The Israel Lobby

I rarely venture into books on contemporary politics, but I enjoyed Mearsheimer's Tragedy of Great Power Politics (even if I disagreed with a lot of it) , had some time on my hands, and decided that the furore surrounding the original article and book was too great to ignore.

Well, I have just finished the book, and am pleased to report that I learned much from it, including the extent of America's economic and military support for Israel, stuff about Israel's founding and wars against its neighbours that I didn't know about (but which historians like Benny Morris have re-examined), and the peculiar phenomenon that is Christian Zionism (whose origins I had begun to read about in Michael Oren's Power, Faith, and Fantasy -- alas, I've never gotten around to completing it). The core of the book, of course, is that the eponymous lobby's influence on US attitudes towards Israel is 1) bad for America, 2) bad for Israel, and 3) bad for the Palestinians. The authors are clear, concise, and thoroughly reasonable: they anticipate and tackle objections (including accusations of anti-Semitism), clarify important points, and avoid ideological and rhetorical extremes without compromising the overall force of their argument. I especially like how they implicate the lobby by using its own words against it (cue accusations of Dowdifying the evidence or relying excessively on secondary sources, which, given the nature of the topic, are pretty much all that's available). Attempts to silence the authors' arguments about the lobby and free speech ought simply to strengthen these arguments.

The one criticism I have is obviously from the perspective of a non-specialist: I'd like a longer and more prescriptive conclusion. Historians aren't supposed to be prescriptive, but political scientists can and should be. Unfortunately, Mearsheimer and Walt, while agreeing that the lobby's influence needs to be mitigated, are rather vague on how this might come about. For instance, they write that:

To foster a more open discussion, Americans of all backgrounds must reject the silencing tactics that some groups and individuals in the lobby continue to employ. Stifling debate and smearing opponents is [sic] inconsistent with the principles of vigorous and open dialogue on which democracy depends, and continued reliance on this undemocratic tactic runs the risk of generating a hostile backlash at some point in the future.

America needs a more open debate on its support for Israel, and a more even-handed relationship with the country, but given the strength of the lobby, what concrete steps are needed to make this happen? The authors urge the government to use its "considerable leverage" to sway Israeli policy-makers, apparently forgetting the lobby has its own "considerable leverage."

Legitimate criticisms of their book, like this one by Martin Kramer (whom the authors identify as part of the lobby but not a neoconservative) should focus on the extent to which Israel is a strategic asset or liability and offer more than the usual talking points on Israel's moral and democratic credentials. Bad criticism leans towards accusing the authors of anti-Semitism, which the right uses to bash the left in pretty much the same way that the left uses "racism" to bash the right. Consider this laughably simplistic piece by George Shultz. It's not quite as vicious as something by Alan Dershowitz or Marty Peretz, but it's still utterly unencumbered by knowledge of the book. It's always a good idea to read a book before "reviewing" it; every single accusation or veiled accusation the former Secretary of State makes is demolished in the book. Let me cite just a few examples:

• "Jewish groups are influential. They also largely agree that the United States should support Israel. But the notion that they have anything like a uniform agenda and that U.S. policy in Israel and the Middle East is the result of this influence is simply wrong."Quite so, and this is in fact exactly what the authors write: the Israel lobby is not exclusively a Jewish lobby.
  

• "Anyone who thinks that Jewish groups constitute a homogeneous "lobby" ought to spend some time dealing with them." Again, the authors make this point very clear in their book: left-leaning Jewish groups critical of Israel's policies and the extent of US support for Israel exist, but their influence isn't quite as great as the more right-wing groups.

• "The United States supports Israel not because of favoritism based on political pressure or influence but because the American people, and their leaders, say that supporting Israel is politically sound and morally just." For goodness sake George, have you even read the book that you're criticising? And I really don't see how someone who supported the Nicaraguan contras can talk about morality as a justification for foreign policy. It is "morally just" to support Israel's right to exist, but this isn't what the authors are interested in.

Thank you, that's all for now.
Posted by kungfuzi at 6:17 pm | 0 comments

  Term's over

For the students that is. I still have remedials, a 5-day student development workshop, a staff conference, and THIMUN, all of which will consume November. Only then do I get my holiday, which I'll probably spend reading a lot of History in preparation for next year. Besides regular H2, I also have to read up on the H3 topics that the students have chosen.

H3 numbers are multiplying -- although it remains to be seen whether the admin will let all of them take it. I'm a little concerned that some of the new applicants don't really know what they're getting themselves into, particularly those who applied to do ancient and medieval history whose research I'll probably end up supervising. If the past is a foreign country, medieval Europe for Singaporeans is quite possibly the equivalent of North Korea.
Posted by kungfuzi at 9:06 pm | 2 comments

  Potential research topics

From Maya Jasanoff's review of Piers Brendon's Decline and Fall of the British Empire:

This touches on the chief casualty of Brendon's descriptive approach: the relative absence of explanation and analysis. After so much rich narrative, one is left craving synthesis - particularly comparison across regions, for such interconnections help make an empire what it is. How, for example, did the use of partition in Ireland in 1921 influence its subsequent application in Palestine and south Asia? How might British counter-insurgency tactics developed in one domain - South Africa or Ireland, Palestine or Malaya - have been replayed in others? (To say nothing of their influence on the Americans in Vietnam, or the French in Algeria.) To what extent did imperial personnel carry policies from region to region? What kinds of networks of influence existed among anti-colonial leaders, such as the black nationalists inspired by Gandhi, or advocates of non-alignment? Brendon nods in these directions, but readers looking for deep answers will want to turn elsewhere.
Posted by kungfuzi at 8:01 am | 0 comments

  Marking's done!

Well, that was pleasant. 42 scripts last Thursday was quite a feat. I managed about 17 in school and 25 at home, accelerating towards the end to finish at around 11 pm. Now I just need to get the debriefs done by next Monday. I won't have time to go through all the questions in great detail, given the administration's ruling that teachers cannot mention the promos at all in the two weeks before the scripts are returned. How silly.

I'm more than halfway through Bayly and Harper's Forgotten Wars, the sequel to Forgotten Armies (which I haven't finished). It's an absolutely thrilling read, and I plan on incorporating chunks of it into my teaching of decolonisation next year; it really does explode the claim the British were quite happy to let go of Burma and Malaya. They really weren't, and the only reason that I've been promulgating this claim is to artificially "balance" the topic with the A-Levels in mind. As I will explain next week, dear students, it's about relative reluctance: you've got to draw a distinction between the Dutch and the French on the one hand, and the British and the Americans on the other. I hope I'm not causing you undue mental stress by revealing this.

The two Barzun books arrived via vPost today, and, taking a break from Bayly and Harper, I am halfway through The Modern Researcher already. Another book which I should get around to finishing, and which will also be directly useful next year, is Indonesian Destinies, by Theodore Friend, which is a history of independent Indonesia from someone who was there during the height of Suharto's New Order.

Forgotten Wars, Indonesian Destinies, and The King Never Smiles (banned in Thailand for lese majeste -- all the more reason to read it) should put at end to the belief that Southeast Asian history is boring. Don't let the constraints of time and syllabus get in the way of learning and intellectual pleasure.

On a rather sour note, I was involved in a car accident today. No fault of mine, as you might expect. A stupid taxi -- why is it always taxis? -- cut abruptly into my lane two cars ahead of me, forcing the guy in front of me to apply the emergency brake. I did the same thing, but couldn't avoid slamming into him. Said taxi scooted away hastily -- the cretin! Luckily, someone got his license plate number down. This is going to end up costing quite a bit; it looked as if the coolant was leaking. In the meantime, I hope the traffic police nail the bastard and the insurance people are kind and understanding.
Posted by kungfuzi at 9:02 pm | 0 comments

  75% done

I have about 70 scripts left, to be completed by this Friday, or latest by next Monday.
Posted by kungfuzi at 7:32 pm | 0 comments