UNMIA

On Tuesday, October 16 at 7:00pm, the local “Justice First” group, which is dedicated to helping implement the Arab solution to the Jewish problem, will be holding a discussion at the “Peace and Justice” center at 202 Harvard, SE.

From the calendar listing on the “Peace and Justice” website, the event will be a “Discussion of the pro-Israel lobby and how it affects US foreign policy in the middle east, sponsored by Justice First!. Two new books by ADL director Foxman and political scientists Mearsheimer & Walt have just been published - what are their arguments? Info: JusticeFirst.info”

While UNMIA won’t be attending this event in any official capacity, local supporters of Israel and the “Israel Lobby” might be interested in attending and rounding out a discussion that promises to be very lopsided, otherwise.

To join the discussion in a constructive way, it’s naturally necessary to know at least a little about the views of the two sides. Both books are available for sale, of course, and there is quite a bit about both books and the authors on various websites and magazines. As a starting point, we are including the authors’ statements about their own work.

Abe Foxman writes on the ADL website about why he published his book “The Deadliest Lies” in response to the Mearsheimer & Walt book “The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy”:

Why I Wrote ‘The Deadliest Lies’
By Abraham H. Foxman
National Director of the Anti-Defamation League
This article originally appeared in The Jewish Press on October 5, 2007 RULE

When in the spring of 2006 two professors from distinguished institutions, the University of Chicago and the Harvard School of Government, published a paper in the London Review of Books called “The Israel Lobby,” it raised alarm bells about the spread and impact of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories in America.

As part of our agenda at the Anti-Defamation League to combat anti-Semitism and extremism, we are all too familiar with racist and extremist groups who engage in conspiracy theories about Jews. Accusing Jews of controlling America (ZOG = Zionist Occupied Government) is a stock-in-trade for groups like the Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations, the National Alliance.

We don’t underestimate the dangers from such groups – remember, it was such influences that produced the terrorism in Oklahoma City. Still, if these theories remain in the domain of the extremists, we can contend with them because the haters have no credibility with the American people and our exposure of their views and intentions brings widespread condemnation of them.eir respectability, their bias toward Israel and American Jews was transparent. I pointed out at the time that one didn’t even have to be pro-Israel to recognize that their assessment of the Arab-Israeli conflict over the years was completely flawed. For them, Israel is, in effect, to blame for every event in the conflict. Far worse, they saw control by the Israel lobby as the reason why America supports what they consider a wayward country to the detriment of American interests.

Unfortunately, there was little condemnation – and it came mostly from Jewish voices. One that stood out amidst the general silence was that of Ned Walker, longtime State Department Middle East hand and former e East policy and the Jews be left to responses on op-ed pages and in blogs.

So when I was approached about doing a follow-up to my first book on anti-Semitism, Never Again? The Threat of the New Anti-Semitism, I said that what was truly needed and what I wanted to do was write a serious critique of the American-style conspiracy theorists.

The Deadliest Lies: The Israel Lobby and the Myth of Jewish Control (Palgrave Macmillan), is, I believe, a reasoned, temperate critique of dangerous works that masquerade themselves as legitimate criticism of Israel and American Jews.

Meanwhile, Mearsheimer and Walt expanded their original article into a book of their own, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. Nothing truly new here. While they have toned down some of their more extreme statements from their article about Jewish lobbying activities and intention – now insisting they never were questioning the right of Jews to lobby for Israel – their efforts to appear more innocuous are for naught.

The old expression “If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and looks like a duck, it’s a duck” applies here. In the end, their conclusion remains the same – Jews are responsible for all the “bad” decisions of American Middle East policy.

The war in Iraq? It was American Jews who got us into it for the sake of Israel. Islamic extremism? It is the Jewish insistence on U.S. support for Israel that has brought us to this point. American public support for Israel? It is Jewish control and stifling of debate on campus, in the media and in Congress that misleads the public into support for Israel.

It is my hope that The Deadliest Lies will give chizuk (strength) not only to our young Jews but to individuals all over this country to make sure these anti-Semitic lies – which have caused so much pain and suffering to the Jewish people through the centuries – will not take root in America.

We will not be intimidated and paralyzed by Mearsheimer, Walt or Carter. We will continue to speak out for Israel because it is in the right, because it seeks peace and because America and Israel are on the front lines in the great globe fight against Islamic extremism and terrorism.

“Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy” has its own website, and has been extensively reviewed and also lauded by the anti-Israel and often anti-Semitic left.
Here is what the authors say about their book and their premise:

Writing in The New York Review of Books, Michael Massing declared, “Not since Foreign Affairs magazine published Samuel Huntington’s ‘The Clash of Civilizations?’ in 1993 has an academic essay detonated with such force.”

“The Israel Lobby,” by John J. Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen M. Walt of Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, was one of the most controversial articles in recent memory. Originally published in the London Review of Books in March 2006, it provoked both howls of outrage and cheers of gratitude for challenging what had been a taboo issue in America: the impact of the Israel Lobby on U.S. foreign policy.

Now in a work of major importance, Mearsheimer and Walt deepen and expand their argument and confront recent developments in Lebanon and Iran. They describe the remarkable level of material and diplomatic support that the United States provides to Israel and argues that this support cannot be fully explained in either strategic or moral grounds. This exceptional relationship is due largely to the political influence of a loose coalition of individuals and organizations that actively work to shape U.S. foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction. Mearsheimer and Walt provactively contend that the lobby has a far-reaching impact on America’s posture throughout the Middle East and the policies it has encouraged are in neither America’s national interest nor Israel’s long-term interest. The lobby’s influence also affects America’s relationship with important allies and increases dangers that all states face from global jihadist terror.