It was almost too painful to watch. And I’m not talking about the thrashing the New England Patriots gave the Washington Redskins this week. The Walt-Mearsheimer book on the “Israel Lobby” took a double slam this week in two of the most prestigious academic publications.
The Chronicle of Higher Education’s Evan R. Goldstein questions why the two giants of the “realist” school of foreign policy, which “presumes that states act rationally in pursuit of their national interests,” would veer off course to attack a domestic lobby for subverting U.S. national interests. According to the realist school, Goldstein explains, “domestic factors like whether or not a country happens to be a democracy or whether there is a powerful ethnic lobby pushing for certain policies have minimal effect on how states behave.” Yet “Waltheimer” go after the pro-Israel lobby with a vengeance, blaming it for many of the evils in the world, from Bin Laden’s terror to the Iraq war.
“Waltheimer” claim that they are treated as if they are “radioactive,” the victims of a boycott manipulated by the lobby. But Goldstein cites the professors’ colleagues who point out how the two have won world attention and adulation from some quarters (including the KKK’s David Duke), not to mention a $750,000 advance from their book publisher.
Look for some more hefty honoraria from the Saudi-sponsored Middle East studies programs around the United States and from their overseas speaking engagements.
The real coup de grace to Walt and Mearsheimer comes from the Council on Foreign Relations’ Foreign Affairs journal. Walter Russell Mead’s review is nothing short of an academic court-martial. Just read the review’s summary:
"Sloppy execution means 'The Israel Lobby,' however commendable the intentions of its authors, will have the opposite of its desired effect: impeding new thinking about U.S. policy in the Middle East rather than advancing the debate."
Mead goes on to predict that their book will give “aid and comfort to anti-Semites wherever they are found.” And could there be a more powerful whupping in academia than Mead’s pronouncement, “Rarely in professional literature does one encounter such a gap between aspiration and performance as there is in The Israel Lobby.”
Regurgitating Fulbright and Ball
I still believe that reviewers are missing an important point in Walt and Mearsheimer’s book. The two profs are rehashing – almost rephrasing -- accusations and arguments made 30 years ago by two of Israel’s greatest critics in Washington, Sen. J. William Fulbright and George Ball. As I pointed out last month in an article in National Review Online,
“It is curious, even troubling, that the Walt and Mearsheimer paper failed to cite those two prominent foreign-policy mavericks who so clearly influenced their opinions. Did they take Fulbright’s and Ball’s material and rewrite it as their own? They sound like Ball/Fulbright disciples, but did they conclude that Ball and Fulbright were perceived as so one-sided on Middle East issues that their opinions had little currency, and did the two professors keep those sources out lest their work suffer the same fate?"
"And if they didn’t know of Ball and Fulbright’s influential works, what does that say about their scholarship?”
The ‘Skins deserved what they got. So do “Waltheimer.”
Sphere: Related Content
The Chronicle of Higher Education’s Evan R. Goldstein questions why the two giants of the “realist” school of foreign policy, which “presumes that states act rationally in pursuit of their national interests,” would veer off course to attack a domestic lobby for subverting U.S. national interests. According to the realist school, Goldstein explains, “domestic factors like whether or not a country happens to be a democracy or whether there is a powerful ethnic lobby pushing for certain policies have minimal effect on how states behave.” Yet “Waltheimer” go after the pro-Israel lobby with a vengeance, blaming it for many of the evils in the world, from Bin Laden’s terror to the Iraq war.
“Waltheimer” claim that they are treated as if they are “radioactive,” the victims of a boycott manipulated by the lobby. But Goldstein cites the professors’ colleagues who point out how the two have won world attention and adulation from some quarters (including the KKK’s David Duke), not to mention a $750,000 advance from their book publisher.
Look for some more hefty honoraria from the Saudi-sponsored Middle East studies programs around the United States and from their overseas speaking engagements.
The real coup de grace to Walt and Mearsheimer comes from the Council on Foreign Relations’ Foreign Affairs journal. Walter Russell Mead’s review is nothing short of an academic court-martial. Just read the review’s summary:
"Sloppy execution means 'The Israel Lobby,' however commendable the intentions of its authors, will have the opposite of its desired effect: impeding new thinking about U.S. policy in the Middle East rather than advancing the debate."
Mead goes on to predict that their book will give “aid and comfort to anti-Semites wherever they are found.” And could there be a more powerful whupping in academia than Mead’s pronouncement, “Rarely in professional literature does one encounter such a gap between aspiration and performance as there is in The Israel Lobby.”
Regurgitating Fulbright and Ball
I still believe that reviewers are missing an important point in Walt and Mearsheimer’s book. The two profs are rehashing – almost rephrasing -- accusations and arguments made 30 years ago by two of Israel’s greatest critics in Washington, Sen. J. William Fulbright and George Ball. As I pointed out last month in an article in National Review Online,
“It is curious, even troubling, that the Walt and Mearsheimer paper failed to cite those two prominent foreign-policy mavericks who so clearly influenced their opinions. Did they take Fulbright’s and Ball’s material and rewrite it as their own? They sound like Ball/Fulbright disciples, but did they conclude that Ball and Fulbright were perceived as so one-sided on Middle East issues that their opinions had little currency, and did the two professors keep those sources out lest their work suffer the same fate?"
"And if they didn’t know of Ball and Fulbright’s influential works, what does that say about their scholarship?”
The ‘Skins deserved what they got. So do “Waltheimer.”
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