Korean Job Discussion Forums

[regicide]

Last spring, two distinguished professors wrote a paper about the influence of the Israel Lobby on the foreign policy of the United States. One of the professors lost his job over the paper. Although 83 pages long, almost half are footnotes. It is a good read for those of you who have not read the paper.





The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy
By John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt
Working Paper Number:RWP06-011
Submitted: 03/13/2006

Abstract

In this paper, John J. Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago's Department of Political Science and Stephen M.Walt of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government contend that the centerpiece of U.S. Middle East policy is its intimate relationship with Israel. The authors argue that although often justified as reflecting shared strategic interests or compelling moral imperatives, the U.S. commitment to Israel is due primarily to the activities of the �Israel Lobby." This paper goes on to describe the various activities that pro-Israel groups have undertaken in order to shift U.S. foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction.
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It's a long paper, too long to cut and past.

Here is the link:

http://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/research/wpaper.nsf/rwp/RWP06-011

[Kuros]

[bucheon bum]

The Economist had an article comparing Europe and the US's views towards Israel. While it did an admirable job of explaining American support for Israel, I still can't understand why we have such blind alligence to Israel.

[Gopher]

Washington remains committed to Israeli security in the Middle East, just as it remains committed to Japanese, South Korean, and Taiwanese security in East Asia. These are cornerstones. There is, of course, more to it than this.

And one might complain that the Jewish lobby exerts too much influence in Washington. But one might also voice the same complaint on any number of lobbies -- especially relevant might be the Miami Cuban-exile community and their politicians.

Which leads me to ask: why do people so angrily denounce the Jewish lobby over U.S.-Middle Eastern relations, but do no such thing with respect to the Cuban lobby and U.S.-Cuban relations, particularly the irrational, harmful embargo?

Answer: "the Jews" and especially "the Zionists" historically make acceptable targets. But it would be "racist" to criticize any Hispanic, especially as a group, as in "the Cuban-American lobby."

Let us set that aside for a moment and move on. One might also complain that Washington appears to side with Israel over the Palestinians in the Arab-Israeli Conflict more often than not. But I would ask you, then, how the Arabs and Iranians -- covertly and/or overtly, in foreign policy or Holocaust-denial pseudoconferences -- as the usual aggressors and Carter, especially his most recent book, which implies Israel is a racist state, fit into your accounting of affairs.

But, however this may be and whatever the exact nature of the Jewish lobby and U.S.-Israeli relations, I would not go so far as to allege "blind allegience." This suggests American policymakers put no thought whatsoever into formulating U.S.-Mid-East policy except to call the Jewish lobby or Tel Aviv and ask them what to do. It also suggests that Washington never objects to any Israeli position in the Middle East. The U.S.-Israeli relationship is not so stratighforward as an Igotthisguistar-style analysis might claim, then.

[regicide]

[bucheon bum]

[Gopher]

And some of us support the military aid package as is, Bucheon. But not the embargo against Cuba.

Kissinger once said that we will support Israel's right to exist but not Israel's conquests. This represents my position on the matter. And it is not the Jewish lobby's view. Indeed, many Jews accused Kissinger of betraying his own people for his negotiating style in the Mid-East.

Why so much aid? Israel exists by international mandate. Yet Israel's enemies surround it and would annihilate it at the first opportunity, the first sign of weakness. Call me what you like, but many in the Arab Middle East do not and will not work and play well with others. When that threat changes or is secured, then we ought to deal with reversing Israel's conquests and resolving the Palestinians' very real plight.

First things first, however. We are grappling with a stubborn Gordian knot. Let the anti-Israeli extremists moderate their extremism -- which includes Hezbollah's recent war and Iran's current calls to wipe Tel Aviv out via, among other things, denying the Holocaust --and then we can deal with Israel's extremist response to said extremism.

[Adventurer]

[Gopher]

[bucheon bum]

[Gopher]

Suffice it to say Bucheon, I do not find your case against Israel -- and, from what I see, your belief that its behavior is unique -- persuasive and I will not change my position or voting behavior on this issue. And it is unfortunate that you are apparently afflicted with the "Israel-is-squarely-in-the-wrong" syndrome.

You seem a bit clouded on Israel's tactical situation as well, which no superficial snap-shot review of its neighboring nation-states as they are at this moment can do justice to. The Middle East is quite the fluid place, a place of constantly-shiftng political alliances. You do not need me to remind you of this. Before we backed Israel, you might recall, the Soviets did. On the other hand, you show no appreciation for these complications in your posts, above.

Whether it is Syria's shelling Israeli civilian communities from the Golan Heights and also Jordanian territory in 1967, Saddam's lobbing SCUDs at them in 1991, or Hezbollah's Katyushas and unknown long-range missiles (some of them maritime capable) in 2006, or Iranians, from Khomeini to Ahmadinejad, fantasizing their deletion from the map between 1979 and the present day -- this is merely a brief resume, not accounting for PLO, PFLP-GC, Black September, Hamas, and a host of others who have aimed or still aim to kidnap, assassinate, or murder Israelis and create or exacerbate conditions that might lead to Israel's annhilation (they have been very clear on this over time and have not recanted a single word) -- Tel Aviv has always found itself surrounded by well-armed, highly-committed enemies. The basic problem remains unresolved.

Also, do not forget that such events as the Munich Massacre and campaign after campaign of suicide bombings have long-term effects.

Find myself wholly in disagreement with your position, then. But so be it. In some situations there is no neutral ground. I am confident that I have sufficiently explained where I stand. The military aid package stays -- at least until ground conditions lighten up.

And I also disagree with your abritrary-derived grandfathering-in those who dispossesed others of their lands before the twentieth century.

[Gopher]

Here is what I mean by absurdity and impracticality, by the way...

Many object to Israel's right to nationhood -- and Washington's backing it.

Yet the British and, with them, most of the international community, created Israel by mandate between the end of the First World War and 1948.

One might argue that the imperialistic British had no right to do this.

But they were dealing with the aftermath of the Ottoman Empire's collapse. And the Ottoman Empire, too, had suppressed national self-determinationism in the Middle East for centuries.

So we should rail against the Ottomans, too, all the way back to the thirteenth century, right?

Not really, as many rage against nation-states themesleves. There should be no nation-states or authority and everybody should be free of oppression -- but, dammit, the Palestinians should be in and the Israelis out.

At what point do critics stop lambasting...everybody? And when can we start operating constructively in human and world affairs?

[Big_Bird]

[TheUrbanMyth]

[TheUrbanMyth]