The Israel Lobby Continued

In a paper of some time ago by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt of Harvard, titled The Israel Lobby the authors point to the existence of a powerful American pro-Israel lobby whose purpose it is to influence US foreign policy vis-à-vis the Middle East and the Israel/Palestine conflict in particular.

The paper caused a furore and a storm of protest, mainly from that same Israel lobby. Mearsheimer and Walt were quickly accused of concocting a new "Jewish Conspiracy" theory, as well as receiving poorly veiled allegations of anti-Semitism. Academic rebuttals by Alan Dershowitz and to a lesser extent Noam Chomsky (amongst others) did nonetheless correctly point out that the paper exaggerated the influence of the lobby, which in parts is described as practically dictating US foreign policy. No single special interest group or lobby is in my view likely to exert that kind of overwhelming influence.

But that such a loose coalition of pro-Israel individuals, organizations and pressure groups exists, only a blind person would deny. And that it exerts influence is a logical conclusion: that is what pressure groups and lobbies do.

It is clear to me that the influence this lobby exerts on US foreign policy with regards to Israel is often not in the national US interest (or the world's interest, for that matter).

The Council for the National Interest Foundation is now putting a full page ad on the Israeli lobby in the NY Times. Download the one page *.pdf here to view the ad.

Expect more flames...

Hat tip to Sabbah's blog

Keywords: Israel, Israel lobby, Palestine, anti-Semitism