A realists view of American foreign policy

books:

	• The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy John J. Mearsheimer, Stephen M. Walt Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007 - 496 pages average customer review:based on 196 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Should be read by every American

Mearsheimer and Walt should be commended for providing a forum for discussion on this sensitive topic. Both are premier international relation theorists and presents an honest assessment, without bias, on the current relationship between the U.S. and Israel. I recommend this book to anyone interested in finding out more on one of the most powerful lobby groups in our country or how our national policy with Israel operates. My advice is to give this book a chance, withhold any judgement until you actually read this well written work.

Supplementary information such as the excellent, online video "Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land: U.S. Media & the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict" help discuss how Israel manipulates and distorts American public perceptions through the voices of Israeli & American Jewish scholars, media critics, peace activists, religious figures, and Middle East experts.

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Useful study of the Israel lobby

In 2006, John Mearsheimer, Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt, Professor of International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, wrote an essay in the London Review of Books on the Israel lobby. This generated a huge controversy, so they wrote this book to provide more evidence for their claim that the lobby harms US and Israeli interests.

Chapter 1 details the US state's aid to Israel: $154 billion, mostly grants, 75% military. Israel is the largest recipient of US aid ($500 per person per year), even though Israel ranks 29th in the world by income.

Chapter 2 asks whether Israel is a strategic asset to the USA, and concludes that it may have been during the Cold War, but is now a liability. Chapter 3 asks whether the US state backs Israel because of their shared values, or because Israel is `for peace', and answers no to both. Chapters 4, 5 and 6 examine the lobby's members, activities, funding and its influence on policy-making in Washington and on the public through the media and academia.

Part II studies the lobby's role in shaping recent US policy in the Middle East, and its effects. Chapter 7 examines the lobby's hostility to the Palestinians and shows how it has neutered any hints of US support for the two-state solution. Chapter 8 looks at how the lobby, among others, urged the disastrous attack on Iraq. Chapter 9 examines the lobby's hostility to negotiations with Syria and Chapter 10 looks at its threats to Iran.

Chapter 11 studies the US state's unconditional support for Israel's attack on Lebanon. War supporters lied that US policy `reflected the will of the American people', but most Americans did not back the war, though the Clintons did.

Finally, in Chapter 12 the authors note that US interests are to keep the oil flowing, discourage the spread of WMD and reduce anti-US terrorism. Current US policies, promoted by the lobby, fuel anti-Americanism, increase the terrorist threat and encourage the spread of WMD.

These policies have not been in either US or Israeli interests. As the authors write, "Enabling Israel's refusal to recognize the Palestinians' legitimate aspirations has not made Israel safer." Unfortunately, none of the presidential candidates wants any change in US Middle East policy. All uncritically support Israel.

The authors propose a better policy: withdraw US forces from the Middle East and press Israel to withdraw from occupied Palestine. They urge the USA to treat Israel as a normal state, reduce its aid dramatically, and oppose its settlement policy and apartheid `wall'. Mearsheimer and Walt make a very good case that the Israel lobby is both effective and counter-productive.

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About time

It's about time this information comes out to the general public. And it has taken two renown scholars to bring it to us. However, as expected, they have been attacked and called many things, but at the end of the day, the facts remain. If you haven't read it, and are the least bit interested in current U.S. foreign policy, then do yourself a favor and open your eyes.

A realists view of American foreign policy

The Israel Lobby, by Mearsheimer and Walt, is a highly detailed and well research book on the operations of the Israel Lobby in the United States. The writers main intention is producing this book is to point out that US national interests are being adversely affected by many of the policy choices encouraged by the Lobby.

The book is divided into two parts. Part 1 outlines many of the arguments used to justify the large amount of support given to Israel by the US, which the authors precede to critique one by one. These arguments include the moral support for Israel as a democracy, its importance as a strategic ally, defining what the Lobby is and methods is uses to operate. They conclude that it is the influence of the Lobby that gives rise to such massive support.

The second part of the book details the Lobby's impacts on US foreign policy, through the use of specific examples, such as Iran, Syria, the wars in Iraq and Lebanon. In each case the authors have gathered substantial amounts of evidence, much of it from the Lobby itself, to show how it sought to achieve its aims and influence US foreign policy. They conclude that US and sometimes Israeli interests have been repeatedly damaged through each of these misadventures.

The writers of this book are not anti-Semitic, nor are they `self-hating Jews', as pointed out by a number of other reviewers. Instead, their first concern is for the safety and security of the United States of America. Nor are either of them can be considered left of centre liberals and indeed Mearsheimer has shown himself to be what could rightly be termed a hawk though his other writings such as `The tragedy of great power politics', where he strongly defends the thesis of offensive realism. As they point out in their conclusions, it is the fact that many of the policies advocated by the Lobby are not in the best national interest of the US and sometimes of Israel itself and indeed may actually be making the US's position in the Middle East more dangerous.

This book should be read for what it is, being a strong attack on policies that are not in the best interest of the US, rather than as an attack on Israel or the Jewish people.

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reviews: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, page 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20

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