Referring to the previous Blog by Omar: the initial piece on the Israel lobby by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt appeared in the London Review of Books in March and is available here. The article is provocative but not evidence of anti-Semitism on the part of the authors. This tired response does a disservice to both Israel and the United States and poisons public discourse. It is of course, possible to disagree; to review the discussion that followed publication of the article go to the energetic debate via letters to the editor that appeared subsequent to the article’s appearance; these are linked at the article’s conclusion. It is worth reading the entire ensuing comments to gauge the credibility of the authors as well as of their critics.
I end with a quote from Mearsheimer and Walt in their response to the critical letters.
“…We close with a final comment about the controversy surrounding our article. Although we are not surprised by the hostility directed at us, we are still disappointed that more attention has not been paid to the substance of the piece. The fact remains that the United States is in deep trouble in the Middle East, and it will not be able to develop effective policies if it is impossible to have a civilised discussion about the role of Israel in American foreign policy…â€
Further discussion of the issues, including discussion in Foreign Policy is linked from Mearsheimer’s website.