Two well-respected political science professors—one from The University of Chicago, the other from Harvard—have written a provocative paper on the role of the Israel lobby on US mideast policy. Judging by the first paragraphs, they pull no punches. One must only hope they haven’t gone down the same road as Jimmy the Greek and Larry Summers, mistakenly saying something that everyone knows on some level or another, but for which one must be punished because that truth violates some canon of conventional wisdom. The authors begin:
For the past several decades, and especially since the Six-Day War in 1967, the centrepiece of US Middle Eastern policy has been its relationship with Israel. The combination of unwavering support for Israel and the related effort to spread ââ¬Ëdemocracyââ¬â¢ throughout the region has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardised not only US security but that of much of the rest of the world. This situation has no equal in American political history. Why has the US been willing to set aside its own security and that of many of its allies in order to advance the interests of another state? One might assume that the bond between the two countries was based on shared strategic interests or compelling moral imperatives, but neither explanation can account for the remarkable level of material and diplomatic support that the US provides.
Instead, the thrust of US policy in the region derives almost entirely from domestic politics, and especially the activities of the ââ¬ËIsrael Lobbyââ¬â¢. Other special-interest groups have managed to skew foreign policy, but no lobby has managed to divert it as far from what the national interest would suggest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that US interests and those of the other country ââ¬â in this case, Israel ââ¬â are essentially identical.
21 Mar 2006 at 3:51 pm
Hm. I’ve actually studied under both of those guys and am a bit surprised by that piece.
In an attempt to keep this blogsite cohesive, however, Chris has asked me not to attack the content of the article, but to quietly sit idle while my allies do my bidding.
21 Mar 2006 at 4:12 pm
I’d be happy to hear your criticisms. I was a tad surprised too, but I think both of those guys have been dismayed by the crusading “idealisim” in the Bush administration’s policy and this is an expression of that frustration more than anything else. Clearly there is a domestic and internal component to all foreign policy and lobbying affects it or it woudl not be done at all. The extent to which this lobbying is informing us of an actual strategic interest, or exagerrating an actual one, or distracting us from a strategic error is a more complicated question. I’m sort of against long-term policy commitments in general and favor fluidity and ad hoc coalitions as needed. I also favor less foreign intervention in general. That all said, whether it made sense to be too involved with Israel in the 1990s—pushing Oslo, selling arms, giving money, etc.—post 9/11 that strategic interest involving a common enemy is more apparent.
21 Mar 2006 at 4:31 pm
I will say this: US interests would be better served if the government kept better tabs of the money. Politicians in Israel are not different than anywhere else – palms up. I have no doubt some foolishness has arisen in part because of Israel’s lack of accountability with regard to the money. Israel would be better off, as well, if the money went to legitimate purposes all the time.
But my guess is that both sides benefit from this no accountibility clause. There are probably secrets being hidden thanks to this accounting.
There is also something to be said about Israeli democracy. It’s very stable. And elections occur frequently enough to keep most on the up and up. Scandle brings down politicians there quickly.
22 Mar 2006 at 12:49 pm
Personally, I think the authors vastly underestimate the effect of the Cold War on American foreign policy. Their argument is that backing Israel to the extent we have has resulted in costs that so outweigh the benefits that only a powerful Israel/Zionist lobby in America could be the reason for it. Yet America made all sorts of overly-costly decisions during the Cold War on the determination that countering and containing Russia and Communism was of absolute top concern.
If the South Vietnamese had just happened to be Jewish, for example, wouldn’t the authors’ argument have used it to “prove” a Zionist control over American foreign policy? After all, getting involved in Vietnam was, in hindsight, so stupid that we just couldn’t have made that choice without Jewish prodding, right? But of course we know better — the Vietnamese weren’t Jewish, but the North Vietnamese were Russian-backed Communists, so we were willing to bear a lot of costs to prevent the south from falling into their hands. It had nothing to do with the abilities of a particular lobby. It had everything to do with the Cold War.
In the same vein, Israel was also a player in the Cold War. As the authors admit, Israel “helped contain Soviet expansion in the region and inflicted humiliating defeats on Soviet clients like Egypt and Syria. It occasionally helped protect other US allies (like King Hussein of Jordan) and its military prowess forced Moscow to spend more on backing its own client states. It also provided useful intelligence about Soviet capabilities.” Wow, sounds like Israel was a pretty important outpost in the Cold War for us after all. And with Russia backing the PLO and specifically shepherding Yasser Arafat along, it was only natural for us to support the opposition. Yet the authors casually dismiss this aid as being overpriced. But in the context of the Cold War, price wasn’t really an issue. Anything that hurt the Russians was worth the price because nuclear war and/or the victory of Communism was far more costly.
With the Cold War and its effect on American foreign policy put into proper perspective, I don’t think the argument posed by the paper carries water.
22 Mar 2006 at 1:37 pm
But I think your argument has a big gap. We supported lots of regimes in the Cold War that we ceased giving singificant support to after it ended, i.e., Liberia, Iraq. Some of these commitments linger on, such as in Iceland and South Korea, but some of the threats are still in place there in a way they no longer are in the Third World. While the Russians quit giving significant aid to Cuba, Syria, and others after the war, we continued with Israel. Now the Israel aid is counterbalanced by our significant aid to Egypt. That said, our whole involvement in the region is something of an artifact of the Cold War, but the Cold War has been over for 17 years.
22 Mar 2006 at 1:52 pm
The Cold War ended, but other concerns quickly took its place. The rise of Iraq as a nemesis shortly thereafter made Israel a useful local ally. Arafat’s fateful decision to embrace terrorist tactics gave us a reason to support Israelis out of principle. That the PLO was only part of a larger network of terrorists in the area made opposing it on the front lines seem more vital. And then there’s the oil. But mostly the other things gave us reason to keep support flowing.
I think the Cold War is the obvious and most logical reason behind American support for Israel at the beginning and for much of its history. The authors completely fail to address this. Whether continued aid after the Cold War makes sense is up for debate, and is certainly a closer call, but I think the reasons above sufficiently answer that. I still don’t see where it HAS to be a nefarious Jewish lobby working the controls behind the scenes for these policies to be in place. Honestly, I’m sure that the Zionists wish that they had as much control over American policy as the authors claim! But it is not to be.
22 Mar 2006 at 4:01 pm
I don’t think the authors were trying to create a “super history” of US support of Israel. I do believe that they were trying to illustrate a brief history of that support, for various reasons, and then using that to bridge into our current “Hyper-support”. That is the point of the paper.
We can always debate history…that is the beauty of it. But they are not doing that, nor do I think that they are trying to. I do believe that they are simply suggesting a serious issue that has been building. Moving from a semi-mutual Cold-War supportive nature to a near disastrous GWT Hyper-supportive environment.
There is really no reason to argue for or against their paper. I don’t feel that that is what they were trying achieve. I believe that they are simply trying to instigate a debate. And to that…they succeeded.
I for one am happy that they found a way to say such things. Sure some one will go off on them…use terms like anti-semitic. Unpatriotic. Other such terms. But seeing to gentlemen not scared…that was nice.
cl
22 Mar 2006 at 4:49 pm
I believe the point of their paper is that U.S. support for Israel is, on its face, such an objectively bad policy in terms of costs and benefits that the ONLY reason why it must persist is because of the so-called “Israeli Lobby.”
But if history provides other viable rationales for that support, the thesis crumbles. And it does, which is why the authors spend much less time on that history than they do on looking at the lobbying machine.
This is not a casual accusation being made for the point of instigating debate, either. The insinuation here is one of corruption, that one lobbying group has the power to compel the American government to engage in massive foreign policy prescriptions that are (if the authors are to be believed) so objectively wrongheaded and harmful to American interests that no American politician could possibly back them without being made a puppet first. That’s a pretty serious charge being leveled, both at the lobby and our own government. And such a charge deserves a more careful and thorough treatment than these authors afford before it gets sent up the flagpole.
22 Mar 2006 at 11:01 pm
Sorry Chris. I like Mearshiemer and have even bloged in his defense in the past, but James Taranto of opinionjournal.com has a hilarious send-up of his predictions vis-a-vis Israeli intentions in 2003 that doesn’t make Mearsheimer look good. Perhaps more importantly, Israel’s leadership opposed our intervention in Iraq this time around.
Whoops!
23 Mar 2006 at 12:18 pm
I agree wholeheartedly with James . I am open to a well-done, history-based policy critique of our relationship with Israel, but this article is not it. The article contains pages and pages of factoids about so-and-so’s relationship with what’s-his-name, whose dog happened to have been born is Israel, and the like. It is, to a large extent, argument-by-insinuation, and thus pretty weak intellectually. And the article fails, of course, to put all of this is its proper context — the shitloads of money we spend on Egypt, our relationship with Saudi Arabia (involving a “lobbying machine” that seems to me just as powerful, although in a very different way and with different methods, than the Israeli one), our ridiculous love affair with the Hashemite kings of Jordan, etc.
Regardles of the merits of the Israeli alliance, this is no more than a hit-piece, and it should be viewed with extreme caution.
23 Mar 2006 at 3:06 pm
Knowing the two authors personally, I’m actually somewhat surprised they would publish such low-quality writing – let alone when they apparently wrote the piece as co-authors. Those are two super-giants in the world of political science.
24 Mar 2006 at 8:37 am
Regarding the comments about Israel and the cold war, I visit in the 1960s with local leaders in Egypt, Jordan and Israel. Ben Johnson, President of the Carnegie Peace Foundation, and the American ambassador in Jordan both confirmed that American policy of support for King Hussein was in large part based on a fear that should something happen to the King, Israel would invade Jordan, seize the west bank and precipitate World War III. During my visit in Israel, the territorial ambitions that concerned the US were never denied.
24 Mar 2006 at 10:08 am
kf, I have no idea how you can make a statement like that. Israel had no intention of invading Jordan, especially not in the 1960’s. Just because you received no denials is not an affirmation of your claim. Who are you for Israel to disclose its policies to?
In any case, I know there was a high level of secret cooperation between Jordan and King Hussein even during times of war between Israel and Jordan. How do I know? My family was involved.
24 Mar 2006 at 2:56 pm
What’s up, E$–
You mean “between Jordan and Israel” here, yes? There would always have been cooperation between Jordan and King Hussein, especially during times of war, since he was Jordan’s head of state.
Israel might’ve had a plan to invade Jordan, or Syria, or Lebanon – who knows? The question is really whether they would actually exercise the option to carry out the plan, which, during the 1960s, would have amounted to suicide (or at least idiocy).
24 Mar 2006 at 3:29 pm
Thanks for the catch, NGE. Yes, I meant between Israel and Jordan. I’m sure there was ample natural cooperation between Jordan and it’s head of state. Sorry.
Perhaps Israel had some sort of defensive plan in mind – ala 6 Day War tactics. The Arab states like to call that war an act of Israeli aggression because Israel technically launched a pre-emptive war and captured much land. But that was not an offensive war, but clearly a defensive war. Israel was about to be attacked had it not attacked first.
Perhaps this is what kf implied. Who knows. In any case, pre 1967, it’s worth noting that the Arab states were getting a lot more Soviet support than Israel was getting American support. To boot, the French were also heavily betting on the Arab side. It would have surely been foolish for the Israelis to begin plans of mideast conquest at that point….
25 Mar 2006 at 9:09 am
E$, perception if often reality to participants. I was in the region for the meetings in 1964. Ben Johnson of the Carneigie Peace Foundation was just wrapping up four years of shuttling between Israel and the various arab countries to try to work out an agreement that would lead to peace. Ben, American diplomats and Jordanian leaders all perceived that Israel would seize the west bank if given an opening and the the American diplomats believed that such an act could precipitate WWIII given Russian activities in the region. Whether or not the Israelis had plans to seize the west bank is a moot point. When I mention the concern to a senior Israeli juror, his response was, “of course – it belongs with us”. That was, E$, the reality at that time and intellectual musings will not change it. I have no doubt that there were contacts between Jordan and Israel then and later in the decade.
27 Mar 2006 at 10:26 am
KF, Your point about perception is well taken, but I would also remind you of the track record of Arab “perceptions.” Perhaps no people in history have a worse record of convincing themselves of nonsense then Arabs. I think what you speak of would be just another good example.
27 Mar 2006 at 11:54 am
I read this article and was not too impressed.
I do think it’s noteworthy that there is a significant pro-Israel lobby and I also think it noteworthy that so many people irrationally assume a complete identity of interests between our two countries. I’m sure by definition this lobby affects our policies and in some case I think these affects move us away from a more flexible, “realist” policy based on our interests and not some notion of kinship between two nations.
That said, the authors’ reasoning is often fallacious. For instance, in discusing the moral case made by the Israel lobby, the authors compare casualty rates in the second intefada and also point to a number of Israeli atrocities over the years, including Sabara and Shatilla. These comparisons ignore that in the post-Oslo era when the PA was supposed to be controlling itself and suppressing terrorism, instead it became an incbuator of the worst forms of terrorism and that in response to Israeli raids on militants, terrorists, and their suppoters, various Palestinian factions have responded with a relentless campaign of suicide bombing deliberately aimed at civilians. The train of suicide bombings from 2001 to the present by Hamas and the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades did more than anything else to sour Americans on the moral claims of Palestinians. Even a goal that is fair and just in the abstract–in this case a Palestinian homeland–loses much of its luster when all civilized restrains are abandoned in its pursuit and those awful acts are publicly celebrated to boot. Pointing to actions of the Israelis 50 and 60 years ago does little to rebalance the scales and the authors should know better.
The authors major premise is that the Israeli lobby is simply wrong. There is no identity of interests (at all) between the two countries. And that to the extent they’re persuading policy makers they’re being bamboozled. They do not consider the other likely possibility that they’re successful because the claims they make have a certain appeal precisely because they confom to American notions of right and wrong.
Finally, as others have pointed out, the authors give short shrift to the Cold War, though it was the Cold War and the Soviet sponsorship of various enemies of Israel–Nasser and Syria most notably–that led America to support Israel in earnest with arms and money. This has continued along with massive parallel payments to Egypt under the Camp David accords.
The better criticism is how has this support become an anachronism given Israel’s acquisition of a nuclear arsenal, which effectively insulates it from any conventional threat from its neigbhors, as well as its proven combat record and technical sophisitciation in conventional arms. And, the fact that the Soviets are no longer supporting Israel’s enemies, drastically reduces US interests in its relations with its Arab neighbors. I’d wager that with or without US Aid, no one is wiping Israel off the map or even getting close given the moribund state of Arab armies from all of its neighbors.
Israel arguably is an important source of support and intelligence for US interests in the Middle East vis a vis both Iraq and Iran. That said, Israel imposes substantial costs on the US’s ability to cooperate with various friendly Arab regimes as well as US claims of even-handedness and fairness towards the Islamic and Arab worlds. America is held partially responsible for the various excesses and mistakes of the Israelis–and such mistakes and excesses are nearly inevitable in the kind of counterinsurgency war Israel is fighting–and being saddled with such baggage is a significant burden comparing the modest and hard to quantify benefits of our continued aid to Israel and, in effect, bribery to Egypt to keep the former well armed and the latter satiated from going to war with one another or any of their neighbors.
* Edited at 4:20 CST 27 March.
27 Mar 2006 at 5:09 pm
Unbelievable. All that stuff about “Cold War” this and that. The point is that “roughly one-fifth of America’s foreign aid budget” is handed over to Israel every year. Most Americans would agree that the U.S. should maintain good political relations with Israel. However, I haven’t heard one of you justify spending “one-fifth” of US foreign aid, which the paper is really about.
Oh yeah, we also gave $29 million to help feed the over 17 million starviong people in Ethiopia and Kenya this year. Wow, that’s almost 2 bucks per person. I hope they have a McDonald’s close by. You people crack me up.
27 Mar 2006 at 9:01 pm
“People in Africa are starving. Ergo, Israel is undeserving of U.S. aid.”
Brilliant.
28 Mar 2006 at 4:30 am
Why don’t the Amish or jehovah’s witnesses have a country? The premise: a state is created to accomodate a religion, is a catastrophe to world politics.
28 Mar 2006 at 10:30 am
Arpie, you’re brilliant. That is truly insightful and historically grounded analysis. Do you work for the Brookings Institute? If not, you should forward a resume to them immediately!
28 Mar 2006 at 11:00 am
A religion, ethnicity, and nationality may all be coextensive as they are somewhat uniquely in the case of the Jews. Incidentally, most Muslim countries have treated religious minorities quite shabbily, in many cases expelling Jews from Iraq, Iran, etc. after 1948. While these other nations are defined both by religion and a separate ethnicity, it shows that Israel’s condition is not unique and that others have acted upon a similar status much more aggressively and unjustly.
28 Mar 2006 at 4:45 pm
I’d like clarification of a fact. In the Lobby paper it is asserted that Israel was crafted out of “Arab land.” It is my understanding that the British actually had sovereign authority over the area at the time, and by act of the United Nations Britian then handed over authority to the newly-created Israeli government. So, it seems to me then that it wasn’t “Arab land,” it was really British land, since no Arab’s signature (aside from the vote in the U.N.) was required to transfer authority. It had been “Arab land” in the past, but it had also once been Jewish land, Roman land, etc. as well. Can anyone clarify the facts of the original transfer for me?
28 Mar 2006 at 5:04 pm
It was a British protectorate after WWI. After dealing with violence from both Arab and Jewish nationalists agitating for an independent state, they handed it over to the UN around ‘47. The UN created a partition plan. Neighboring Arab countries attacked in response. Israel won the war and more land than it was allotted under the original partition.
An “Arab land” does not mean an Arab state per se. In this context, it denotes the fact that various Arabs lived there a long time and were indigenous.
Texas used to be part of Mexico. Does that mean anything important today? What was right in ‘48 and what’s the right solution today are very different issues. The former question may inform the latter, but we must deal with reality.
30 Mar 2006 at 12:51 pm
If the Palestineans had gone the Ghandi route and pushed for peaceful solutions through the UN (who should have been the focus of their ire anyway, unless someone wants to trot out how “Zionists control the UN too!”), I would almost surely have been counted as a supporter of their cause.
I understand where the Jews are coming from — centuries of brutal oppression capped off by a naked attempt at extermination entitles them more than any others to a place of their own to be safe. But turning around and disenfranchising another group in the process is certainly not the best way to do that. I don’t blame the Palestineans for being pissed. But that doesn’t turn the Israelis into “terrorists” against whom any available violent tactic, no matter how despicable, is fair game. Once the Palestineans embraced terrorism, they lost the moral high ground. I sympathize with their situation, but I don’t see that as a reason to be strapping bombs on your body and heading after civilians. If they want to know why their pleas fall on deaf ears, they need to look at how their strategy has poisoned their own moral standing.
As an aside, I’ve been reading “American Sphinx,” the book on Thomas Jefferson, and there’s a passage about the difficulties in dealing with the Barbary pirates, who were Muslim raiders from Northern Africa. Jefferson noted how the pirate’s ambassador was of the opinion that under the Koran, everyone not a Muslim was a heathen sinner, deserving of death. Therefore, the pirates saw no problems in forcibly taking merchant ships hostage and stealing their cargos.
Sound familiar?
30 Mar 2006 at 1:21 pm
One comment about the Palestinians. Do not lose site of the fact that Arab support for these people is a relatively new idea. When the Palestinians lived in Egypt, the Egyptians oppressed them and pushed them out of Egypt. When they settled in Jordan, the Jordanians oppressed them and tried to push them into Syria, who would not have them. The Palestianians were a scurge even under British rule. No one supported these people. They were nomads, essentially. There was no Palestine or home land for them. But once Israel was founded and the Arabs saw it as a good issue to unify under, the cause of the Palestinians was taken up. Theirs is not a fight dating back centuries, but merely a few score.
30 Mar 2006 at 1:53 pm
The nationalism of the various third world peoples only takes back a few score years. Most of these “nations” only came into being since WWII. Zionism only dates back about 100 years. Looking at the problem in terms of historical pedigrees seems to me not the most useful approach.
That all said, I agree with James’ point. There might be legitimate grievances. And in a perfect world, they might’ve been given a viable homeland around the same time as the Israelis. But they’ve forfeited most of their moral authority through despicable acts of terrorism over the last 30 years.
The worst thing about Oslo was that it empowered the worst elements of Palestinian leadership as its leaders, Arafat and his gang, instead of some of the more realistic and moderate folks that had ushered in the first intefadah and dealt with practical issues of government coextensively with the Israelis from ‘67 to ‘96.
30 Mar 2006 at 3:16 pm
Chris, what’s to worry, though. Hamas is in charge now. Everything will be fine. Democracy in action. The Palestinians, tired of the PA’s hack, corrupt politics, sweep Hamas into power so that every wealthy nation on earth can cut off aid to the Palestinians. It should be noted, too, that for all their crying, the PA did manage to secure quite a bit of international aid over the years. It’s a pity most of that went into Arafat’s pockets.
31 Mar 2006 at 10:29 am
The article is valueless since the American people for the first time hearing such a fact from two well recpected academician.One day when we learned the 9/11 was a plot, a self suicide arranged by our own goverment in the interest of Israel we will be perplexed much more.
31 Mar 2006 at 10:32 am
The article is valueless since the American people for the first time hearing such a fact from two well recpected academician.One day when we learned the 9/11 was a plot, a self suicide arranged by our own goverment in the interest of Israel we will be perplexed much more.
31 Mar 2006 at 1:57 pm
Ramon, if you’re going to write something incendiary and juvenile, at least provide some evidence. Otherwise I’ll accuse you of masterminding 9/11 and ask you to prove me wrong.
31 Mar 2006 at 2:25 pm
I thought Ramon was being funny. After all, I think it would also be funny to say that Hamas is really a Zionist puppet, created to delegitimize the Palestinean cause and to create sympathy for Israel. It actually makes sense, you know?
I remember seeing some moonbat lefty on DailyKos argue that President Bush was trying to orchestrate another 9/11 so he could solidify his power. That takes wilful blindness to type, much less believe. Or maybe just a really weak sense of humor.