The Observer, October 5, 2007
Volume XL, Issue 6
Israel Lobby authors' appearance was breakthrough for free speech
On Sept. 26, Case Western Reserve University sponsored Professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt to speak on their book, The Israel Lobby. Though controversial, their appearance at CWRU was a remarkable breakthrough for free speech and open academic discussion. Scheduled appearances for the two professors had been canceled in New York and Chicago. Open criticism of Israel is taboo in some places, it seems.
There have been other breakthroughs. For example, the Sept. 2 New York Times ran a front-page photo showing Palestinian children scavenging in a garbage dump for castoffs from Israeli settlers. The headline read, "West Bank Boys Dig a Living from Settler Trash." Rarely is Palestinian suffering under the Israeli occupation of Palestine given such attention in the mainstream media.
A few days later at Borders in Beachwood, a tall stack of Mearsheimer and Walt's book was prominently displayed, as it must have been all across the United States. Efforts to suppress their ideas have obviously failed.
Actually, Jimmy Carter's 2006 book Palestine Peace or Apartheid was the first "shot heard 'round the world," changing how Americans see the conflict between Israel and Palestine. An avowed friend of Israel, Carter was all over the mainstream, national media, condemning Israel's harsh treatment of Palestinians. His in-depth interview with Larry King on CNN was frank and respectful.
Carter did receive harsh criticism as a "Jew-hater" and "anti-Semite." But two important experts on apartheid, Nelson Mandela and Bishop Desmond Tutu, weighed in on his side. Progressive American Jews also stood up for Carter's right to speak out and some agreed with his apartheid analogy. The United States was getting its first taste of the kind of public debate that is normal in Israel in leading Israeli newspapers such as Haaretz.
Last summer's war in Lebanon also had a huge impact. Americans watched on television as Lebanon's economic infrastructure – roads, bridges, airport runways, and electricity – was destroyed. Just as the cease-fire was being concluded, Israel unloaded a million American-manufactured cluster bombs on southern Lebanon. Even "middle Americans" now viewed Israel in a very different light.
If Jimmy Carter's book and the war in Lebanon put Israel in the public focus, other events passed "under the radar" of our mainstream news media. Mearsheimer and Walt's ideas about the "Israel lobby" had first appeared as a lengthy article in The London Review of Books early in 2006. It was originally written under contract for, but rejected by, Atlantic magazine. Their article was apparently too hot to handle, even in the liberal U.S. media. It could only be published in Europe.
Though supportive of Israel in many ways, the authors reached two disturbing conclusions. First, our uncritical support for Israel over past decades has not served U.S. national interests in the Middle East. Second, our foreign policy choices are distorted by a highly effective, domestic, political pressure group, the "Israel lobby."
At the core of the lobby is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which pressures Congress to support Israel at the rate of $3 billion per year. This equals or exceeds our total aid allocations to Africa and Latin America combined. Ironically, even without U.S. financial support, Israelis would enjoy an affluent, European standard of living.
The editor of The London Review of Books, Mary-Kay Wilmers, defended her decision to publish Mearsheimer and Walt, noting the attempts in the United States at censorship. She said, "I am Jewish...I think I am very alert to anti-Semitism...I do not think criticizing U.S. foreign policy or Israel's way of influencing it is anti-Semitic."
Important support for Mearsheimer and Walt came from Rabbi Michael Lerner in his national magazine, Tikkun. Lerner founded Tikkun in 1986 and is now promoting an "interfaith alternative to the Israel lobby." Rabbi Lerner professes a deep love for Israel and is uncompromising in his condemnation of anti-Semitism. But, as he declares in the current issue of Tikkun, the Israel lobby is "bad for the U.S., bad for Israel, and bad for Jews."
Lerner gives three reasons why enlightened non-Jews need to join with Tikkun in opposing this lobby. First, because the Israel lobby plays such a major role in shaping U.S. foreign policy, it affects the lives of all Americans. We all need to be involved in countering its "militaristic influence."
Second, the historical mistreatment of Jews at the hands of Christian nations, and the guilt Christians may feel, is not a good reason to avoid opposing the destructive aspects of Israeli policy. This is not a Jewish issue, but an issue for all Americans. Speaking as a Jew, Lerner says, "we need your help."
Finally, Lerner says, "the pressure of 'Jewish Political Correctness' is so overwhelming that most Jews are afraid to stand up to it." Progressive Jews need enlightened non-Jews to help create an alternative to the political status quo when Democrats begin to side with George W. Bush and the Republicans.
The invasion of Iraq and Iran, favored by AIPAC, has received bipartisan support. Also, both Democrats and Republicans resist supporting basic human rights for the Palestinians.
A recent editorial in Israel's Haaretz newspaper by Gideon Levy should give us pause. Levy says during the past year of conflict that 457 Palestinians have been killed, 92 of them children, compared to a total of 10 Israelis killed. An Israeli human rights organization, B'Tselem, published these statistics.
Thomas Kim Hill is a 1972 graduate of CWRU with a master's degree in education. As a teacher in Beirut, Lebanon from 1965 to 1967, he traveled widely throughout the Middle East. He then taught for 30 years in the Beachwood public schools with mostly Jewish students. He has participated regularly for the past year in the Middle East Peace Forum (at Congressman Dennis Kucinich's Lakewood office), a dialogue group for Jews, Arabs, and others in Cleveland.
