The Israel Lobby and American Foreign Policy

"Mearsheimer and Walt are scholars of great repute, not conspiracy theorists or racists. In this book they argue that the remarkable American financial, military and political support for Israel is motivated primarily by the workings of a powerful right-wing Zionist lobby. This acts against American interests and even against Israel’s long-term security. Mearsheimer and Walt examine who makes up the lobby and how it works. Controversially, the book shows that the Israel lobby played a key role in agitating for the disastrous Iraq war – the lobby wasn’t the only factor, but was certainly more important than oil. The authors have been misrepresented and predictably accused of anti-Semitism, but many American Jews have expressed appreciation for their work. The lobby often pretends to speak for all Jews, but on Iraq, for instance, a majority of US Jews opposed the war from the start. Mearsheimer and Walt have opened up the debate. Brave souls like investigative journalist Phil Weiss continue the work."

"The only way to understand the special relationship that now exists between the United States and Israel is to understand the critical role that a number of organisations have played in actively promoting that relationship over the last 60 years. The US has supported Israel since its founding in 1948, but it did not have the same sort of special relationship for the first 20 or so years after Israel’s creation. The US backed it in certain ways, but was also willing to put lots of pressure on it in other circumstances and didn’t provide a lot of economic or military assistance until after 1967. But today the US backs Israel no matter what it does and American politicians are careful never to say anything that is very critical of Israel, even when it is acting in ways that are contrary to US interests and values. The key to understanding this ‘special relationship’ is the operation of various groups in the Israel lobby, and our book lays out in great detail how that works, and why it’s not good for the US or Israel. The existence of a special relationship – one of nearly unconditional and generous American support – is due almost entirely to the activities of the Israel lobby. The United States and Israel would probably be friendly and might even be de facto allies if there were no lobby, but they wouldn’t have nearly as profound a relationship were it not for the activities of AIPAC [the American Israel Public Affairs Committee], the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organisations, or the Anti-Defamation League, as well as the so-called ‘Christian Zionists’ and a number of other groups and individuals. There’s no other relationship like it in all of US foreign policy, and even in the entire history of American diplomacy. That’s another reason I chose our book. I’d normally be reluctant to include my own book on a list of this kind – it’s immodest. But our book did go a long way toward breaking the taboo about even talking about this subject in mainstream foreign policy circles. Prior to our writing our original article in the London Review of Books and the subsequent book, the Israel lobby was a phenomenon that many people understood but nobody really wanted to talk about, because they understood they’d get in trouble if they did. I think the taboo has been substantially weakened. For people who want to have significant foreign policy careers, it’s certainly still an issue they don’t want to get too close to. Inside the Beltway, in Washington DC, you still get a lot of self-censorship and dishonest discourse. But I think the subject is now much more out in the open than it was before, which is all to the good."