Prof. Eliot Cohen, of Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, discusses Harvard's John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt's paper "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy":
"Oddly, these international relations realists -- who in their more normal academic lives declare that state interests determine policy, and domestic politics matters little -- have discovered the one case in which domestic politics has, for decades, determined the policy of the world's greatest state. Their theories proclaim the importance of power, not ideals, yet they abhor the thought of allying with the strongest military and most vibrant economy in the Middle East. Reporting persecution, they have declared that they could not publish their work in the United States, but they have neglected to name the academic journals that turned them down.
Inept, even kooky academic work, then, but is it anti-Semitic?"
He goes on to dissect some of the papers more obvious faults, omissions, and double-standards, then sums up:
"If by anti-Semitism one means obsessive and irrationally hostile beliefs about Jews; if one accuses them of disloyalty, subversion or treachery, of having occult powers and of participating in secret combinations that manipulate institutions and governments; if one systematically selects everything unfair, ugly or wrong about Jews as individuals or a group and equally systematically suppresses any exculpatory information -- why, yes, this paper is anti-Semitic."
A fair summation, by my reading. Dan Drezner thinks that calling this anti-Semitism is "patently false, then goes on in the next breath to state that:
A) They fail to demonstrate that Israel is a net strategic liability;
B) They ascribe U.S. foreign policy behavior almost exclusively to the activities of the "Israel Lobby"; and
C) They omit consderation of contradictory policies and countervailing foreign policy lobbies.
Having concurred on all of Cohen's key points, Drezner's judgment is entirely contradicted by his diagnosis. This isn't just poor social science, and the combination of consistency in the bias and clear signs of ill-will can't be brushed away by his hand-waving. Drezner calls them "empirical problems." The term he's looking for here is "deeply and systematically dishonest" - or more aptly, "dishonest conspiracy theory" - but he can't use them, because then he'd have to ask why.
On the bright side for Harvard, their professors' paper won David Duke's endorsement as "a modern Declaration of American Independence." He adds that "I have been documenting and stating the same essential thesis of the paper on davidduke.com and in numerous published articles for many years...." Swell.
As ex-punk Dr. Frank noted, in another post:
"The weird thing is, writers for publications like the New Statesman don't seem to have any clue that positing Jewish conspiracies isn't the most convincing way of establishing your bona fides where anti-Semitism is concerned. It sounds, at minimum, a bit "off" to us; it sounds just fine to them. "Come, come, my dear fellow! I say! I was merely stating the simple fact that the Jew lurks in the highest echelons of power and has a stranglehold on the American media, crushing dissent with merciless claws. What's all the fuss about?"
It's tempting to laugh, but Winds has covered the growth of modern anti-Semitism Britian, Europe, and America, and noted the intellectual currents it is now firmly a part of. And somehow, I'm finding it difficult to laugh, despite the efforts of good folks like Evan Coyne Maloney.
As one commentator puts it:
"Today the world is awash with the twin rumors that Israel supposedly controls the lone superpower's hated foreign policy, and that 'the Jews' supposedly control the mainstream Western media. Few people seem to think that there is anything too alarming in such beliefs, despite their having the same basic structure as the Black Death accusation which led to anti-Jewish exterminations in the fourteenth century, and despite being practically identical to the Protocols of Zion accusations, which led to anti-Jewish exterminations in the twentieth century. The Jewish people certainly do not appear to think that they are on the eve of another catastrophe, just as they also didn't want to believe the worst prior to the Nazi genocides in which 5 to 6 million European Jews were annihilated. But from the historical perspective the current climate should be alarming in the extreme."
To begin to hear the lies whispered again, at levels high and low, and to see the most blatant dishonesty employed in the process, is to see a very old movie playing itself out all over again. Truly, "every age begets the anti-Semitism that most suits it."
UPDATES:
- Hmm, just noticed that the paper itself isn't linked here. Presenting "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" [PDF format]. Also available in HTML format.
- Alan Dershowitz has a longer critique of this paper [PDF Format]. In general, I don't like Dershowitz' style, but he has clearly put the effort in.
- Andrew J. Lazarus recommends Tom Segev's critique in the Israeli paper Ha'aretz: The protocols of Harvard and Chicago. I've read it, and am not sure "critique" is exactly the right word here despite the title, but you have the link if you're interested.
- Christopher Hitchens, who believes the creation of Israel to be a mistake, steps in: "The essay itself, mostly a very average "realist" and centrist critique of the influence of Israel, contains much that is true and a little that is original. But what is original is not true and what is true is not original." He, too, addresses the consistent pattern of dishonesty throughout the article.
- Martin Kramer of Sandstorm shows us what a genuine realist-school analysis looks like. The contrast serves only to create far deeper questions re: why Mearsheimer and Walt's "realist" analysis misses every one of these arguments. Simple carelessness? Not a credible explanation.