The Breakup of American Zionism
June 6, 2008
Independent scholar and author, Norman Finkelstein, speaking at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. The title of the lecture is “The Coming Breakup of American Zionism”.
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June 8, 2008 at 1:54 pm
As much as I like Norman Finkelstein, and with all due respect to his indispensable contributions to Palestinian cause, his analytical failures are now threatening to undermine historic gains of the past couple of years. The false narrative of US history, and of US-Israeli relations that he propounds ill serve the Palestinians at a time when the interventions of Mearsheimer and Walt, and Jimmy Carter have put the lobby on the backfoot. And for once, there is room for dissent. Israel was NEVER a ’strategic asset’; the lobby was founded precisely to convince the US public and politicians that it was. Arab nationalism was NOT intrinsically hostile to the US; in fact Nasser was brought to power with the help of the CIA (Kermit Roosevelt — the same fellow who helped overthrow Mussadegh). US was never in favour of the ‘67 war; in fact it tried to dissuade Israel till the last moment. And to claim that the 2006 Lebanon war was fought at the behest of the US, is to have your history upside down. But to attack M&W’s accurate assessment of the war is downright dishonest. US government is not a monolith; the members of the US government who were egging Israel on — elliot abrams, Wurmser et al — ARE the neocon spearhead of the Israel lobby. Lastly, NF seems to know absolutely nothing about the neocons history; he seems to have only read one book, Norman Podhoretz’s Making It from the late 60s, and construed their whole ideology based on it. That is not his domain, so I don’t understand why insists on speaking on it. For those interested, I’d suggest one of the best books on the neocon ideology by far: They Knew They Were Right, by Jacob Heilbrunn. (see Philip Weiss’s review)
June 17, 2008 at 8:26 pm
I think it might be you who’s getting things the wrong way round. The Israel lobby has been allowed to flourish because the American establishment wanted it to. Whether or not America supported Nasser coming to power is irrelevant. The 1967 war was 15 years later. America’s disdain for Israel (and the UK and France) in 1956 was public and is well documented and well known. I don’t believe that the CIA tried to dissuade Israel from attacking the Arab states in 1967. By then it looks like America realised that Israel had the cohesion to survive and prosper with a little imperial backing. Before 1956 Israel’s survival didn’t seem as assured and worth backing as it did after that.
I don’t see how Finkelstein’s view in any way undermines the Palestinian cause, especially by reference to Mearsheimer and Walt and to Carter. Both M & W and Carter broadly support zionism. The latter has described Israel as a “vibrant democracy”. And the former have said that America should support Israel if it was in danger. As it happens Finkelstein also supports the two state solution. That’s the only thing about his position that I would criticise. But since his position is the same as M,W & C you can’t be complaining about that.
Regarding what he said about the neo-cons and their history, I think you’re confusing that with what he was saying about Jewish intellectuals generally but I honestly didn’t hear him actually say any of the things that you’re criticising.
I really don’t see what you’re arguing against here. I certainly don’t see any grounds for you questioning his honesty and integrity, nor his on-going contribution to the Palestinian cause.
June 18, 2008 at 1:47 am
Heilbrunn is a plagiarist hack.
Norman Finkelstein grew up a short subway ride from the intellectual world of the Neocons and knows them pretty well–too well, imho, to have even made a few ad hominem attacks about the motives of some, which in the case of most humans are never a cut and dry matter. And he didn’t read just one autobiography of the “New York intellectuals”, he’s read most of them.
Israel is a strategic asset of a type not readily available in the region–or anywhere else in the world, for that matter–with a military and intelligence apparatus that can carry out many very useful errands for it’s benefactors (partly due to the fact that laws and agreements are so much hot air to it’s ethos).
Arab nationalism under Nasser may not have been intrinsically hostile to US, but then neither was Castro’s Cuban nationalism at the beginning. Nasser was always looking to Americans, but as Lyndon Johnson shrewdly observed after the demise of John Kennedy–the last American leader who was at least attentive to Nasser’s pleas–his ramshackle regime didn’t really have any bargaining chips other than overheated rhetoric on radio airwaves, which the six day war of ‘67 turned into a source of bad jokes.
Given the logical fallacies and question-begging that Walt and Mearsheimer’s work is riddled with, one wonders how anyone can become so wrapped around the axle over it’s assertions. It’s a mainstream work that broaches a formerly taboo topic, which is it’s greatest value, but to take it as some kind of landmark of scholarly achievement stretches the imagination.
June 18, 2008 at 6:57 am
Mark Elf (levi9909):
I don’t think you know what you are talking about. And I have little time for fact-free conventional wisdom.
The Israel lobby has been allowed to flourish because the American establishment wanted it to.
Thats a load of tosh, and if it isn’t, i’d like to see you produce some evidence in support of it. There is plenty to the contrary.
Whether or not America supported Nasser coming to power is irrelevant. The 1967 war was 15 years later.
No it isn’t. Chomsky-Finkelstein argue Israel helped destroy Arab nationalism, hence making it a ’strategic asset’ for the US. The assumption there is that Arab nationalism was intrinsically hostile to the US. It wasn’t. Neither was Nasser. He only turned to the soviets after being rebuffed on the Aswan project at the Lobby’s behest.
I don’t believe that the CIA tried to dissuade Israel from attacking the Arab states in 1967.
??? US was not in favour of the war, and tried to prevent till the last moment. CIA is an agency of the US government. It doesn’t have a political position independent of the government. Operational maybe, but thats irrelevant.
As it happens Finkelstein also supports the two state solution. That’s the only thing about his position that I would criticise. But since his position is the same as M,W & C you can’t be complaining about that.
Critiques of NGF and M,W & C are not mutually exclusive. There is plenty to criticize in all. I am specifically talking about the position on Israel Lobby.
I really don’t see what you’re arguing against here. I certainly don’t see any grounds for you questioning his honesty and integrity, nor his on-going contribution to the Palestinian cause.
That’s a gratuitous and silly statement, unworthy of comment. My critique is of a specific stance, not on personality.
June 18, 2008 at 7:12 am
Heilbrunn is a plagiarist hack.
…and a right wing hack, who attacks Edward Said. What has that got to do with his history of neoconservatism? Namecalling is not an argument.
Norman Finkelstein grew up a short subway ride from the intellectual world of the Neocons and knows them pretty well–too well, imho, to have even made a few ad hominem attacks about the motives of some, which in the case of most humans are never a cut and dry matter.
Incidentally, in his talk he claimed there were now up to five books on the Iraq war, from which he has concluded Israel did not factor in the planner’s design. As a matter of fact, the books now number nearly a hundred, most of which I have read, and it would take an effort not to see the Israel connection.
And he didn’t read just one autobiography of the “New York intellectuals”, he’s read most of them.
And you know this for a fact? Assuming that is true, if he still insists that Israel has not been central to their thinking, then that doesn’t say much for his attention to (in this case a very specific) detail.
Israel is a strategic asset of a type not readily available in the region–or anywhere else in the world, for that matter–with a military and intelligence apparatus that can carry out many very useful errands for it’s benefactors
You mean errands such as spying on the US and passing on sensitive intelligence to the Soviet Union during the cold war?
(partly due to the fact that laws and agreements are so much hot air to it’s ethos).
And they aren’t to the American one?
Arab nationalism under Nasser may not have been intrinsically hostile to US, but then neither was Castro’s Cuban nationalism at the beginning.
Yet unlike Nasser’s, Castro’s was an avowedly socialist brand of nationalism. And this was the cold war. But I wonder if you ever heard of the Cuban lobby? Look up the name Ileana Ros-Lehtinen along with Tom Lantos and see if you discover anything interesting.
Nasser was always looking to Americans, but as Lyndon Johnson shrewdly observed after the demise of John Kennedy–the last American leader who was at least attentive to Nasser’s pleas–his ramshackle regime didn’t really have any bargaining chips other than overheated rhetoric on radio airwaves, which the six day war of ‘67 turned into a source of bad jokes.
And what did Israel offer in return? And why did the Johnson administration try to oppose the war?
Given the logical fallacies and question-begging that Walt and Mearsheimer’s work is riddled with
Such as?
It’s a mainstream work that broaches a formerly taboo topic
Why was it taboo? And how come the so called left adhered to it?
but to take it as some kind of landmark of scholarly achievement stretches the imagination.
It is a landmark, yes. It can’t be a scholarly achivement, because nothing they say is novel or new. It is indeed a moral and political achievement, which anyone not blinkered by ideology would readily testify to (as Chris Hedges, Alex Cockburn, Phil Weiss, Uri Avnery et al have)
June 18, 2008 at 12:39 pm
And I have little time for fact-free conventional wisdom.”
Mearsheimer and Walt and Carter are purveyors of conventional “wisdom”. We can all list “facts”. It’s the explanation of the facts, or the facts behind the facts that are important.
Thats a load of tosh, and if it isn’t, i’d like to see you produce some evidence in support of it. There is plenty to the contrary.
Finkelstein does provide a lot of evidence in the form of a chronology of the rise of the Israel lobby that he presents in Holocaust Industry and in the talk above this thread.
If you are arguing otherwise, it is you who needs to provide, not just superficial “facts” but evidence in the form of motives. Finkelstein (and Brenner before him and no doubt others too) does this quite successfully. What’s your evidence?
The assumption there is that Arab nationalism was intrinsically hostile to the US. It wasn’t. Neither was Nasser. He only turned to the soviets after being rebuffed on the Aswan project at the Lobby’s behest.
The assumption? How do you know the assumption? I thought the assumption was that given various currents in the middle east, secularism, socialism, islamism, and its under-development, Arab nationalism was assumed to be an unreliable ally for American imperialism. I think that might be M&W and C’s view up to a point. They simply believe that that point has passed. This is what gives us anti-zionists so much fun these days. The American ruling class is falling out over Israel because some say it has outgrown its usefulness others think it is still useful.
CIA blah blah
Slip of the keyboard. I meant US but I was thinking how the CIA’s assessment was that if the Arab states attacked Israel they would lose in 7 days. Israel attacked them and they lost in 6. I don’t see evidence of America trying to dissuade Israel. I don’t believe that America seriously wanted the 1967 war avoided. Where’s your evidence here?
Critiques of NGF and M,W & C are not mutually exclusive. There is plenty to criticize in all. I am specifically talking about the position on Israel Lobby.
That’s fine. But you accuse Finkelstein of dishonesty and there is no reason to assume he is dishonest and much reason to assume he is right. I have not read the book, the Israel Lobby but I did read the article which I enjoyed immensely. But they seem to present the Israel lobby as coming from nowhere and having no particular interests. They even say that the lobby is bad for the American “national interest” and Israel. It has been critiqued on that basis by Chomsky, Finkelstein, Massad and the UK’s SWP on that basis.
That’s a gratuitous and silly statement, unworthy of comment. My critique is of a specific stance, not on personality.
That’s very noble of you but I didn’t say “personality”, I said that you accused Finkelstein of dishonesty which, of course, is an attack on his integrity.
For someone who isn’t interested in personality, you express yourself in very bitter terms, calling widely held and detailed views “silly” “tosh” and “dishonest”.
Nowhere can Finkelstein be accused of misrepresenting what he has heard Mearsheimer and/or Walt saying. On the contrary, it is you who misrepresents Finkelstein by accusing him of dishonesty and Chomsky by accusing him of assuming that Arab nationalism is intrinsically hostile to America or American interests.
What I object to mostly in what you say is similar to what I criticise in Mearsheimer and Walt. Nowhere do you develop the idea of interests. Finkelstein does, as does Chomsky, as does Massad, etc.
I am still bereft of an answer as to why you object so strongly to Finkelstein. I might add that I don’t know why you don’t check out other leftist critiques of MW’s Israel lobby thesis. Perhaps you should.
June 18, 2008 at 3:09 pm
Idrees, you claim that Finkelstein’s position on the Israel Lobby hypothesis undermines Palestinian solidarity work. Care to elaborate, provide evidence, etc.?
As for the “lobby” itself, the M.-W. thesis is based on a simple logical fallacy, and at least one unspoken ideological assumption that falls apart upon closer examination.
The fallacy is that they observe the existence of groups lobbying for Zionist policies (true) and they also observe that the policies actually engaged in largely conform to the ones those groups advocate (true) and then they conclude that the lobbying is the cause of the policies (bullshit).
They (and all others advocating the Lobby thesis) fall into this trap because they don’t venture to explain by what possible mechanism these groups might succeed in forcing upon the US a policy that – according to them – contradicts its “national interest” (in itself a ridiculous notion, as Mark mentioned – more below). They can’t, because such a mechanism doesn’t exist.
As for the ideological assumptions, the most important is the above-mentioned “national interest”, when there is no such thing. There are interests of individuals, and groups, and classes within nations – and these interests are certainly coloured by the social construct called “nation” the individuals, groups or classes belong to – but there is no such thing as a monolithic “national interest”.
In fact, what seems much more likely than a mysterious “lobby” magically determining US policy is that the lobby itself exists in symbiosis with factions within the US, and international, ruling classes. They, and Israel, perform valuable services (for example, the conflation of US imperialism and Zionist repression makes it possible to impugn motives of antisemitism and to those who criticise either) and in return they are granted some influence over issues that aren’t of central importance to those factions (Iraq doesn’t qualify, but the specific policies used to oppress Palestinian national aspirations do).
My own reading of M.W. is that they are ideologists for a different faction of the ruling class that sees their chance after the Iraq disaster. By blaming everything on the mysterious “lobby”, they inoculate the ruling class itself from criticism while simultaneously attacking an important propaganda instrument of the competition. It’s quite clever, but we shouldn’t let ourselves be used this way.
June 18, 2008 at 3:51 pm
Mearsheimer and Walt and Carter are purveyors of conventional “wisdom”.
If so, I bet you can name 5 books published prior to M&W and C (Mainstream or Left) which made the same arguments as they did? I can name 20 off the top of my head which do the contrary.
Finkelstein does provide a lot of evidence in the form of a chronology of the rise of the Israel lobby that he presents in Holocaust Industry and in the talk above this thread.
He doesn’t. The book is about the political utility of the holocaust and the industry (yes, the Lobby) that capitalizes on it. The book doesn’t even have a single mention, of say … AIPAC! (although the Lobby is clearly bigger than one organization)
If you are arguing otherwise, it is you who needs to provide, not just superficial “facts” but evidence in the form of motives. Finkelstein (and Brenner before him and no doubt others too) does this quite successfully. What’s your evidence?
Once again you are just dropping names, not presenting any facts.The lobby doesn’t start in ‘67. In fact, one of its earlier well documented interventions in US politics is during the ‘48 elections where Truman overruled his state department over domestic electoral concerns (read Jewish money and NY votes) to recognize the State of Israel. I suggest you read John Snetsinger’s “Truman, the Jewish Vote and the Creation of Israel” and Andrew and Leslie Cockburn’s “Dangerous Liaisons”.
The assumption? How do you know the assumption?
mmm… because it is stated as often as it is implied?
I thought the assumption was that given various currents in the middle east, secularism, socialism, islamism, and its under-development, Arab nationalism was assumed to be an unreliable ally for American imperialism.
If any such assumption was made, it was only after Nasser had already been rebuffed at the lobby’s behest both on the Aswan dam and arms purchases. But more importantly, both Kennedy and Eisenhower saw Egypt as a potentially progressive bulwark against Islamism and Communism, hence Israeli jitters. Ever heard of the Lavon Affair?
This is what gives us anti-zionists so much fun these days. The American ruling class is falling out over Israel because some say it has outgrown its usefulness others think it is still useful.
And no thanks to you. The American ruling class had already fallen out over Iraq, prior to the war. People like M&W had already gone against the neocon consensus to put their successful careers at risk opposing the war. This was a neocon war for Israel; a quagmire foretold. It is hardly a surprise then that the old establishment should fail to show enthusiasm for it.
I meant US but I was thinking how the CIA’s assessment was that if the Arab states attacked Israel they would lose in 7 days. Israel attacked them and they lost in 6. I don’t see evidence of America trying to dissuade Israel.
Thats too bad then. Even finkelstein woudln’t deny that. Israelis haven’t been particularly shy about admitting this either. Check out Michael Oren’s Six Days of War for US maneuvers to prevent war. Also see the cockburn’s dangerous Lisaisons and Benny Morris’s Righteous Victims.
I don’t believe that America seriously wanted the 1967 war avoided.
Sorry, I don’t do faith based analysis.
That’s fine. But you accuse Finkelstein of dishonesty and there is no reason to assume he is dishonest and much reason to assume he is right.
There’s none, of course. Except when he is being so, such as misrepresenting M&Ws thesis.
I have not read the book, the Israel Lobby but I did read the article which I enjoyed immensely. But they seem to present the Israel lobby as coming from nowhere and having no particular interests. They even say that the lobby is bad for the American “national interest” and Israel. It has been critiqued on that basis by Chomsky, Finkelstein, Massad and the UK’s SWP on that basis.
I have read the book, and I suggest you do too. Having read it, I find the critiques pretty poor, and in most instances (such as Massad and SWPs) woefully poor, based on strawmen argument. Finkelstein’s was the most sophisticated, but in his public lectures he oversimplifies and falls into the same Massad/SWP trap.
That’s very noble of you but I didn’t say “personality”, I said that you accused Finkelstein of dishonesty which, of course, is an attack on his integrity.
What he claims M&W say, they don’t. Feel free to describe it any other way you might prefer.
For someone who isn’t interested in personality, you express yourself in very bitter terms, calling widely held and detailed views “silly” “tosh” and “dishonest”.
That is because your statements about me, and my motivations had already been brought to my notice. And I don’t take such imputations lightly.
Nowhere can Finkelstein be accused of misrepresenting what he has heard Mearsheimer and/or Walt saying.
Didn’t you say you have not read the M&W book?
What I object to mostly in what you say is similar to what I criticise in Mearsheimer and Walt. Nowhere do you develop the idea of interests. Finkelstein does, as does Chomsky, as does Massad, etc.
As a matter of fact, I am very well aware of US interests. In the middle east they have always been the same — its energy resources. For this it always preferred good relations with regional despots. But the stability of this relationship, as evidenced by the fall of the Shah, is always threatened by the resentments engendered by US support for Israel. And this support is a result solely of domestic concerns.
Few today shy away from pointing the finger at United Fruits for engineering the overthrow of Arbenz in Guatemala, or Anglo-Iranian petroleum for Mossadegh in Iran. I don’t see why in the case of Iraq an exception must be made. Everyone knows the neocons have been pushing regime change since at least ‘96 (in the case of Wolfowitz the interest goes as far back as ‘79).
Imperialism is not a naturally occuring phenomena, it always has its agents. And they aren’t always the same. The policy for different regions is determined by different interests.
I am still bereft of an answer as to why you object so strongly to Finkelstein.
Because unlike most other critics (massad, abukhalil, SWP etc), he is a first rate scholar, one of the world’s best. As someone who owes much of his political education to NF, I feel betrayed by the shoddy way in which he has gone about undermining M&W.
June 18, 2008 at 3:59 pm
I find a narritive that questions the existance of the Israeli lobby , yet alone its influence barely credible.
Without getting into semantics and “how many socialists can dance on the end of a needle” debates the questioning of if there is such a thing as a “national interest” when concerning the US is taking things far to far from reality , to such an extent that it has taken right wing US academics to challenge the Lobby whilst the left are still “atheistic” to its existance.
As short assessment of who is keen to bomb Iran , and who is not , and why so many Politicians are on the “yes” at the AIPAC meeting , and why Obama has gone so far to declaring Jerusalem as the indivisable Capital of Israel gives the best litmus test of how lobby power can “alter” the US national interest.
M&W pointing out that such trends are not in the best interests of US , and that the lobby influence is what has is the main factor in having an Isreali-centric US footprint in the middle-east region can hardly be called mysterious or an untested fallacy whether you agree with it or not.
The very fact that you state that there is no such thing as a “monolithic “national interest”" proves the influence of the lobby as the Israeli-centric view has become the “monolithic” only show in town despite it being a minority position in every sector of the US individual society .To such an extent that W&M barely got a publisher for their work in the US and had to enter their contribution via publication in Europe.
If the Left are still debating that the Israeli lobby exists or not , yet alone challenging it then it shows why the left are so impotent these days.
June 18, 2008 at 5:22 pm
Heilbrunn is a plagiarist hack.
…and a right wing hack, who attacks Edward Said. What has that got to do with his history of neoconservatism? Namecalling is not an argument.
Had you bothered to read the linked essay by Corey Robin, you would have noticed that Heilbrunn’s very history of neoconservatism lifts passages verbatim from the work of others. This is not namecalling, but pointing out that his celebrated writing is not worth quoting from.
And he didn’t read just one autobiography of the “New York intellectuals”, he’s read most of them.
And you know this for a fact?
That’s what he’s claimed in more than one talk, e.g. this one. I don’t see any serious grounds for doubting he didn’t go through at least a representative sample of such writings.
You seem to be too fixated on your thesis to be dissuaded by argument, so I won’t spend more time on this than these two points. Also, there are shades of gray and the impossibility of cleanly separating actors and their motives on the issue, which is also a good reason why getting “too hot under the collar about it”–as Finkelstein put it–is not worth it. This is not to say that pointing out depredations of the Israeli lobby is in any way verboten, just that one should try to retain a better perspective on the importance of such activity and not get sidetracked into spending more time on it than is warranted (which depends on your political judgement and is a reflection of it).
June 18, 2008 at 6:07 pm
Had you bothered to read the linked essay by Corey Robin, you would have noticed that Heilbrunn’s very history of neoconservatism lifts passages verbatim from the work of others.
Perhaps so. I didn’t cite the book for its scholarly excellence. I cited it for its usefulnesses as an (insider) account of the neocon establishment. As that, it is priceless, plagiarized or not. You however didn’t say why it ought to be dismissed. Any specific objections?
As it happens, I agree with Jim Lobe and Philip Weiss. This book is to the neocon establishment, what David Halberstam’s Best and the Brightest was to the WASP.
I don’t see any serious grounds for doubting he didn’t go through at least a representative sample of such writings.
I do. 1) neocons are one component of the lobby. 2) the lobby predates neocons rise. 3) neocons may have discovered Israel as a rallying cry after ‘67, for the lobby at large, it was always the raison d’etre. 4) to claim that the lobby only showed interest in Israel after ‘67 is either a sign of monumental ignorance, or willful blindness.
You seem to be too fixated on your thesis to be dissuaded by argument, so I won’t spend more time on this than these two points.
And you had nothing better than those two to offer in support of yours? it isn’t much of a thesis then. And ‘fixated’ is a nice description, I plead guilty to it. As a matter of fact, every scholar, academic, researcher etc around me is fixated on one issue or another. Thats what they get paid for, and thats what is expected of them.
June 18, 2008 at 6:22 pm
Rumple_Stilskin, goodness. If you build up a whole army of straw men you should at least be able to knock them down.
I find a narritive that questions the existance of the Israeli lobby , yet alone its influence barely credible.
First, nobody questions that there are groups in the US lobbying in support of extreme Zionist policies. I don’t know what the second half of the sentence means.
Without getting into semantics and “how many socialists can dance on the end of a needle” debates the questioning of if there is such a thing as a “national interest” when concerning the US is taking things far to far from reality , to such an extent that it has taken right wing US academics to challenge the Lobby whilst the left are still “atheistic” to its existance.
Again, it’s a little hard to discern the meaning of your writing, but your claim that the radical left isn’t challenging the lobby is obvious bullshit. What we don’t do – I concede – is making the fight against an externalized enemy to US interests our priority. What we do do, however, is fight against the colonial project that is Zionism, and against the US imperialism supporting it. That is, we aren’t getting side-tracked.
As short assessment of who is keen to bomb Iran , and who is not , and why so many Politicians are on the “yes” at the AIPAC meeting , and why Obama has gone so far to declaring Jerusalem as the indivisable Capital of Israel gives the best litmus test of how lobby power can “alter” the US national interest.
This makes no sense at all. Either there is a “national interest”, then it’s not going to be “altered” by any lobby. Or there isn’t. And again you are completely mixing up correlation and causality. The policies the US engages in, and the interests of the dominant faction in the US ruling class, happen to largely accord with what AIPAC is pushing. From this you conclude that AIPAC’s lobbying causes these policies to be implemented. That is a fallacy, and repeating it doesn’t make it go away.
M&W pointing out that such trends are not in the best interests of US , and that the lobby influence is what has is the main factor in having an Isreali-centric US footprint in the middle-east region can hardly be called mysterious or an untested fallacy whether you agree with it or not.
You are mixing up various points here. First, to repeat, there is no such thing as “the best interests of the US”. Second, claiming that the “lobby influence” is the main factor in determining US Middle East policy doesn’t make it so – so yes, they posit some magical means by which this lobby is different than all the other ones and manages to reverse US policy on a vital issue from one that is in “the best interests” of the US to one that contradicts them. If the means aren’t magical, then I’d like to see them explicated.
The very fact that you state that there is no such thing as a “monolithic “national interest”” proves the influence of the lobby [...]
Now that is pure conspiracy mongering. And also a really weird thing to say, given that the “lobby” does, of course, believe in “national interest”. In fact, they claim to represent the “national interest” of both Israel and the US. So how again does my lack of faith in “national interest” prove “the influence of the lobby”?
June 18, 2008 at 6:37 pm
I’m weary of this blow by blow stuff.
A lot of what you are saying is mere nit-picking based on you having read lots of books that most people will not have read. I used to get the same thing all the time from Linda Grant. You accuse me of name dropping and then you name some names and add a title here or there. “How may of this can you name?” “How many of that can you name?” Chill a little, we’re not all bookworms.
Mearsheimer and Walt have both said that Israel’s right to exist should be defended. That’s conventional wisdom. Carter describes Israel as a “vibrant democracy” that too is conventional wisdom. Conventional wisdom for most people comes from TV and newspapers.
Regarding your techiness, how come you heard I said that maybe you have “issues with Jews” but you didn’t hear that I apologised for that (twice now, and here’s a third, sorry)? I think you’ve got selective hearing and you’re a tad oversensitive to criticism. I get accused of antisemitism all the time, that’s worse than “might have issues about Jews”. And Finkelstein didn’t say anything about you and you express the same bitterness towards him. Except you’ve now downgraded your “downright dishonest” to “shoddy”.
I said you “might have issues about Jews” and I have apologised three times for that. You accuse people of downright dishonesty and name dropping simply because you disagree with them. You then challenge them to prove that they have read as much as you, ie to name some names. You even criticise Finkelstein for not naming AIPAC. You’re not an easy person to discuss issues with. You need to get the chip off your shoulder, stop going off half-cocked, stop showing off your library card and use the word “maybe” here and there. Makes it much easier to say you’re sorry. I do (and did that, three times) and I feel a lot better for it. Incidentally, the reason I said what I said was because you didn’t seem to object to US imperialism per se, just the alliance with zionism. That together with saying, not that Finkelstein was wrong or “shoddy” but “downright dishonest” and detrimental to the Palestinian cause.
Something that’s just popped into my mind, you say Finkelstein is harmful to the Palestinian cause (I disagree) and you say that Mearsheimer and Walt are helpful to it (I agree up to a point). And yet Finkelstein has been banned from Israel and Mearsheimer and Walt are welcome there. Without giving me another reading list or losing your rag, can you explain that?
June 18, 2008 at 9:18 pm
Christian H:
Could you appraise me of the main thrust and sucess stories of the radical left challenging the lobby , preferably without using the word “bullshit”.
June 18, 2008 at 9:37 pm
A lot of what you are saying is mere nit-picking based on you having read lots of books that most people will not have read…You accuse me of name dropping and then you name some names and add a title here or there.
I gave specific examples, and specific references should you choose to verify them. My point is precisely that the left conventional wisdom on Israel as ’strategic asset’ is based on cherry-picked facts, which ignores a large body of contrary evidence. Incidentally, I myself subscribed to this notion until this article by Michael Neumann made me question my assumptions. My own subsequent exploration of the subject have since confirmed Neumann’s argument.
Mearsheimer and Walt have both said that Israel’s right to exist should be defended. That’s conventional wisdom. Carter describes Israel as a “vibrant democracy” that too is conventional wisdom. Conventional wisdom for most people comes from TV and newspapers.
I agree. And there are several other points they make with which I disagree. I have raised several of them with John Mearsheimer himself. (for example, in their book they write Saudi Arabia was opposed to the war. It wasn’t. Bandar bin Sultan was the first non-US-Israeli to be informed of the the decision to go to war, and Abdallah personally, though reluctantly , gave his green light). But those are not the points I am referring to. It is their central thesis, i.e. the Lobby’s influence that I am interested in.
Regarding your techiness, how come you heard I said that maybe you have “issues with Jews” but you didn’t hear that I apologised for that (twice now, and here’s a third, sorry)?
I have seen that now, and I appreciate that. However, I am dismayed that such innuendo should enter argument in the first place.
Something that’s just popped into my mind, you say Finkelstein is harmful to the Palestinian cause (I disagree) and you say that Mearsheimer and Walt are helpful to it (I agree up to a point).
I acknowledge Finkelstein’s great sacrifices and contributions to the cause. I don’t question his personal committment to it. I only say his position on the lobby is harmful to the cause (as is Chomsky’s) because given their stature, so many reflexively reproduce their arguments without ever questioning the assumptions.
You even criticise Finkelstein for not naming AIPAC.
I did, because you said his book is a history of the lobby. Don’t you find it odd that a history of the lobby should overlook the central lobbying organization?
Incidentally, the reason I said what I said was because you didn’t seem to object to US imperialism per se, just the alliance with zionism.
You could reach that conclusion so long as you treat imperialism as an abstract notion. This whole website is dedicated to an attack on Imperialism, as well as its agents. Whether its the economic elites influencing policy on Venezuela, or the ideological ones vs the middle east. I also criticize my own country of birth, expose its crimes and its assistance to the empire.
And yet Finkelstein has been banned from Israel and Mearsheimer and Walt are welcome there. Without giving me another reading list or losing your rag, can you explain that?
Finkelstein has been a dissident for a long time, and has visited about 15 times, including once earlier this year. His present ban has to do with a specific incident, namely, his courageous position on Hizbullah. His statements were widely disseminated by MEMRI, and were presumably the factor why he was denied entry.
Mearsheimer and Walt went at the invitation of Uri Avnery. Unlike the US, in Israel itself ideas are not policed with the same vehemence. That is because what M&W say is hardly a novel idea; it is frequently acknowledged in its mainstream papers. The debate on I-P is much more open in Isareli media than it is in the US. So there is nothing threatening about M&Ws ideas.
I don’t think this is a very useful comparison however. Ilan Pappe is not banned either. Does that mean he is less useful to the Palestinian cause?
Lastly, as I said, the argument NF imputes to M&W is not one that they make. I leave the choice to you how best to describe that. (Massad and Abukhalil also argued against strawmen; in the latter’s case I suspect he hadn’t even read it before he wrote an attack on it).
June 18, 2008 at 9:59 pm
And finally, since you were talking about conventional wisdom, the following from an earlier poster offer a useful illustration.
The policies the US engages in, and the interests of the dominant faction in the US ruling class, happen to largely accord with what AIPAC is pushing.
Now, lets unpack this. First there is ‘dominant faction in the US ruling class’. Who might these be. And the suggestion seems to be that the ‘ruling class’, and the Israel lobby are somehow mutually exclusive. Is ‘ruling class’ the leadership, or those who pull the strings. Where does this put Jewish campaign contributors (more than 50% for Dems and 35% for Republicans come form US Jews. Whether all are zionist or not is besides the point since the perception with the recipients always goes that Israel is central to a Jewish donor’s interest. And it indeed is for at least the top donors to either party. Take Sheldon Adelstein (GOP) and Haim Saban (Dem) for example. Also check out the Mother Jones magazine’s list of top contributor’s to either party. See any trends?).
But assuming the’ruling class’ is seperate from the lobby, AIPAC pushes settlement building in the occupied territories. What interest of the ruling class is served by this activity? And what is US ruling elite interest in the region anyway? Falafel, Hummus, or Oil? If the latter, then why would US ruling elite wish to antagonize every Oil producer with its lavish support for Israel?
Those are just some questions to ponder on, there are many more, should find these insufficient.
Rumple Stiltskin:
Excellent observations, as always. The point about the national interest being malleable is well taken. In fact, it helped clarify something for me to which I hadn’t given much thought.
June 18, 2008 at 10:32 pm
I think this whole thing has been much ado about very little.
I don’t see the harm of saying that the Israel lobby’s role in the decision to go to war on Iraq wasn’t decisive nor that it hasn’t been decisive historically. We can and do still argue against what they do and say.
I think you might be mistaking what he is actually saying about Jews and the lobby historically. He says that Jews (usually he says Jewish elites, in the talk he says Jews and/or Jewish intellectuals) weren’t interested in Israel pre-67. I know that to be true from my own experience at Hebrew classes (in the UK) where we were taught old Hebrew from 1963 to 1967 and modern (ie what Israelis speak) after that. Though occasionally an “old geezer” would come and teach the old stuff. Only years later I found out that the World Zionist Organisation declared Israel to be the central theme of Jewish life, ie, Jews as far as the WZO were concerned, were to be defined in some way by reference to Israel. I don’t think they would have dared do that prior to ‘67. I’m also reminded that the Scots Jewish Labour MP Manny Shinwell was very anti-zionist from 1945 to 1948 and yet he came out very strongly for Israel in 1967.
What you actually say to sk on this (of course my examples were UK) is kind of strange. Look:1) neocons are one component of the lobby. 2) the lobby predates neocons rise. 3) neocons may have discovered Israel as a rallying cry after ‘67, for the lobby at large, it was always the raison d’etre. 4) to claim that the lobby only showed interest in Israel after ‘67 is either a sign of monumental ignorance, or willful blindness.
I don’t think anyone was saying otherwise, were they? Each point is almost a truism. 1)neocons are a component of the lobby – no one says they’re not. 2)the lobby predates the neocons – of course or there’d be no neo in neocon.3)neocons may have discovered Israel as a rallying cry after ‘67 – which is what NF says, for the lobby at large, it was always the raison d’etre – of course or they wouldn’t be the lobby, and 4) to claim that the lobby only showed interest in Israel after ‘67 is either a sign of monumental ignorance, or willful blindness – again, of course the lobby showed an interest in Israel, that’s what makes it the lobby. You seem to be confusing the lobby with Jews generally or Jewish elites. The point NF makes is really how Jews related to the lobby and when, and if that lobby’s influence has ever been decisive.
On Mearsheimer and Walt’s essay in the LRB I think this is NF’s considered response.
Oi! It’s been a long day. But I am truly sorry about that “issues with Jews” remark. Even my friends are pissed off about that one and one even went public on it. Compared me to the ADL!
June 19, 2008 at 2:36 pm
Now, lets unpack this. First there is ‘dominant faction in the US ruling class’. Who might these be. And the suggestion seems to be that the ‘ruling class’, and the Israel lobby are somehow mutually exclusive.
Nonsense. Of course they aren’t. In fact, it is M.-W. and other supporters of the “Lobby” thesis who are trying to separate ruling class support for Israel from the ruling class itself. This is their whole goal: to convince people that the US support for Zionism can be fought by fighting “the Lobby” while leaving the basic power structure in place. The “lobby” is a symptom of US imperialism, it isn’t the cause.
Is ‘ruling class’ the leadership, or those who pull the strings.
It’s a class, not a small cabal of individuals.
What interest of the ruling class is served by this activity [i.e., settlement building]? And what is US ruling elite interest in the region anyway? Falafel, Hummus, or Oil? If the latter, then why would US ruling elite wish to antagonize every Oil producer with its lavish support for Israel?
Obviously, there is a trade-off. If someone says that Israel and AIPAC etc. are useful for furthering ruling class interests that doesn’t mean that every single one of Israel’s actions serves those interests.
If the latter, then why would US ruling elite wish to antagonize every Oil producer with its lavish support for Israel?
Yeah, look at the way the Saudi royal family, Kuwait, the UAE are really deeply antagonized from the US. This is like saying that colonialism can’t possibly have been in the interest of European powers since it antagonized the natives, and therefore it must have been caused by some shadowy “colonial lobby”.
June 19, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Surely a “small cabal of individuals” constitues a lobby? and a very successful one according to your own criterion.
Still awaiting your answer on
Could you appraise me of the main thrust and sucess stories of the radical left challenging the lobby , preferably without using the word “bullshit”.
This will help take the debate further.