But are they wrong?
Jamie Kirchick points us favorably to this op-ed to suggest that suspicious people like Walt, Mearshimer, and insufferable enfent terrible Matt Yglesias ought to be ignored. He quotes this section:
“The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” is not a good book, and it does no service to those who truly crave a more robust debate in this country. Still, if the Forward had been asked to participate in a debate with the professors, we would have done so happily. Helping them to market their book was a different story. But that’s the genius of the victimhood game: If you’ve been rejected, you’ve won in the court of public opinion.
And I suppose the idea is that we're to read this and assume that Forward is really overextending itself in its attempts to be intellectually fair-minded. But to me, the key takeaway from the op-ed is this:
The professors’ basic argument is that America’s support for Israel is an anomaly. Israel’s origins and behavior are so reprehensible, they wrote, that “neither strategic nor moral arguments can account for America’s support for Israel.” No, it’s all because of the influence of the “Israel Lobby.” There is, they cautioned, nothing illicit about lobbying. Lobbying is part of American democracy. But the Israel Lobby has “a stranglehold on the U.S. Congress,” controls key access to the executive branch and suppresses dissent throughout society. Its “not surprising” goal, they wrote, is to weaken Israel’s enemies to the point that “Israel gets a free hand with the Palestinians, and the United States does most of the fighting, dying, rebuilding, and paying.”
They're right. This is, in fact, the professors' basic argument. The editors at Forward aren't misrepresenting Walt and Mearshimer at all. What they are doing is ignoring that argument altogether and choosing instead to attack Walt and Mearshimer for occasional sloppiness and for harboring the intent of overselling their work. On the scale of things, it seems to me that addressing their substantive point should be a much, much higher priority than repeating ad nauseum how much better Walt and Mearshimer could have done when making it. And they don't need a town hall debate to do that.
Comments
But that’s the genius of the victimhood game
Bit rich coming from "Poor Little Israel" supporters, no?
Tim, I really, really wanted to squeeze that point in too, but decided to stick to the W&M issue. Glad you picked up on it.
"On the scale of things, it seems to me that addressing their substantive point should be a much, much higher priority than repeating ad nauseum how much better Walt and Mearshimer could have done when making it."
I'm not sure. W&Ms methodology, particularly their definition of "The Israel Lobby", is SO bad as to make the entire term, and hence discussion about it, of questionable validity from the start.
Specifically, the define "The Israel Lobby" to consist of EVERYONE sympathetic to Israel in ANY way on ANY issue - from real lobbyists for AIPAC to a guy like me who has no political power other than my vote. There is NO hard criteria for being a member - not even a coherent idealogical "check list" indicating a set of universally shared beliefs - ANY support for ANY Israeli policy or position is enough for W&M to cherry-pick you as an example of "the Israel Lobby" if it helps them advance their point.
However, despite acknowledging that "The Lobby" is so diverse as to make it almost impossible to refer to as a single entity, they proceed to spend the entire paper referring to it using anthropomorphic language that normally implies NOT ONLY a single entity but one with a singular will and purpose. The Lobby wants...", "The Lobby desires...", "The Lobby aims to ...".
When someone says that a group "Wants" something they USUALLY mean that ALL or a Significant Majority individually want it - there is no "over-mind" controlling us. W&M, however, define "The Lobby" is such broad terms that it always includes large numbers of people who openly do NOT support the particular thing W&M claim is "wanted" by the lobby. Furthermore, they dont back up these claims with data indicating majority support amongst the general population of Israel supporters. They just say "The lobby wants X" and then cherry-pick examples of people who do want X, ignore the large numbers of people they put in "the lobby" that either don't support or oppose X, and never tell us exactly what they mean by the expression.
It's like the Rightwing view of "The Left" - an ill-defined all-pervading entity with shifting boundaries that always encompasses exactly those who need to be included for their statements to be "true". At times it means "everyone who doesn't agree with us on everything" and at times only hard-core socialists and fringe anti-capitalist extremeists, but ALWAYS a singular creature with singular will and purpose.
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