Useful and interesting information about 'The Lobby' debate stimulated by the recent Harvard study:

Friends:

I agree with much of what Xymphora has written (see below) on the hot topic of the new paper on the Israeli Lobby. However I have to pause when he writes:

The problem, and it is an immense one, isn’t with American Jews, whose sole problem is that they remain quiet while others purport to speak for them

xymphora wrote:

Saturday, March 25, 2006

The Kennedy School of Government removed its logo from Walt/Mearsheimer paper and made more prominent a disclaimer stating that the views expressed belong only to the authors. From The Harvard Crimson (the Sun article is here):

“Yesterday’s issue of The New York Sun reported that an ‘observer’ familiar with Harvard said that the University had received calls from ‘pro-Israel donors’ concerned about the KSG paper. One of the calls, the source told The Sun, was from Robert Belfer, a former Enron director who endowed Walt’s professorship when he donated $7.5 million to the Kennedy School’s Center for Science and International Affairs in 1997.

‘Since the furor, Bob Belfer has called expressing his deep concerns and asked that Stephen not use his professorship title in publicity related to the article,’ the source told The Sun.”

As Rozwadow at Daily Kos notes:

“No need for comment. In successfully getting Harvard, with its billions in endowment, to repudiate a tenured professor's study, they prove the study's thesis.”

The problem, and it is an immense one, isn’t with American Jews, whose sole problem is that they remain quiet while others purport to speak for them (with some praise-worthy exceptions), but with a tiny group of American Jewish plutocrats. And I mean tiny. We’re talking less than a hundred big political donors, probably less than twenty-five. They have large amounts of money to give, mostly come from the American media and entertainment industries (and thus control their own spin), and most importantly, donate their money based on only one issue, requiring the recipients of their donations to take a pure Likudnik approach on the Middle East. Their donations are actually more corrupting to the Democrats than to the Republicans, as the Democrats are much more dependent on this particular source of money, and this dependence explains the bizarre Democrat approach to Israel, the Iraq war, and the Middle East. The crazy views of a handful of plutocrats are not only destructive to American interests, they are destructive to Israeli interests and wider Jewish interests.

By the way, did you notice that Dershowitz’ attack on the paper is an incompetent use of much the same methodology that Norman Finkelstein used so devastatingly against Dershowitz himself?

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See also Nimmo's excellent blog on the subject:

http://kurtnimmo.com/?p=297

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It looks like the subject is also too hot for NYC listener sponsored progressive radio station WBAI (and as likely as not, the rest of Pacifica radio as well).. Here's my letter to the producers of the program, Beyond the Pale, which deals with these issues.

Letter to: Beyond the Pale.

beyondthepale@jfrej.org
WBAI Radio, 3.26.06

Dear Esther and Marilyn:

Thanks very much for your Beyond the Pale program today on the recent Mearsheimer/Walt paper on the Israeli Lobby. I was glad to see that your two guests, Phyllis Bennis and Joel Beinen, addressed the central question of the paper, whether the power of the Lobby is such that it imposes Middle East policy on the U.S. against its best interests. In the end however, they both concluded that the paper was wrong, that the U.S. by and large (or always) decides on Middle East policy based on its own larger interests.

This seems so obviously wrong on so many counts that one can only shake one’s head and reflect on the motives of the producers in selecting guests that would produce such an opinion.

My best guess is that it’s a question of Zionism. Would I be guessing wrong to view your choice of guests as a reflection of a Left Zionist perspective which see the paper’s thesis as such a strong attack on the legitimacy of Zionism, that no non-Zionist views can be allowed to air.

I’ve been a great fan of your show since its inception and I’m sure I will continue to listen with interest. However, you can imagine how disheartening it must be to feel that people for whom I have the highest regard are essentially marginalizing fundamental issues that drive perhaps the greatest threats to peace and stability in the Middle East and in this country as well.

Sincerely,

Ronald Bleier

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Finally, it's not unlikely that the power of the Lobby and their Zionist audience will also be too strong for Amy Goodman and Democracy Now to touch more than gingerly.

Here's JB urging readers to write to Democracy Now.

Readers who object to Democracy Now!'s reporting on this issue should write to

The news item below is hardly acceptable reporting on DN!'s part. The story is more than a few days old and there is not a single quote from the article or its main allegations. They should have one or both of the professors as guests on the program next week.

*"Democracy Now!" Friday, March 24th, 2006 Headlines for March 24, 2006

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/24/1459255

New Study Criticizes Power of Israeli Lobby in Washington

And a dean at Harvard University and a professor at the University of Chicago are coming under intense criticism for publishing an academic critique of the pro-Israeli lobby in Washington. The paper charges that the United States has willingly set aside its own security and that of many of its allies in order to advance the interests of Israel.

In addition the study accuses the pro-Israeli lobby, particularly AIPAC - the American Israel Public Affairs Committee - of manipulating the U.S. media, policing academia and silencing critics of Israel by labeling them as anti-Semitic. The study also examines the role played by pro-Israeli neo-conservatives in the lead-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

The authors of the study, Stephen Walt, a dean at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, and John Mearsheimer of University of Chicago are now themselves being accused of anti-Semitism. In Washington, Democratic Congressman Eliot Engel of New York described the professors as "dishonest so-called intellectuals" and "anti-Semites." Harvard professor, Ruth Wisse called for the paper to be withdrawn. Harvard Law School Professor Alan Dershowitz described the study as trash that could have been written by Neo-Nazi David Duke.

The New York Sun reported Harvard has received several calls from 'pro-Israel donors' expressing concern about the paper. Harvard has already taken steps to distance itself from the report. Earlier this week it removed the logo of the Kennedy School of Government from the paper and added a new disclaimer to the study. The 81-page report was originally published on Harvard's website and an edited version appeared in the London Review of Books. The controversy comes less than a year after Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz attempted to block the publication of Norman Finkelstein's book "Beyond Chutzpah: On The Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History."