Those policies seem pretty much in line with actual public opinion, based on the most recent Gallup poll, which found sympathetic attitudes toward Israel outnumbering favorable opinions regarding the Palestinians by an approximate 4:1 margin:
*“Pro-Israel sentiment rises with increased knowledge – 66 percent of those who follow international affairs ''very closely” support Israel, compared with 52 percent of those who don’t pay close attention to foreign news.
Other findings are comparable. More than two-thirds of Americans say their overall view of Israel is favorable. Only 11 percent, by contrast, have a favorable opinion of the Palestinian Authority. While 22 percent of the public wants Washington to conduct diplomatic relations with the Hamas-controlled Palestinian government even if it refuses to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a sovereign state, 44 percent say recognition of Israel must be a precondition to relations with the United States. Another 25 percent – one American in four – oppose any US dealings with Hamas at all."*
Some of the critics are out of touch with reality regarding American public opinion.
How about all three? But you’re missing the point – it’s not *how *the Israeli lobby is effective, it’s whether our national interest is served by letting the Israeli lobby be so effective. As I mentioned above, Congress has regarded pro-Zionist money as free money – money that came without consequences. Well, given our multi-trillion dollar struggle with people who are, among other things, enemies of Israel, it’s become a little absurd to pretend there are no consequences.
I think you’ve lost sight of how striking it is that a subject as incendiary as Israel goes practically undiscussed in government circles. I see no evidence whatever that the Congress, the two major parties, or the executive branch engage in any debate about whether we should support Israel or not. It’s as if the question were closed. Now, why is that? Is there any other subject in foreign relations – or any domain at all, really – where such a basic discussion would be off the table?
And further, if you’re going to argue that the American people are pro-Israel, how can you avoid a discussion of the relentless propagada war waged on Israel’s behalf by the American media?
Do you have any specifics to support this claim? Seems to me that our Mideast policy is debated frequently.
Please tell us why you think so.
Another unsupported assertion. Why is it you believe that a “relentless propaganda war” is being waged on behalf of one side and not the other? Does it have to do with the “Israel Lobby”, and how?
An editorial yesterday in the New York Times (part of Mearsheimer and Walt’s Axis of Israel Lobby Evil) commenting on the Israeli elections, suggested that while any withdrawal by Israel from the West Bank was a positive thing, chided Israel once again for proposing unilateral action and warned that any withdrawal that did not permit an undivided Palestinian state was unacceptable. If this is part of the “relentless propaganda war” on behalf of Israel I’m missing something - it sounds pretty middle-of-the-road and reasonable to me.
Have you heard of any US presidential candidate, Department of State or Pentagon Official that has mused over reducing support to Israel or tying it to concrete steps towards peace, while still in office?
A lot of it is debated. Concerning Iraq, democracy, Islam, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, war on terror, etc… But not Israel and its actions, and their impact on the chances of an eventual peace agreement between Israel and Palestine. Never on the impact of American support on the US’s relations with the Arab and Muslim worlds. I repeat my question above. Can you name one high ranking US DoD or DoS official that has mused over the negative effects of American support to Israel while still in his office? Or do you not see any negative effects?
From the article quoted by the OP (bolding mine): “The Lobby’s perspective prevails in the mainstream media: the debate among Middle East pundits, the journalist Eric Alterman writes, is ‘dominated by people who cannot imagine criticising Israel’. He lists 61 ‘columnists and commentators who can be counted on to support Israel reflexively and without qualification’. Conversely, he found just five pundits who consistently criticise Israeli actions or endorse Arab positions.”
Anybody who reads American newspapers recognizes the editorial slant in favor of Israeli viewpoints. Take the top syndicated columnists, and the top columnists at leading newspapers. I can think of half a dozen off the top of my head that range from moderately to fanatically pro-Israel, but not a single one who I’d call anti-Israel. You can say that this just reflects the fact that Americans love Israel, but you’d be mistaking effect for cause.
So to your question of why, I’m going to invite derision, perhaps, by saying it’s largely accidental. Jewish voices, for a variety of historic reasons, are well represented in media and government. Islamic voices are not, for the obvious reason that until recently, American didn’t have much of an Islamic population. The predilection of Jews for Israel is no secret – they support it pretty hard. But there’s been little counterbalance on the other side, because no one much cared – out of racism towards Muslims, or simple indifference. And for a long while, it didn’t much matter to us, in a strategic or geopolitical sense, if the Palestinians were being mistreated.
Now it matters. Mearsheimer and Walt have gotten a lot of shit for their article, and precious little support. But as far as I can determine, a lot of the opposition consists of calling them anti-Semites for even suggesting that Israel’s backers have the power and reach that they do. Which is really too bad, because now, more than ever, we need to have a serious national debate about what our support for Israel gets us.
Assuming this is correct, is there something terribly unfair going on here - or just the galling reality that most Americans do not believe as you do?
This is your opinion, and you’d find a lot of opinion to the contrary. Take the N.Y. Times editorial from yesterday on the Israel election.
"Israeli voters rightfully slammed Likud, the right-wing party of former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, casting their lot instead with Kadima…We’re not happy with Mr. Olmert’s proposal of a unilateral withdrawal. But at this point, we’re heartened by anything that leads to an Israeli withdrawal from land that the Palestinians must control if the area is ever going to evolve into two peaceful, co-existing states…While the ultimate solution to the conflict can be only a negotiated one, as opposed to a unilateral drawing of final borders by Israel, a negotiated deal is not going to happen until Hamas repudiates terrorism and recognizes Israel’s right to exist. Hamas has yet to earn itself a seat at the negotiating table. But in the meantime, Israel can start to rid itself of its self-created problem in the West Bank…Whatever borders Israel fixes are not likely to get international recognition, particularly if those borders leave Palestinians cut in half — in the West Bank and Gaza — and unable to get from one part of their country to another without going through Israel."
Can you tell us what is slanted in favor of Israel in that editorial, never mind “moderately to fanatically pro-Israel” (remember that the Times is part of what Mearsheimer and Walt think is the “Israel Lobby”.
An excerpt from the M&W paper quoted in the OP notes that non-Jews are well-represented in the “Lobby”, and that
“polls by the Pew Research Center shows that Jews are less supportive of the Iraq war than the population at large, 52 per cent to 62 per cent.” Jews also consistently vote Democratic, despite the fact that Republicans are more sympathetic towards Israel. And the Gallup poll numbers quoted previously
indicate a broad spectrum of support for Israel.
I invite you to clarify your “Jews are well represented in media and government” remark with specifics, and documentation as to why you
think their views are wildly disproportional to those of the population at large.
Most of the opposition I’ve seen comments on the distorted view they have of the Mideast conflict, and the idiotic perception that because so many people disagree with them, it must be due to an all-powerful Lobby.
Nowhere do Mearsheimer and Walt claim the New York Times is part of the Israeli lobby. And nowhere in that editorial you keep citing is the basic nature of the relationship between the U.S. and Israel at issue.
You know, with some effort, I could document this, but I have to ask why. Are you *denying * that Jewish voices are well-represented in media and government? As to their views being “wildly disproportional” to the population at large, this is not an allegation I’ve made. I think it’s fair to say they care about Israel more than the population at large.
But you still haven’t told us why you think America’s highly preferential treatment of Israel is a good idea.
From the M&W paper: "Editorial bias is also found in papers like the New York Times, which occasionally criticises Israeli policies and sometimes concedes that the Palestinians have legitimate grievances, but is not even-handed."
The editorial I quoted is typical of the tone the Times takes on Israel and the Palestinians. Unless you can explain what’s “not even-handed” about it, I have to conclude that “even-handed” in your view (and that of M&W) consists of blaming Israel for the conflict and calling on the U.S. to dump Israel as an ally.
Dunno, Sal. We hear the line about “Jews control the media/government/Hollywood” all the time from overt anti-Semites, and as I’m sure you don’t want to be counted among their number, you should be eager to document your mildly toned-down thesis and how you think it subverts a rational U.S. foreign policy. I’ve always thought that if one is going to present an argument that is similar to or plays into a bigoted portrait of an ethnic group, it is incumbent on one to be very rigorous about documenting one’s claims.
But what’s the relevance to the “Israel Lobby” and U.S. foreign policy here? Evidence has been presented here that Jews are not notably sympathetic to the purported goals of the “Israel Lobby” and vote contrary to their perceived interests. So what’s your point?
As this thread was meant to be a debate about M&W’s thesis of the Nefarious Israel Lobby , I think we should avoid the temptation to stray into the overall conflict and what the U.S.’ role should be.
Well, how about this for a definition of even-handedness: have the same number of anti-Israeli editorialists as pro-Israeli editorialists. Since I can’t find a single notable anti-Israeli editorialist in the whole of the U.S. media, that to me suggests that the media is skewed in Israel’s favor. You may say, “Oh, America just loves Israel, that’s why the media supports it to the degree they do,” but it’s not like 100% of the population loves Israel. Even the most generous assumptions have 1/3 of the population not loving Israel. So why aren’t 1/3 of the columnists anti-Israel?
I’m still curious about your contention that Jews aren’t well-represented in the media and government. You ask me to prove it, but do you yourself disbelieve it?
Let me give you a suggestive factoid: searching the Boston Globe archives for the past year, there were 1,131 articles with the word “Jewish,” as against 2,632 with the word “Catholic” – a ratio of a little over 2 to 1. But when you look at population, the Catholic population in the greater Boston area is about ten times the size of the Jewish population. So why the imbalance? Are Jews just that much more interesting than Catholics?
[QUOTE=Sal Ammoniac]
Well, given that we’re involved in a devastating war in the region, I’d say that was sort of a moot point.
[quote]
No, it isn’t.
Whatever one may think of the war in Iraq, I can’t think of any way in which the situation would be improved by a repeat of the Arab-Israeli wars - can you?
That struck me as one of the lamest parts of the article - but I am more interested in what I thought was its strongest claim - that aid to Israel in the form of cash etc. was inspired by a cabal of lobbiests, and not in the interests of the US.
It appears to me that, unlike many of their claims, this one is subject to a certain degree of indirect objective verification.
In reply to your previous post, you seem to be suggesting that if we didn’t fund Israel to the tune of however many billion dollars, the Arab-Israeli wars would break out again. Maybe you could explain that. And it’s not like our massive over-funding of Israel prevented, say, the invasion of Lebanon.
I have little trouble finding editorial writers who, in your eloquent phraseology are “not loving Israel”. My own local paper regularly runs Gwynne Dyer, who is vehemently critical of Israel. Many of the more well-known columnists will criticize Israeli policy and there is no shortage of guest columnists and editorial board writers willing to tell us why they don’t like Israel or some aspect of its policies. I’d bet that a majority of the best-known columnists who regularly express opinions on the subject (George Will and Charles Krauthammer, for example) are consistently pro-Israel, but that doesn’t seem very surprising, given the general pro-Israel sentiment of the U.S. population.
I’m still waiting for you to explain just why the New York Times editorial writers (a sample of whose opinion I excerpted earlier, criticizing Israeli policy on the West Bank), aren’t even-handed in their treatment of the Mideast conflict, unless you really think that even-handedness must include a demand that the U.S. no longer be friendly to Israel.
Rather than making up my “contention”, please document your own. In the fine SDMB tradition, when you make the claim (especially one with such negative baggage), you back it up, along with documentation of its significance.
This is the dumbest argument you’ve made yet, on a par with indiscriminate Google search term data mining. Did it occur to you that, in keeping with this thread, there remains a major conflict in the Mideast and all kinds of doings related to Israel, which might just explain why “Jewish” turns up in the titles of many articles? Are you really suggesting that the Globe favor Jews over Catholics?
This is exactly my point: there’s a major conflict in the Middle East, but it’s not the only major conflict in the world. Afghanistan, a conflict we’re actually involved in, merited considerably fewer articles than those that mentioned either Israel or Judaism. And it’s not like Catholicism doesn’t have newsworthy issues associated with it – remember the Catholic abuse story? Unlike with Israel, there was a very strong local angle to that story. Your point about random data mining is completely off the mark. You might make some argument for why the term “Jewish” is slightly overrepresented vis-a-vis the term “Catholic” – but in fact it’s overrepresented by a factor of nearly five times. How do *you *explain that?
And as for Gwynne Dyer, I had never heard of the guy. How many newspapers is he syndicated in? As for the “many of the more well-known columnists” who criticize Israeli policy, maybe you could give me some names.
Not exactly. I’m suggesting that one of the reasons for funding both Israel and all of its neighbours, to the tune of many billions, is to ensure: (a) the stability and goodwill of Israel’s neighbours - Egypt & Jordan; (b) to reward Egypt & Jordan for good behaviour in relation to peace & terrorism issues; while (c ) ensuring that the balance of power vs. Israel is not affected by the largesse.
I predict (though I still lack firm numbers) that if you totalled the hand-outs, particularly military hand-outs, to Israel & its potential enemies, you would see them nearly equal – Israel gets about the same as all of its potential enemies combined, which is suitable for keepng the balance with Israel well ahead (it would be in the total absence of any hand-outs, but this means the hand-outs have no effect on relative strength).
Syria and Lebanon were not I think recepients of US largesse because they refused to or were incapable of going along with what the US considered “good behaviour”. They were therefore punished by lack of support, making them vulnerable to Israel.
Personally, I don’t know what the proportion of “legitimate US interest” to “lobbyist cabal influence” is in determining US aid to Israel. But Neil Bush (who may not in fact know any more than I do but is certainly better placed to have inside information), speaking to the Jeddah Economic Forum in 2002, seemed to plump for the explanation that Israel is reaping the benefits of better lobbying plus better media PR:
Yes, Neil Bush is undoubtedly the person we should trust for the scoop on this issue. His record as a straight shooter is undeniable. :rolleyes:
While ol’ Neil is probably best known for his role in a savings and loan scandal that cost U.S. taxpayers over $1 billion in the 1980s, more recently he’s been jetting around the world in the company of people like Sun Myung Moon and a tycoon wanted for fraud in Russia - the common denominator in his activities apparently being the quest for foreign investors for his projects. From mediatransparency.org:
"One of Bush’s “business partners” is Jamal Daniel, “a Syrian-American businessman, who is co-chairman with Bush of a fund called Crest Investment Company.” According to the newspaper, “Daniel boasts important connections with leaders and their families in the Middle East, including former Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz, the Financial Times reported in a December 2003 investigative article on the Daniel-Bush relationship.”
Whatever Neil Bush’s motives for cozying up to the heavies behind the Jeddah Economic Forum (which reportedly include Osama bin Laden’s relatives), do you think it might be possible that his “preaching to the choir” has something to do with the hope that he can score some investment bucks out of these folks?
Anyone else you’d like to dredge up out of the sewer for some expert commentary on this issue?
Note that bin Laden’s relatives are perfectly normal, for ungodly rich Saudis who get their money from construction. He seems to be the oh my god that’s black sheep of the family, not typical.