maybe, we're wrong. We're making
the argument that unconditional support for Israel, as encouraged
by the Israeli Lobby, has been deeply harmful.
I'd alert anybody who reads
this article that they should go back and read page 112 of George
Schultz's memoirs called "Turmoil and Triumph" where
he talks about his own involvement trying to do Middle East policy
in the face of pressure from the Lobby. When he and President
Regan were dealing with the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982,
he discovered Congress was about to vote a $250 million supplemental
military aid package to Israel after the invasion of Lebanon,
after [Israel] had used cluster bombs, after the Shatila-Sabra
camp massacres. This is what he writes in his own memoirs:
"We fought the supplement
and fought it hard. President Reagan and I weighed in personally
making numerous calls to Senators and Congressman. The supplement
sailed right by us and was approved by Congress as though President
Reagan and I had not even been there. I was astonished and disheartened.
This brought home for me vividly Israel's leverage in our Congress.
I saw that I must work carefully with the Israelis if I was to
have any handle on Congressional action that might affect Israel,
and if I were to maintain Congressional support for my efforts
to make peace or progress in the Middle East."
In 1982, and when he wrote
his memoirs, he understood the Israeli Lobby was very powerful
and he understood that it wasn't good; it was interfering with
what he and President Reagan wanted to do. But he understood
it was too powerful to fight it. He might've forgotten that in
2006-2007, but that's what he wrote in his own memoirs.
MEARSHEIMER: There's no question
that Israeli supporters in the U.S. have the right to push pro-Israeli
policies. Their behavior in that regard is as American as apple
pie. However, there is one form of behavior that many members
of the lobby engage in that is antithetical to the American way
of doing business. That is the proclivity for smearing critics
of Israel. If you criticize Israeli policy, or the power of the
Lobby in formulating, or influencing U.S. Middle East policy,
you are almost certain to be called an Anti-Semite or worse.
Smearing people has become one of the key tactics that large
numbers of organizations and individuals use in the Lobby to
deal with critics, and this is not as American as apple pie.
This kind of behavior should be condemned.
ALI: Let's switch gears
and talk about an Arab-American professor at Columbia, Joseph
Massad, who published a stinging criticism of your book in Al-Ahram.
He suggests your thesis falls into a predictable trap, and I
quote him, "the attraction of this argument is that it exonerates
the United States' government from all the responsibility and
guilt that it deserves for its policies in the Arab world and
gives false hope to many Arabs and Palestinians who wish America
would be on their side instead of on the side of their enemies."
So, my question, after listening to this, does your thesis help
exonerate the U.S. government from all its responsibility? Moreover,
perhaps the U.S. is in fact using Israel, instead of Israel and
its Lobby using the U.S, correct?
WALT: Professor Massad greatly overstates it when he says this
exonerates the U.S. government from all responsibility.
We understand that actors in the U.S. government are independent
actors to some degree. You take the Iraq war where we believe
the Israeli Lobby had a key role in pushing the U.S. to do this,
but ultimately George Bush made the decision to invade. So, we
wouldn't let him or Vice President Cheney off the hook. We are
not exonerating those people in the U.S. government. Any official
or most officials in the government, and certainly people in
Congress are shaped by the political and social forces that exist
within American society. They always pay attention where the
political support is going to be, and it's quite clear, as we
just saw from the George Schultz quote a moment ago, where the
Secretary of State thinks policy ought to go in one direction
[not giving Israel the supplementary aid] and President Reagan
agrees and thinks it's a terrible idea, but they get rolled by
Congress as if they had not even been there.
So, I think the idea that the
U.S. government would be pursuing the same policies vis a vis
the Middle East the same policies it would be pursuing absent
the Israeli Lobby and the political power of AIPAC, I think it
is just wrong. It has been the official policy of every president,
every president since Lyndon Johnson to not support the settlements
but none of them ever do anything about it, and they are the
Presidents. It's because of an array of political forces that
make it impossible for them to take action. Problem #2 is the
dog wagging the tail argument, here the argument is that Israel
basically is our tool, we give it orders, and it does what we
want it to do in the Middle East.
MERSHHEIMER: That Israel is
our Rottweiler argument.
WALT: I mean, if you look carefully
at the record, there is not much evidence that it is the tool
we are using to shape the Middle East. I'll give you three examples.
One is the first Gulf War of '91 where the U.S. goes into throw
Hussein's Iraq out of Kuwait, Israel didn't participate in the
war, not because they didn't want to, but if they had participated
the Arab coalition would have fallen apart. So, we went to great
lengths to keep them out. And then we had to defend them when
the SCUD missiles starting coming to Israel. The second example
is the Iraq War of 2003, here we are our knocking off an Israeli
enemy, but the Israelis are not there doing it, it's us doing
it. They are on the sideline yet again. The third example is
the Lebanon War in the Summer of 2006. We don't like Hezbollah
very much, and of course the Israelis don't like them very much,
but there is absolutely no evidence that we were pushing the
Israelis to go after Hezbollah. More importantly, we certainly
didn't want the Israelis to go after Lebanon. If Israel was taking
our orders in the Summer of 2006, they would have left Beirut
alone. They would have done nothing to undermine the democratically
elected government in Lebanon, which is something that Bush takes
great credit for. We had helped put the government in power,
and it was one of the big successes you could point to in Bush's
Middle East policy. If Israel was taking orders from us, they
would've had a very different approach than us in Lebanon. It's
not that there isn't some collusion, but the idea they are our
obedient servant carrying out the wishes of American Imperialism
in the Middle East is just dead wrong
MEARSHEIMER: Two quick points.
The U.S. can't use Israel to support its policies in the Middle
East in a large part because it is radioactive, and by that I
mean so unpopular in the region. We couldn't use Israel in the
first Gulf War or second Gulf War. My second point would be to
focus on what happened after the Shah of Iran fell in 1979. Up
until that point, the U.S. had relied heavily on the Shah to
do much of its heavy lifting in the Middle East. After the Shah
fell, the U.S. was deeply concerned that the Soviet Union might
intervene in Iran, and number two that Iraq or Iran might try
to dominate the region. In that case, we would need military
forces in that region to deal with the problem did it arrive.
So, the United States, if
we are to believe the story where Israel is our Rottweiler, then
we should've been able to turn to Israel to replace the Shah.
But, of course, we couldn't do that, and instead we had to build
the rapid deployment force, which is an over the horizon military
capability. But we need bases in the Middle East to deploy equipment
for the rapid deployment force should it have to come into the
region quickly. None of the equipment for the rapid deployment
force was put in Israel, because it was unacceptable for the
U.S. to station or to put equipment in Israel. So, what we did
is we developed a rapid development force of our own, and we
deployed that equipment in Arab countries.
ALI: Why do these pro-Israeli
groups have such a loyal and firm alliance with hawkish, Neo-conservatives
and the Christian Right in recent years? This is, after all,
the same Christian Right, if you read some of their ideology
and dogma, who believe that the Second coming of Christ will
end in either the mass slaughter or mass conversion of Jews in
Israel.
WALT: The Israel Lobby is a
heterogeneous group. They all want to maintain a special relationship
with the U.S., but they don't agree on everything. There are
a number of prominent groups, such as AIPAC, the Conference of
Presidents of Major American Jewish organizations, the ADL, the
Zionist Organization of America. There are a number of moderate
groups that support a 2 state solution as well. The Israeli Policy
Forum, the Americans for Peace Now are just a few examples. Then,
there is this movement of Christian Evangelicals known as Christian
Zionists. The more influential and wealthier organizations have
tended to be right of center and more hard-line. AIPAC for example
is hard-line. The Zionist Organization of America is very hard-line,
opposing a 2 state solution.
ALI: Wait, what exactly
do you mean by "hard-line?"
WALT: Generally those who oppose
a 2 state solution, or like AIPAC never endorsing it. And also,
basically supporting the "Settlement" enterprise. Groups
like Israeli Policy Forum believe in the 2 state solution and
oppose the Settlement enterprise.
MEARSHEIMER: It's marginally
a function of how you think of the [President] Clinton parameters.
The Clinton parameters would be a broad outline for a 2 state
solution. Organizations like the Israeli Policy Forum, people
like Dennis Ross endorse the parameters, I mean he helped craft
them.
WALT: I think we argue this
in our book, if you look at the major organizations they tend
to be more right of center, but they have become more conservative
over time, and become more aligned with the Likud party in Israel,
more aligned at least politically with conservative movements
here in the U.S. The Israeli Lobby has moved in a rightward direction
over time. And, it has been strengthened by the Christian Evangelicals
who believe, and I'm oversimplifying a lot here, but their view
of Israel is shaped by their interpretation of Old Testament
prophecy. They believe the re-establishment of a Jewish state
in all of Palestine is foreordained in Biblical prophecy, and
it is a key sign leading up to the Second Coming, the End of
times.
ALI: Like a pre-requisite?
WALT: It's a pre-requisite,
it's gotta' happen. It's one of several steps we have to go through.
So, they oppose any form of Palestinian state, they oppose any
withdrawl of the settlement enterprise, because they think that's
inconsistent with what the Bible has predicted.
MEARSHEIMER: What the Bible
says is necessary for the End times to come about.
WALT: Now, as you said, obviously
this image of what happens to Israel or the Jewish people is
not optimistic. Either they die, are converted, or they get left
behind. But, obviously, if you are Jewish you don't believe any
of that prophecy stuff, and therefore there has been a tactical
alliance between these groups, because it strengthens the political
influence of both hard-line organizations. To put it in crude
terms, I think the Jewish groups don't much care for the Christian
Zionist's other views, because they don't think they're true,
and they're happy to get their support on this foreign policy
dimension. As we can see the support for our very confrontational
policy with Iraq and Iran today, where the Christian Zionists
have been very bellicose, as have members of the Israeli Lobby
been as well.
MEARSHEIMER: An additional
point to make is that Israel, itself, has been progressively
moving to the right as well. If you look carefully at Israeli
public opinion, there is little support for the Clinton parameters,
which is the only meaningful way you can create a viable Palestinian
state. The Israelis say they are willing to give the Palestinians
a state and favor a 2 state solution, but when you see what the
majority of the Israelis want to give the Palestinians it does
not in any shape, way, or form add up to a viable Palestinian
state. Basically, it would be a series of enclaves in the West
Bank, and the Gaza Strip would be another enclave. These enclaves
would not be territorially contiguous, not connected, and the
Israelis wouldn't give the Palestinians control of East Jerusalem.
The point I'm trying to make is that the fact the Lobby is dominated
by hard-line individuals is facilitated by the fact that it is
a worldview that is largely reflected by a majority of Israelis.
ALI: Professor Mearsheimer,
you and several academics recently convened in Chicago, Rockafeller
Chapel, and you said academia is the only space where Israel
is "treated as a normal country, where past and present
actions are critically assessed," and the place where public
opinion on the matter is most accurately reflected. If that is
the case, then how do we explain the abrupt denial of tenure
of Israeli and Dershowitz critic Norman Finkelstein? [Finkelstein's
very public tenure controversy at DePaul University ended in
September '07 when the Board decided to reject his tenure bid,
despite overwhelming support for Finkelstein by his peers, his
students, and national and international scholars]
MEARSHEIMER: I said in my comments,
academia "tends to be the one place," where
Israel is treated like a normal country. I think there's no question
that there is more criticism of Israel in the academic world
and in college campuses, then there is in mainstream media. Nevertheless,
the Lobby works very hard to influence the discourse on university
campuses and goes to considerable length in influencing hiring
and promotion decisions regarding critics of Israel. The Normal
Finkelstein case is illustrative of this. Nobody disputes that
the Lobby put considerable pressure on DePaul University to deny
Finkelstein tenure. They will deny that the pressure had any
effect on the ultimate decision to deny him tenure, but this
is hard to believe.
ALI: You suggest in your
book that the image and framing of the issues has been skewed
to reflect Israel as a "David" fighting a "Goliath"
that is the Palestinians and neighboring Arab enemies. How much
of this alleged symbolism is actually reflected in reality? How
has this image been popularized and cemented in the mindset of
American psychology?
MEARSHEIMER: There is no question
that Israeli's supporters have been very successful in conveying
the message to most Americans that Israel is a David surrounded
by an Arab goliath. Anyone who looks carefully at the history
of the conflict quickly discovers that is not the case. To be
more specific, Israelis won the 1948 war decisively, they won
the 1956 decisively, they won the 1967 war decisively, and they
won the 1973 decisively after suffering a massive surprise attack.
All those victories were gained before massive U.S. aid came
to Israel.
WALT: Up thru '67 that's exactly
right. The U.S. was starting to provide significant military
aid after '67, but the aid goes up even more after the '73 war.
MERSHEIMER: So, Israel won
those 4 wars, and since then no Arab state has picked a fight
with Israel for the simple reason they all understand Israel
is the "Goliath" and they are the "Davids."
Today, Israel has the most powerful conventional army in the
region by far. It's the only state in the region that has nuclear
weapons, it has a couple of hundred of them. It has a very close
alliance to the U.S., which would surely come to its defense
if its survival is threatened. It has peace treaties with Egypt
and Jordan, and would have a treaty with Syria had it not walked
away from the deal. So, Israel is not only the most powerful
country in the region, but it also has peace agreement with some
of its neighbors, two of them they have fought wars with in the
past. And it would've have peace deals with 3 of its principle
adversaries had they reached a peace deal with Syria.
The Saudis started in 2002
to push a peace initiative that would've brought peace between
Israel and the Arab League, and they resurrected it again this
year and pushed it again. This tells you that most of the states
in the region are interested in reaching some sort of modus of
endii with Israel. They understand it is very powerful and not
going away anytime soon, therefore it makes sense to make some
peace agreement. Israel is in excellent shape in terms of military
balance. In terms of its dealings with its neighbors, it is in
very good shape.
One might say what about the
Palestinians? The Israelis have had opportunities to cut a deal
with the Palestinians, especially during the 90's Oslo Peace
Process. But they have never shown any serious interest in allowing
the Palestinians to have a viable state. If they could change
their thinking on that conflict and bring themselves to evacuate
almost all the West Bank, and allow for a Palestinian state,
then we believe they would have good relations with the Palestinians
as well.
WALT: You have to bear in mind
the balance of power between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
Israel, today, has the 29th highest per capita income in the
world, now that's not a poor country. Palestinians are deeply
impoverished, unable to have a viable economy in the face of
all of the obstacles presented now by Israel. The Palestinians
have no army, no air force, no navy, they barely have an effective
security force, and of course they are deeply divided internally.
When any group of people is put into a situation like that, they
are going to use any tactic available. Which is why of course
the Palestinians have relied on terrorism. John and I both regard
the use of terrorist tactics as deplorable, and the loss of innocent
human life on either side is deeply, deeply regrettable. So,
we're not defending that. But, the point is that the Palestinians
hardly pose an existential threat to Israel. It's very much a
one sided competition. The problem is for all of Israel's considerable
military power it still does not permit them to dominate the
Palestinians to the point they won't try to resist with any means
they can come up with. But the idea that Israel is the vulnerable
party here, and its various neighbors are all powerful has got
reality turned upside down.
ALI: How does the Lobby
skew this image, in your opinion, for the Average American psychology?
WALT: By constantly repeating
how vulnerable Israel is, by constantly exaggerating the dangers
that is faces. And, it does have security problems in addition
to problems from terrorist bombings, it has problems with Hezbollah
to the north. But the groups of the Lobby are hyping the exaggerated
threat that Israel faces in trying to convince people its security
is very precarious; that Israel might be destroyed anytime soon,
that it faces a gigantic sea of enemies that aren't interested
in peace. But if someone looks carefully at the true military
balance, or looks carefully at what Israel's relations with its
neighbors really are and what those neighbors have already offered,
it suggests Israel is already quite secure in regards to its
overall existence. Its survival is not in jeopardy. Its security
can be significantly enhanced if it would reach a reasonable
settlement with the Palestinians and take that whole problem
off the table once and for a all.
MEARSHEIMER: The principle
way that the Lobby creates this image of a beleaguered Israel
is by working 24-7 to shape the discourse about Israel. The Lobby
not only portrays Israel as a "David" surrounded by
"Goliaths," but it also goes to great lengths to silence
those who argue that the opposite is the case.
ALI: Here's a criticism.
The U.S. is country with over 300 million people. We have blogs,
the internet, op/ed publications, websites, liberals, republicans,
and a diversity of opinions. How can a tiny minority of Jewish
people, which is about 2 to 3% of our population, have that much
influence? Is this some sort of conspiracy theory suggesting
Jewish boogeyman who own the vast, diverse media we have in the
United States?
MEARSHEIMER: We want to be
absolutely clear we are not talking about a conspiracy. We are
also not making an argument that pro-Israel groups control the
media. Our argument is that the Lobby has to work very hard to
shape discourse in the United States, because it does not control
the media. Certainly, there are pundits and columnists and owners
of newspapers who are naturally pro-Israel. There are many others
that need to be reminded that criticism of Israel carries with
it a significant cost. It's there where the Lobby is great on
what is written in the mainstream media in regards to Israel.
Our argument is that they are very effective in that regard.
Let's just talk about the discourse
in the mainstream media about the Middle East. Where do you see
evidence of Arab Americans writing columns in major newspapers?
Where is the evidence of Arab Americans who are constantly on
T.V. or on radio constantly criticizing Israel and defending
the Palestinians?
ALI: Someone can say Fareed
Zakaria is Muslim--[Fareed Zakara is an influential and well
known editor, columnist, and pundit]
WALT: He's not Arab. He's a
South Asian Muslim. He does not take sides on Middle East questions
very often. I think he understands this is a delicate issue,
and particularly as delicate an issue for someone as prominent
as he is who is known to be Muslim. Find me the Palestinian American
columnist in the Times, The Washington Post, the Wall Street
Journal, the SF Chronicle. They don't exist.
MEARSHEIMER: What we have here
in the United States is a one sided debate. We have pro-Israel
forces and nothing else.
WALT: What you see of course
is anytime a major media organization does publish something
that is mildly critical they immediately get pressure put on
them. For example, this past fall CNN ran a 3 part series on
Muslim, Christian, and Jewish fundamentalism. The Forward, a
Jewish newspaper, said it [CNN] suffered from an "unprecedented
attack," where organizations were putting pressure on advertisers
that had bought advertising time. The whole purpose was not to
stop the broadcast, because it already happened, but they wanted
to put enough pressure on CNN that the next time a producer has
an idea or a big story that is controversial, that producer is
going to face an uphill battle. Or if a newspaper in Boston,
Cleveland, San Francisco, pushes an article that is critical
of the Lobby, if the editor gets 5,000 letters protesting about
that, then they will think twice the next time that they let
something like that appear.
If you do this long enough
and over many years, plenty of reporters, editors, and columnists
realize it's too much trouble. "I'll write about something
else, or I'll write something bland." That isn't control
of the media as in the old conspiracy scene, that's an interest
group, like how a number of interest groups work, working very
hard to try and make sure that their story gets reported, and
the other side tends not to get reported. I say "tend"
because every now and then you see something representing the
other side appear in various places, but the point is you want
to make sure the balance of coverage is on one side.
MEARSHEIMER: I want to add
another dimension to this. It is widely recognized in the U.S.
that the Lobby has a powerful influence on U.S.-Middle East policy.
If you look at almost all the critical reviews of our book, virtually
all of the critics admit that the Lobby is powerful. Nevertheless,
when you read American news accounts of U.S.-Middle East policy,
you hardly ever see any discussion of the Israel Lobby's presence,
much less influence, in the shaping of the U.S. policy.
WALT: Not never, but it's rare.
It's rare you find someone who is writing about Middle East policy
who will devote a couple of paragraphs to the role that pro-Israeli
forces are playing in shaping that policy. Even though everyone
in Washington knows that they're very influential.
ALI: Let's talk about Iraq. You, unlike many
academics, underplay the role of oil and oil lobbies in the Iraq
War. If not oil, then what was the motivating reason for the
pre-emptive attack, and how does/did Israel benefit from the
attack on Iraq and the toppling of Saddam Hussein?
MEARSHEIMER: With regards to
the question of oil, there is hardly any evidence that oil was
driving the Iraq war. Except for Kuwait, none of the oil producing
states favored the war. And even though Kuwait favored the war,
it didn't push the U.S. hard to attack. Saudi Arabia was opposed
to the war, as were the other oil producing states in the regime.
There is hardly any evidence that I'm aware of that the oil companies
which were pushing this war. The oil companies wanted to cut
a deal with Saddam, so they could help him develop his oil fields,
move his oil around the globe, and make lots of money in the
process. The basic problem is there is not a lot of evidence
to support the idea that oil was driving this war. What we believe
was driving this was war was 1) The Israeli Lobby, and 2) the
fact that George Bush and Cheney after 9-11 believed it was necessary
to topple Saddam to win the war on terrorism. It's a combination
of them pushing this war to make this happen.
WALT: I would add to that,
of course, the people who pushed for this believed it would benefit
the U.S. and benefit Israel as well. They believed it would launch
a process of political change throughout the Arab-Islamic world
that would make the terrorism problem go away, enhance America's
overall strategic position by gradually creating a lot of countries
that were Pro-American, and finally enhance Israel's strategic
position by creating a bunch of countries that were willing to
make peace. They were tragically wrong on all counts. How would
this war benefit Israel? The war didn't benefit Israel, of course,
it's been a strategic disaster for Israel. It's created a failed
state nearby [Iraq], and it has enhanced the position of Iran,
which is a country Israelis worry about even more than they worried
about Saddam. This underscores a point we make in our book and
make all the time is that the Israel Lobby in pushing for unconditional
American support for Israel, and in some elements, pushing for
hair-brained schemes like invading Iraq, it has been bad for
the United States and unintentionally bad for Israel, too. It's
incorrect to see the Lobby as always pro-Israel. A lot of what
they are supporting is very bad for Israel.
ALI: Seymour Hersh of the
New Yorkers posits the U.S. is engaged in "The-Redirection,"
whereby the U.S. and Israel are aligning themselves with moderate
Arab dictatorships against Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah. As professors
of international relations and critics of the Israel Lobby, what
blowback would this have, if any, on US-Muslim world relations?
MEARSHEIMER: The basic problem
is that the strategy is not going to work. The fact is that Israel
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