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To the Editor:

Gabriel Schoenfeld [“Dual Loyalty and the ‘Israel Lobby,’” November 2006] is right; Zionists should not be accused of “dual loyalty.” Zionists, by definition, have loyalty to Zion (Israel). This means that they are disloyal or traitors to the United States. And don’t tell me that Israeli interests and principles always and forever coincide with those of the United States. How dare you be indignant at the charge of “dual loyalty.” Zionists are not loyal to the U.S. at all!

James Rogers
Morenci, Michigan

 

To the Editor:

Debates in America about our special relationship with Israel, when they happen, follow a depressingly familiar ritual. A critic of Israel, convinced that free discussion of America’s support for the Jewish state is taboo, will vent his frustration in a long harangue that begins with commonplaces, rises into matters worth considering, and then disappears into fantasy land. Alarms sound, and Israel’s American defenders respond not only by criticizing the critic but by making an example of him, raising the specter of anti-Semitism, old or “new.”

Eventually the affaire dies out, but everyone is satisfied. Israel’s critic feels vindicated by the outsized response, which confirms “what we all know” about Jewish power; his adversaries congratulate themselves on slaying the dragon, confirming their narcissistic image of American Jewry as Israel’s savior. And through it all no one has mentioned real, existing Israel or its real, existing problems—which are also America’s problems.

It is a pity that in his article on the controversy surrounding John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt’s paper, “The Israel Lobby,” Gabriel Schoenfeld chose to participate in this scripted ritual rather than using the occasion to shift the discussion in a more productive direction. For there are certain points on which Mearsheimer and Walt are correct, beginning with their claim that in the current world situation Israel has become a “strategic liability” to the United States.

America’s support for Israel’s existence and safety is a strategic burden—and a moral badge of honor. Any “realism” that does not recognize the moral fact is not realistic; any moral defense of support for Israel that does not recognize and weigh the burden in public is eventually doomed to irrelevance. Mearsheimer and Walt’s treatment of the moral case is, as Mr. Schoenfeld ably demonstrates, twisted and tendentious. But he never mentions the strategic problem, leaving the impression that he either does not think there is one or feels it should not be addressed openly.

It will not have escaped the notice of Commentary’s readers that over the past twenty years the strategic and moral situation in the Middle East has changed so drastically that most of our old ideas about America’s support for Israel no longer apply. The end of the cold war, the spread of radical Islamism, the unconscionable entrenchment of Israel’s West Bank settlements, the death of Yasir Arafat and the rise of Hamas, the waves of suicide bombings, the slow disintegration of the Labor and Likud parties, the collapse of Palestinian society in the territories, the demoralization of the IDF due to the occupation—it is a long list. Add to it all the shock of 9/11 and blowback from the disastrous war in Iraq, and it is clear how much fresh thinking America needs about its relationship with Israel.

Had Mearsheimer and Walt limited themselves to strategic matters and treated them impartially, they might have made a small contribution, since these are not the terms in which U.S. policy toward Israel is currently discussed. But if they will not confront the issue with directness and foresight, American supporters of Israel and their organizations should.

The moral case for supporting Israel is, in my view, a good one, but it is not a simple one. It requires educating people about the passions dominating the region, the internal dynamics of Israeli and Arab politics, and the historical record, however contested it may be. It also requires a recognition that ultimately Israel’s future is in its own hands and that there is only so much the U.S. can and should do for it, given America’s own strategic interests. America’s relationship with Israel is indeed special, but the problems we jointly face are perfectly normal and need to be discussed in a normal way, frequently and in public.

Unfortunately, that does not always seem to be the view of the organizations, large and small, that make up what Mearsheimer and Walt call the “Israel Lobby.” Reading their publications and observing their activities, one has the impression they are on automatic pilot, fighting yesterday’s battles, resuscitating old fears, and avoiding an honest confrontation with the situation we—the U.S. and Israel—now face. They are adept at identifying Israel’s “friends” and “enemies,” yet incompetent at explaining what friendship might require at the present time.

As a result, American Jewry itself seems oddly disconnected from the realities that Israelis themselves are very conscious of and discuss with an admirable frankness and seriousness. This leaves many American Jews prey to the self-appointed demagogues who claim, for example, that our universities are incubators of anti-Semitism, that campuses need to be “watched” and professors monitored, and that subtle pressure needs to be applied to make it difficult for people to speak their minds.

For demagogues like these, Mearsheimer and Walt have been a godsend, since (as Mr. Schoenfeld points out) they make old insinuations that are genuinely alarming. But they are not the problem. A reckoning is approaching in U.S. policy toward the Middle East, and it is important that Israel’s American supporters be there with lucid contributions based on a realistic assessment of America’s strategic interests and Israel’s genuine condition and actions.

Mearsheimer and Walt’s article has proved a real diversion from this work, since it has put Jewish organizations and writers into the comfortable default mode of self-defense. It is too bad that Gabriel Schoenfeld chose to meet them at this level rather than confronting the legitimate strategic issue they also raise. But then, when it comes to normalizing our thinking about American-Israeli relations, it seems we never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

Mark Lilla
University of Chicago
Chicago, Illinois

 

To the Editor:

In their paper on the “Israel Lobby,” John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt inadvertently advance two radical new ideas. One is that for the first time in history, a small country (Israel), through its lobbies in the power centers of the empire (America), has taken hostage the entire foreign policy of the colossus, and forced it consistently to act against its own national interest. The second notion is that Americans have lost their capacity to act on the First Amendment’s promise about the right of the people “to petition the government.”

These misconceived assumptions might help explain why, at a discussion devoted to their paper held at Cooper Union in New York this past fall, even those panelists who spoke in favor of it were not exactly comfortable with its core argument. Rashid Khalidi of Columbia, for example, had important things to say about America’s political culture and about the excessive power of the “Israel Lobby.” But, serious scholar that he is, he could not endorse a single-cause explanation for America’s misfortunes in the Middle East. In line with many of Mearsheimer and Walt’s critics from the Left, he challenged the simplistic notion that America’s policy in the Middle East is dictated by the “Lobby.”

I have been on record more than once warning against the convenient, obnoxious tendency (to which Gabriel Schoenfeld succumbs) to label any criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic. Criticizing Israel and its allies in Washington’s corridors of power, as Mearsheimer and Walt do, is not only perfectly legitimate but necessary. Moreover, I fully share their frustration at the unpardonable indifference of the Bush administration toward the plight of the Palestinians. But America’s disengagement, as it were, from its role as mediator between Israel and the Palestinians, as well as its decision to invade Iraq, were not due to the influence of the “Israel Lobby.” The impetus for these policies is practically written into the genetic code of an administration driven by a sense of religious mission or “crusade” (to quote President Bush himself).

Bush’s policies might indeed appeal to the “Israel Lobby,” but it did not manufacture them. The administration has shown itself to be perfectly capable of adding more than one reprehensible chapter to history’s “march of follies” without the aid of the “Israel Lobby” or, for that matter, any other lobby.

Having given in to the idea that the “Lobby” is the moving force behind America’s Middle East policy, Mearsheimer and Walt were bound to end up absorbed by an obsession that slighted the interplay of factors that truly make up American foreign policy—strategic considerations, imperial ambitions, oil, the arms industry, corporations like Bechtel and Halliburton, ideology, and, last but by no means least, the political and intellectual profile of the President. Bush’s moral certitude and self-imposed divine mission makes utterly redundant the need for an “Israel Lobby” to teach him the political gospel it wants him to follow in the Middle East.

It has been remarked that anti-Semitism consists in hating the Jews beyond what is necessary. One might say that attributing disproportionate clout to the Jews in a way that scapegoats them for all the calamities that have befallen America in the Middle East and beyond might reflect that same dark creed. But, contrary to what Mr. Schoenfeld suggests, Mearsheimer and Walt are not anti-Semites; they are self-styled “realists” who are actually embarrassingly in-cognizant of the complex strategic equations in the region. Their sin lies in their deficient scholarship, not in their anti-Jewish bias. Their article’s flaws are such that they end up with a “wag the dog” theory that depicts the Jews as omnipotent and ubiquitous, and hence responsible for subverting America’s national interest.

Although their paper is replete with references to Jewish names and to “neocons,” Mearsheimer and Walt are careful not to speak of a “Jewish” lobby but of a “loose coalition” of pro-Israel groups. President George H.W. Bush was equally careful when he warned in 1991 of “a thousand lobbyists” working on Capitol Hill against his policies, but everyone understood he was talking about the “Jewish Lobby.” Eventually, though, he prevailed over its efforts. The overwhelming support in Congress for loan guarantees to Israel dissolved overnight, and then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir was dragged to the Madrid peace conference against his will. No lobby, however powerful, will stand against the resolute leadership of an American President.

Israel’s critics would better serve the cause of peace if they did not exonerate American politicians by laying the blame on the “Lobby.” The Middle East tragedy is the exclusive responsibility of the governments of the region—Israel included—and of America’s wrongheaded policies.

Shlomo Ben Ami

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