RePortersNoteBook.com: PROF. MEARSHEIMER --- Taking Sides: Israel and the lobby against the US

Mar 17, 2010

PROF. MEARSHEIMER --- Taking Sides: Israel and the lobby against the US

John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt

John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt went public with their opposition to war at a time when most in the mainstream were cowering under the neoconservative propaganda assault, first with a paid advert in the New York Times on 26 September 2002 followed by an op-ed piece on 2 February 2003. They returned in 2006 with an explosive article in the London Review of Bookspublished after it had been turned down by every publication in the United States, including the Atlantic Monthly which had first commissioned it. They had finally broken what the late Edward Said called 'the last taboo' — the causes of the so-called 'special relationship' between the United States and Israel: the Israel lobby. For the first time the power of the lobby was subjected to the scrutiny it had hitherto escaped — as much due to the complicity of the mainstream as due to leftist orthodoxy which has frequently given AIPAC and the neocons a free pass. The article was subsequently turned into a bestselling book, and both Mearsheimer and Walt have remained engaged with the subject since, both in their writings and on the lecture circuit. The impact that these two individuals have had in shifting the debate on the US relationship with Israel in the past few years is palpable in the new, more focused, activism it has inspired, directly challenging the institutions responsible for sustaining Israeli rejectionism. Walt's blog is an essential daily stop for anyone with interest in US foreign policy, and Mearsheimer continues to write for the London Review of Books and others.

Taking Sides: Israel and the lobby against the US

m.idrees | March 17, 2010 at 10:38 pm | Tags: Barack Obama, Israel Lobby, John Mearsheimer | Categories: Israel, Israel Lobby, Palestine, US Foreign Policy | URL: http://wp.me/ppCFZ-5vA

by John Mearsheimer
In the wake of Vice President Joe Biden's ill-fated trip to Israel last week, many people would agree with the Israeli ambassador Michael Oren's remark that 'Israel's ties with the United States are in their worst crisis since 1975… a crisis of historic proportions.' Like all crises, this one will eventually go away. [...]