[lbo-talk] NYT pooh-poohs Mearsheimer-Walt book

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

On 9/6/07, Carl Remick <carlremick at hotmail.com> wrote:
> The NY Times today offers a review of "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign
> Policy"
> by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt that is surprisingly positive
> most of the way through.  Reviewer William Grimes says in essence that
> Mearsheimer and Walt make a dispassionate, rational, airtight case that
> American and Israeli interests are opposed "most of the time" and that it is
> utter folly to continue to give Israel blank-check support:
>
> "The problem, Mr. Mearsheimer and Mr. Walt argue, is that Israel has become
> a strategic liability with the end of the cold war and a moral pariah in its
> dealings with the Palestinians and, most recently, the Lebanese. Uncritical
> American support for its closest Middle East ally has damaged American
> credibility in the Arab world, encouraged terrorism, stymied the search for
> a solution to the Palestinian problem, and in every way made America's
> international position weaker and more dangerous.
>
> "Coolly, not to say coldly, Mr. Mearsheimer and Mr. Walt mount a
> prosecutorial brief against Israel's foreign and domestic policies, and
> against the state of Israel itself. They describe a virtual rogue state,
> empowered by American wealth and might, that blocks peace at every turn,
> threatens its cowering neighbors with impunity, crushes the national
> aspirations of the Palestinians and, whenever the opportunity arises, bites
> the hand that feeds it."
>
> However, that phrase "cooly, not to say coldly" provides the tip-off where
> the review is heading.  After conceding that Mearsheimer and Walt make a
> conclusive case against supporting Israel on rational grounds, reviewer
> Grimes points out the fatal flaw in their argument -- i.e., it isn't
> "sentimental" enough!  Aficionados of propagandistic hooey in its most
> audacious form should treasure the conclusion to Grimes' review, i.e.:
>
> "The general tone of hostility to Israel grates on the nerves, however,
> along with an unignorable impression that hardheaded political realism can
> be subject to its own peculiar fantasies. Israel is not simply one country
> among many, for example, just as Britain is not. Americans feel strong ties
> of history, religion, culture and, yes, sentiment, that the authors
> recognize, but only in an airy, abstract way.
>
> "They also seem to feel that, with Israel and its lobby pushed to the side,
> the desert will bloom with flowers. A peace deal with Syria would surely
> follow, with a resultant end to hostile activity by Hezbollah and Hamas.
> Next would come a Palestinian state, depriving Al Qaeda of its principal
> recruiting tool. (The authors wave away the idea that Islamic terrorism
> thrives for other reasons.) Well, yes, Iran does seem to be a problem, but
> the authors argue that no one should be particularly bothered by an Iran
> with nuclear weapons. And on and on.
>
> "'It is time," Mr. Mearsheimer and Mr. Walt write, 'for the United States to
> treat Israel not as a special case but as a normal state, and to deal with
> it much as it deals with any other country.' But it's not. And America
> won't. That's realism."
>
> <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/06/books/06grim.html>

On the same day when William Grimes' book review came out, the
Associated Press reported that "[t]he Syrian government charged
Thursday that Israeli aircraft dropped 'munitions' inside Syria"
(Albert Aji, "Syria Says It Shot at Israeli Aircraft," 6 September
2007). Worse,

     The route reportedly flown by the Israeli planes, east from

     the Mediterranean deep into northern Syria, would have

     taken the craft to Syria's closest point to Iran, separated only

     by Iraq's Kurdish region. (emphasis added, Aji, 6 September

     2007)

Certainly, no state in this day and age could do what Israel just did
and think that it could get away with it. But if Israel isn't "a
normal state," why is that? Because of the power of the Israel lobby?
I don't think so.

Israel is not "a normal state" because the United States of America
isn't. Those who think that Israel is a "strategic burden" for
Washington tend to think that, instead of backing Israel, Washington
could and should ally itself with Iran and the predominantly Arab
states. After all, they have oil whereas Israel doesn't. But
Washington, unlike a "normal state," does not have allies, nor does it
want any. Only states with roughly equal powers can be allies, and no
state other than China and Russia, which Washington keeps at arm's
length, is equal to the USA. What Washington has, instead, are junior
partners (like European states), client states (like many states in
the global South, especially much of the Middle East, and also Japan),
and special forces (Israel). Come to think of it, "normal states,"
i.e., states governed by power elites whose domestic and foreign
policy are independent of Washington's, are exceptions rather than the
rule today: Iran, as well as Cuba and Venezuela, is one of the most
significant exceptions.
-- 
Yoshie