A Response to Critics of 'The Israel Lobby'

By John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, London Review of Books. Posted May 10, 2006.

The following is a response by the authors of the controversial paper "The Israel Lobby" to their critics. AlterNet staff writer Joshua Holland covered the issues surrounding the paper, and AlterNet columnist Molly Ivins also weighed in. Originally appearing in British style, this letter has been adapted to fit American spelling and punctuation.

We wrote "The Israel Lobby" in order to begin a discussion of a subject that had become difficult to address openly in the United States. We knew it was likely to generate a strong reaction, and we are not surprised that some of our critics have chosen to attack our characters or misrepresent our arguments. We have also been gratified by the many positive responses we have received, and by the thoughtful commentary that has begun to emerge in the media and the blogosphere. It is clear that many people -- including Jews and Israelis -- believe that it is time to have a candid discussion of the U.S. relationship with Israel. It is in that spirit that we engage with the letters responding to our article. We confine ourselves here to the most salient points of dispute.

One of the most prominent charges against us is that we see the lobby as a well-organized Jewish conspiracy. Jeffrey Herf and Andrei Markovits, for example, begin by noting that "accusations of powerful Jews behind the scenes are part of the most dangerous traditions of modern anti-Semitism." It is a tradition we deplore and that we explicitly rejected in our article. Instead, we described the lobby as a loose coalition of individuals and organizations without a central headquarters. It includes gentiles as well as Jews, and many Jewish-Americans do not endorse its positions on some or all issues. Most important, the Israel lobby is not a secret, clandestine cabal; on the contrary, it is openly engaged in interest-group politics, and there is nothing conspiratorial or illicit about its behavior. Thus, we can easily believe that Daniel Pipes has never "taken orders" from the lobby, because the Leninist caricature of the lobby depicted in his letter is one that we clearly dismissed. Readers will also note that Pipes does not deny that his organization, Campus Watch, was created in order to monitor what academics say, write and teach, so as to discourage them from engaging in open discourse about the Middle East.

Several writers chide us for making mono-causal arguments, accusing us of saying that Israel alone is responsible for anti-Americanism in the Arab and Islamic world (as one letter puts it, anti-Americanism "would exist if Israel was not there") or suggesting that the lobby bears sole responsibility for the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq. But that is not what we said. We emphasized that U.S. support for Israeli policy in the Occupied Territories is a powerful source of anti-Americanism; the conclusion reached in several scholarly studies and U.S. government commissions (including the 9/11 Commission). But we also pointed out that support for Israel is hardly the only reason America's standing in the Middle East is so low. Similarly, we clearly stated that Osama bin Laden had other grievances against the United States besides the Palestinian issue, but as the 9/11 Commission documents, this matter was a major concern for him. We also explicitly stated that the lobby, by itself, could not convince either the Clinton or the Bush administration to invade Iraq. Nevertheless, there is abundant evidence that the neoconservatives and other groups within the lobby played a central role in making the case for war.

At least two of the letters complain that we "catalogue Israel's moral flaws," while paying little attention to the shortcomings of other states. We focused on Israeli behavior, not because we have any animus towards Israel, but because the United States gives it such high levels of material and diplomatic support. Our aim was to determine whether Israel merits this special treatment either because it is a unique strategic asset or because it behaves better than other countries do. We argued that neither argument is convincing: Israel's strategic value has declined since the end of the Cold War, and Israel does not behave significantly better than most other states.

Herf and Markovits interpret us to be saying that Israel's "continued survival" should be of little concern to the United States. We made no such argument. In fact, we emphasized that there is a powerful moral case for Israel's existence, and we firmly believe that the United States should take action to ensure its survival if it were in danger. Our criticism was directed at Israeli policy and America's special relationship with Israel, not Israel's existence.

John Mearsheimer is the Wendell Harrison Professor of Political Science at Chicago. Stephen Walt is the Robert and Renee Belfer Professor of International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.

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