The Israel Lobby: 1981 vs. 2006

Here's a blast from the past: A lengthy essay that Strobe Talbott (now the president of the Brookings Institution) wrote for Time magazine in September 1981, titled "What to do About Israel?"

Some excerpts:

Successive Israeli leaders recognized that even though they possessed the most formidable military machine in the region, their chronic conflict with their neighbors made Israel appear at best a mixed blessing to the U.S. in its own competition with the Soviet Union. Therefore they tended to soft-pedal the strategic dimension of U.S.-Israeli relations and to stress instead the ties of history, humanitarianism and ethnic politics.

But Menachem Begin trusted none of those. "Sentimentality," he called them. ....His fellow Jews in America make up only 2.7% of the population. Begin recognized that American Jews wield influence far beyond their numbers, but he also knew that there is considerable pent-up irritation in the U.S. with the power of the pro-Israel lobby (which includes, of course, many non-Jews) and that a significant body of American Jewish opinion opposes him. Besides, even before the Arab embargo of 1973, Begin had suspected that oil is thicker than either blood or water. His message: let's be hardheaded; we need you for our survival, and you need us as an outpost in defense of your security.

Begin is only half right. His country does need the U.S. for its survival, but the sad fact is that Israel is well on its way to becoming not just a dubious asset but an outright liability to American security interests, both in the Middle East and worldwide. The fault is largely Begin's, although the U.S.—and particularly the Reagan Administration—has contributed to the problem by failing to define American interests more clearly and to stand up for them more forcefully.

The underlying, and potentially undermining, irritant in U.S.-Israeli relations is Begin's refusal to relinquish the West Bank of the Jordan River, which Israel seized during the Six-Day War in 1967.....By pushing ahead with the establishment of Jewish settlements on the West Bank, Begin hopes to make that annexation irreversible.

That prospect is contrary to America's interests—and, indeed, to Israel's own—in numerous ways.....The close identification of the U.S. with Israel has impeded American attempts to coordinate diplomacy with the European Community, and it has complicated U.S. relations with most Third World countries and virtually all Islamic ones. It has also complicated American efforts to preposition military supplies and guarantee access to bases around the gulf.

Beyond the realm of scenarios and strategies, there is a more amorphous but still important respect in which Israel is doing a disservice both to itself and to its American defenders. Israel sometimes seems to have taken on the visage and tone of a rather nasty and bitter nation, even a violent one. There was something strutting and heartless about the way the Begin government celebrated its gratuitously vengeful bombing attack on Beirut, in which about 300 were killed. It would be unreasonable to expect official contrition. But Israel in the past has managed to convey more sorrow than anger when it wielded its terrible swift sword. Now there seems to be only anger, and it is too often shrill, self-righteous and even a bit frightening—more so to those who love Israel than to those who hate her.

Whether they think of themselves as hardheaded or sentimental, both Israelis and friends of Israel in the U.S. must realize that for all the very real external threats faced by the Jewish state, none is more difficult to deal with than the danger that under Begin, Israel may become not only a net liability to the U.S. but its own worst enemy as well.

Some interesting echoes of Walt-Mearsheimer, no? (Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.)

Still, a few comments:

First of all, people should whip out this essay as "Exhibit A" that it is indeed possible to harshly criticize Israel and the "Israel Lobby" without sacrificing one's own career. In the years after he wrote this article, Talbott went on the become the Ambassador-at-Large and Special Adviser to the Secretary of State on the New Independent States (1993-94); the Deputy Secretary of State under Bill Clinton (1994-2001); and, before he landed at Brookings, Director of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization at Yale University. Second, as for the "media" (read: Jewish-controlled) suppression of this debate--hello? This was fucking Time magazine. And it doesn't stop there. Any idiot with access to the Internet or Lexis-Nexis will find dozens of similar articles over the years: During the OPEC embargo, the invasion of Lebanon, the bombing of Osiraq, the first Gulf War, just to name a few. Back in the 1980s, Bob Dole frequently lashed out at Israel, claiming that its intransigence made it culpable in terrorism attacks against Americans. Sorry Walt and Mearsheimer, you're not exactly breaking new ground here guys.

Yet, this does beg the question: Why has the Walt-Mearsheimer paper generated so much controversy and gained so much traction, as compared to other similar essays such as Talbott's?


A few theories:

(1) Times have changed. The expansion of Israeli settlements, the successive Intifadas, and the de facto state of war between Israel and the Palestenians has turned this into constant front-page news, increasingly angered Arab governments and the proverbial Arab street, frustrated diplomats, and increasingly served as a rallying point for the Left (both Jewish and non-Jewish). Also, back in 1981, Israel was a "client state" during the Cold War. Today, during the "war on terror" and the occupation of Iraq, the locus of U.S. security concerns has shifted from the Soviet Union to the Middle East--and, along with it, Israel.

(2) Related to point #1: Israel is seen by the likes of Walt-Mearsheimer as the root cause of 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq. This taps into the "anti-neocon" zeitgeist of the anti-war Left, State Department Arabists, and Middle East conspiracy theorists. Also, compared to articles like those of Strobe Talbott, Walt and Mearsheimer have gone beyond saying Israel is a "strategic liability" -- simply put, Walt and Mearsheimer are blaming the "Israel Lobby" for sending Americans to die in Iraq and bringing down the wrath of Al Qaeda upon the United States.

(3) Walt and Mearsheimer don't limit their definition of the "Israel Lobby" to AIPAC -- they posit a veritable cabal of pro-Israel individuals who have a stranglehold over the media, think tanks, and the inner circles of government. That's a lot more provocative than the likes of what Strobe Talbott wrote. In fact, here's a lovely bit of irony-- Talbott himself lashed out at Walt and Mearsheimer for that very reason:

Part of that lobbying influence, [Walt and Mearsheimer] claim, extends deep into the US political system, namely the Washington think-tanks -- not only the neoconservative and right-wing institutions, but also liberal Brookings.

“What was once a non-partisan policy institute is now part of the pro-Israel chorus,” the professors wrote, taking aim at Brooking’s Saban Centre for Middle East Studies and in particular its main donor, Haim Saban, an Israeli-American businessman, and its director, Martin Indyk, a former US ambassador to Israel.

Strobe Talbott, president of Brookings and a former senior official in the Clinton administration, told the FT on Monday that he had written to David Ellwood, dean of the John F. Kennedy School at Harvard which published the work, denouncing the “grotesque” and “objectionable” paper full of “invidious innuendo” and “unsubstantiated allegations” about Brookings....Mr Talbott called Mr Saban a model donor who sat on the board and gave total academic freedom to Mr Indyk who “follows no one’s agenda”.

(4) Walt and Mearsheimer's paper is controversial because, even as some of its defenders are compelled to admit, it's lousy scholarship.

(5) Walt and Mearsheimer are master showmen. They claim they couldn't get their article published in the United States, despite the lack of any evidence that they even tried to submit their article to other sympathetic publications. They wrote a deliberately provocative paper, claiming a pro-Israel cabal is suppressing all debate--and then, when Israel's supporters criticized their paper, Walt and Mearsheimer claimed vindication that the "Israel Lobby" is suppressing debate.

So hats off to Walt and Mearsheimer. I don't know if they'll get appointed as deputy secretaries of state like Strobe Talbott--but they certainly got a lucrative book deal.