English clippings Walt & Mearsheimer
visit to Israel
Index
1.
Jerusalem
Post June 11 Anti Israel-lobby lobbyists in country
2. IBA Radio June 11: Interviews with Alon Pinkas and Gabi Shefer [translation from Hebrew]
3. AP June 12:
4. Chronicle of Higher Education: 'Israel Lobby'
professors get hospitable greeting in
5. Jerusalem Post June 13: Israel Lobby authors face
critics at HU
6. Israel Insider op-ed June 13: Don't ban Mearsheimer and Walt, or blame Hebrew U for hosting them
7. Toronto Star June 13: Tel Aviv audience takes `Israel
Lobby' in stride
8. JTA June 13:
9.
Christian
Science Monitor June 14 --
10. IBA Radio interview with the professors on
June 12.
Full texts
Herb Keinon,
Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer,
whose book The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy has become a bible for
Israel-bashers in the
In the book, published last September amidst a wave of
controversy, Walt - a
The two argue in their book that
They also argue that "many policies pursued on
Hebrew University professors Arie Kacowicz, chairman of the international relations
department, and Gabi Sheffer, of the political
science department, signed off on an invitation and abstract inviting students
and colleagues to a lecture by the duo entitled "Is the 'Israel lobby'
good for Israel?"
Sheffer said that the university
had not invited the two professors to lecture, but that Walt and Mearsheimer had turned to the political science department
and asked to do so. Since the two were known by many in the department, their
request was accepted, Sheffer said.
The lecture at the university has not been widely
publicized.
Sheffer said he had no hesitations
about having the two controversial professors speak at the
She said that the purpose of the lecture was to have a
"dialogue" and "academic argument" with them.
The two were invited to
Avnery, in an article on the Gush
Shalom Web site following US presidential candidate Barack
Obama's speech at the AIPAC policy conference last
week, wrote that "The most extreme conclusions of professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt were confirmed in their
entirety [at the AIPAC conference]."
Neither Foreign Ministry or AIPAC
officials would comment on Walt and Mearsheimer's
upcoming trip.
Inyan Aher
[primetime newsmagazine], IBA Radio, June 11
Anat Davidov:
we begin with a very interesting question. Should the two American
professors who last September published a book called "The Israel Lobby
and US Foreign Policy" in which they strongly criticized
Alon Pinkas:
good morning Anat.
Anat Davidov
(?): so tell us a little about these professors, Walt and Mearsheimer,
and the book.
Alon Pinkas:
I'll tell you a few things. The two professors themselves come out of the
core, the heart of the academic establishment, that is, they do not come from
the fringes. John Mearsheimer is a professor of
political science at the
Anat Davidov:
isn't that what is worrisome about their arguments?
Alon Pinkas:
that is what is worrisome and that is what supposedly gave the book even more
scientific validity and political validity, and that is why it was dangerous,
as you said.
Anat Davidov:
what exactly do they say?
Alon Pinkas:
I'll tell you what they say. They divide it into two, look, the original paper, an original research paper about 100 pages long was
published first in The London Review of Books. There is a theory that a
famous American journal called The Atlantic refused to publish it, claiming it
was too controversial. I don't know how true that is. After it was
published in the London Review of Books it went over the Internet to anyone who
was interested, in a distribution of millions, the controversy was created that
led to writing the book. At the basis of the book there are many
arguments but there is one key argument, that the
Anat Davidov:
they actually said hijacked.
Alon Pinkas:
hijacked. Exactly. Taken hostage, not at a
single point in time around a single issue but over a long time in a
fundamental and deep way, by a group or large coalition they call the Jewish
lobby, at the center of which is AIPAC but not only AIPAC. The Christian
fundamentalist Evangelists, that group of foreign policy experts with an
ideological leaning called the neoconservatives, Jewish organizations which are
not AIPAC and so on and so forth.
Anat Davidov:
a real Israeli conspiracy, a Jewish conspiracy to take over the world.
Alon Pinkas:
it is not a conspiracy. It can be said in their credit or their defense
that they say the whole matter of a lobby is part and parcel of the
Anat Davidov:
so it is the core of their existence.
Alon Pinkas:
they don't have a problem, they are only saying that a very weak
administration, a Congress whose concerns are raising money for candidates and
contests, antipathy towards the Arabs and very strong Israeli arguments over
the years quashed any kind of public discussion of the question, and the
result, and here we come to the really dangerous part, is not that the policy
is only pro-Israeli, but that that policy sometimes acts in a way
Anat Davidov:
against the American interest.
Alon Pinkas:
against the American interest.
Anat Davidov:
doesn't that sound a little far-fetched to you?
Alon Pinkas:
very far-fetched but let me tell you what the problem is. I spoke about
this on your program when the study came out even before the book. I'll
tell you two things from different ends of this discussion. On the one
hand it is very dangerous. It is dangerous that people say it because it
is not true. By the way, their academic research is not 100% free of
manipulations. It is not deliberately false, it is not malicious but it
is not free of so-called cherry picking. Let's take what is convenient
for us and leave on the tree what is less so. On the other hand, there is
a problem here. It seems that the Jewish lobby, and pardon me the
nonacademic phrase, got on the nerves of too many, too important people for
people at that level and in the places they come from, Chicago and Harvard, to
dare write a book like this without
Anat Davidov:
so they have some depth, they have a back, even hidden.
Alon Pinkas:
yes. They got on a wave, you know, the wave of the Larry Franklin and
Pollard affair is in the background, and the
Anat Davidov:
and that is worrisome. The book got a lot of resonance, didn't it. It is in use
Alon Pinkas:
this is a classic example where research has already exhausted the whole debate
potential or public conflict, I don't know if the book is a commercial success,
it can be checked on Amazon, I haven't checked but I can tell you one thing.
Anat Davidov:
the problem is the resonance of the arguments.
Alon Pinkas:
the residence is tremendous, it is tremendous, and you must remember the most
important thing here, it might be the third time I am saying something is the
most important but still there is something very important here. There
are generations of American students that are going to college or began in the
last two years, or will go study political science in the coming years.
Anat Davidov:
it will be on their syllabus.
Alon Pinkas:
exactly, or Middle Eastern science or courses about American foreign policy,
and because of the high academic status of the two gentlemen who wrote it, Walt
and Mearsheimer, those books will be included
Anat Davidov:
on the required reading list.
Alon Pinkas:
on the required reading list.
Anat Davidov:
and then they will accept it as fact.
Alon Pinkas:
by professors who very possibly sympathize in the first place with the authors
of the book and not the counter arguments, but it also created a large academic
literature against them, not the ones who cry 'woe is me, anti-Semitism.'
Shlomo Ben Ami, the former Israeli Foreign Minister,
wrote a large article against it, Dennis Ross wrote a big article, by the way,
they were attacked from the left in the US, saying stop letting Bush off the
hook, he is the big criminal in the US foreign policy, not some lobby or other.
Anat Davidov:
yes. It seems as if there is nobody in
Professor Gabi Sheffer: good
morning.
Anat Davidov:
controversial, not completely founded, a little far-fetched, should these two
appear at a respectable academic institution like
Professor Gabi Sheffer: first of
all let me tell you they came to us and we didn't even know they would be
invited by Uri Avnery but it would not have changed
our decision.
Anat Davidov:
it really doesn't matter.
Professor Gabi Sheffer: let me
speak please. It would not have changed our decision to accept
them. Look, these two researchers, as Alon Pinkas said before, are very important researchers on
international relations. They have very particular views and they wrote
the article and this problematic book. I think it is possible to invite
them. Our intention is for them to appear tomorrow before students and
university faculty. It will be open for discussion. It will not be
a lecture without reactions. Their talk will be short and afterwards
there will be a discussion and dialogue and that was their intention in their
request to appear at
Anat Davidov:
right.
Professor Gabi Sheffer: whether
they write positively or negatively on the right and the left, from Bar Illan and other universities, from every side.
Therefore
Anat Davidov:
what do you personally think about the book professionally, scientifically?
Professor Gabi Sheffer: just
listen first, I will answer you, Anat, but first I
want to say something. I have known Mearsheimer
for 35 years and other members of our department here know him, and other members
know Walt. He is not an anti-Semite, he was not an anti-Semite and he is
not an anti-Semite and he is not anti-Israeli. The article was originally
directed at the Bush administration and Bush's policy because, without going
into academic affairs, those two researchers have a realistic view and they
thought the
Now to your question about the quality of
the article and the book. Look, there are problems there, there
are problems in terms of some of the evidence they bring and some of the quotes
and so on, but altogether it is a provocative book. They needed to be heard, they needed to be reacted to, just like many others
did react. I agree, I wrote a lot about diaspora
affairs and the Jewish diaspora and the lobbies of
that diaspora and I think the Jewish lobby had an
influence, I am not sure as much of an influence as these two professors say.
Anat Davidov:
they almost turned it into something completely magical or maybe even demonic.
Professor Gabi Sheffer: that is an
exaggeration. But again, their original intention, and Mearsheimer wrote this to me a long time ago when he
published the article, his main intention was to criticize the Bush
administration and not the Jewish lobby, but things developed, partly because
of the reactions and because of the dynamics of their study, they evolved into
that. I too have criticism of the book and the article and they know my
criticism just like they know other people's criticism, but we must not boycott
people like that who, as Alon Pinkas
said, are from the core of professors at the most important universities in
Anat Davidov:
Alon Pinkas, are you coming
to Walt and Mearsheimer's lectures?
Alon Pinkas:
let me tell you, I got VIP treatment and I am having breakfast with them on
Friday, at which I want to tell them one point at a time where I think they are
wrong and misleading.
Anat Davidov:
okay.
Alon Pinkas:
but let me tell you again Anat, even if I think they
are wrong and misleading and their argument is not strong enough, the fact that
they wrote a book like this and the fact that they are who they are and come
from the places
Anat Davidov:
requires us to listen to them.
Alon Pinkas:
I don't know if it requires us to listen but it should turn on a little lightbulb warning us, I don't know if this is a trend
because that is grandiose and very dramatic, but not everybody thinks about
Professor Gabi Sheffer: do you
understand what he said? And I agree with Alon Pinkas about this. We also have to think about
Anat Davidov:
Alon Pinkas and Professor
Gabi Seffner from the Hebrew University Department of Political Science, thank
you very much for this interesting conversation. As I said, professors
Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer will speak tomorrow
at Beit Sokolov at a Gush
Shalom conference and later at
Aron Heller, Associated Press,
June 12
Two American professors on their first visit to
About 200 students and faculty members crammed into a stuffy
lecture hall at the
The pair argue that pro-Israel
special interest groups have manipulated the
The authors said Thursday their goal was to draw a lively
academic debate over a topic that was perceived as taboo.
"If you bring up the
Critics have charged Mearsheimer,
a
The attacks have been compounded because Islamic militants,
Holocaust deniers and even former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke are among
those who have praised the book, although some mainstream analysts have said
their work raised legitimate points.
The classroom erupted in excited conversation as the authors
took questions. The exchange was mostly cordial, with the professors eliciting
some laughs. But it got testy at times.
International relations student Liad
Gilhar, 25, accused the professors of distorting
facts and providing fodder for anti-Semites.
"You need to choose your words carefully," Gilhar said.
Walt shot back: "With all due respect, I don't think it
is my words that harm
A professor criticized the authors for failing to condemn
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,
who has called for
Mearsheimer said
"The
Korina Kagan,
a political science lecturer, said she essentially agreed with their thesis and
was appalled by the attacks against them, especially from academic circles.
"The smear campaign against them is worse than anything
they have ever written," she said, adding that many of their positions are
shared by commentators in the Israeli media. "We need to have a free
academic exchange."
Mearsheimer and Walt were invited
to Israel by Gush Shalom, a small, ultra-dovish political group, to speak about
their book, "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy," published
last year.
The two said they decided to speak at
"It is telling that the guests came to
Matthew Kalman, The
Chronicle of Higher Education, June 12
The first appearance in Israel by Stephen M. Walt and John
J. Mearsheimer since the publication of their
controversial book, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, impressed a
largely student audience at the Hebrew University, but left some faculty
members wondering about their honesty.
A threatened boycott failed to have any effect, and the talk
passed off with nothing more dramatic than some lively debate and repeated
declarations from the pair that they are neither anti-Semitic nor
Israel-haters.
Their presentation, “Is the ‘
Mr. Walt is a professor of international relations at
Their work has been criticized as anti-Jewish and
intellectually dishonest, charges that led some to call for the lecture to be
canceled.
“Any discussion of the
Robert Wistrich, a professor of
modern European history and director of the university’s
“I don’t think that’s the point, though,” he said. “Those
who object to their kind of discourse about the lobby are right to point out
that in a very attenuated and benign form, with all the academic qualifications
they make, it is uncomfortably reminiscent of very
familiar arguments that clearly were anti-Semitic in the past. Some of it is
disingenuous. It’s a kind of cover.”
Herb Keinon, The
After arguing in their book The Israel Lobby and US Foreign
Policy that
"There is only one country in the world that is putting
any pressure on the
"Inside the
Walt and Mearsheimer's lecture at
Hebrew University was part of a regional lecture tour that included a speech
Thursday night in Tel Aviv at a forum sponsored by the extreme left-wing group
Gush Shalom, as well as lectures at universities and think tanks in east
Jerusalem, Ramallah, Amman, Abu Dhabi and Qatar.
This is the first time that Walt and Mearsheimer
have been to
"I would certainly prefer that people not call me an
anti-Semite," Mearsheimer said in a phone
interview with The Jerusalem Post as he and Walt were being driven from
"But it doesn't bother me. because
I know unequivocally I am not an anti-Semite, nor is Steve [Walt]. In fact we
are both philo-Semites and we both think it is a
wonderful thing there is a State of Israel, and we are not in any way shape or
form trying to delegitimize Israel."
As to whether he is concerned his book is being used as
ammunition by dyed-in-the wool anti-Semites to bolster their Israel-bashing
arguments, Mearsheimer said: "If there was a
significant danger that anti-Semites would use our writing to raise the specter
of anti-Semitism, we would not have written the article or the book. We just
don't think that is a serious problem, and it was therefore appropriate to
write both the article and the book."
Among those who have praised and cited the book are
Holocaust deniers and former Klu Klux Klan head David
Duke.
"We condemn unequivocally everything David Duke stands
for and regret that he uses our article and now our book to support his agenda.
But we have no control over who likes or dislikes what we write," Mearsheimer said.
In the nine months since the book's release, Walt and Mearsheimer have been featured on numerous talks shows,
have spoken at countless events, and also been subject to withering criticism
about the scholarship and objectivity of their work.
Despite the criticism, with some Middle East scholars
calling their research "shoddy" and "tendentious," Mearsheimer said that had he been able to do it over again,
there is almost nothing in the book - whose thesis is that an amorphous Israel
lobby is leading the US to advocate and carry out polices detrimental to its
own interests - that he would change.
While obviously critical of the
"I would have no problem in significantly reducing
American economic and military aid [to
Regarding
But, he said, just as it is legitimate for this to be done,
so it is also equally legitimate to point out that it is
"As you know, if you said that
in the
In the interview, and through the nearly two-hour lecture
and question and answer period at Hebrew University, Mearsheimer
stressed that what the Israel lobby is doing is legitimate, and that it is an
interest group just like the farm lobby or the National Rifle Association.
"We happen not to agree to the
polices the NRA, farm lobby and
According to
"What I advocate is that we take away the military
threat, and we try to deal with the problem diplomatically," he said.
"You have to accept the fact that they are going to
have significant nuclear enrichment capability, and that what you are going to
try to do is reach a situation, or achieve a situation, where
Describing
As to the Iranian president's famous comment about wiping
Israel off the map, Mearsheimer said, "What he
was talking about was eliminating Israel from the face of time, and what he
meant by that is that he was hoping, or he believes, that Israel would
eventually go away, as the former Soviet Union did, or as the Shah did."
Walt, meanwhile, said during the lecture, that he did not believe
Ahmadinejad's statements constituted a call to
genocide.
"I don't believe that is what he is saying. I believe
his statements are deeply offensive and I reject them completely, but they are
not, in my view, incitement to genocide."
The two were greeted politely at the university, receiving
applause when they finished their presentation. However, a number of the
questions from the audience were testy, with one student saying that their
claim of a of moral equivalence between Israel and Palestinian behavior was not
only incorrect but also fodder for anti-Semites, and another taking sharp issue
with Mearsheimer's argument that the US relationship
with Israel was one of the causes of the September 11 attacks.
While the professors (Walt is a professor at
An
Arieh O'Sullivan, the Israel
spokesman for the ADL who attended the lecture, said, "It is telling that
the gentlemen came to Israel under the auspices of a fringe group [Gush
Shalom], and had to solicit themselves to a university to speak.
"The appearance here was less academic, and more like a
walking propaganda routine, something like a traveling carnival."
The ADL, cited by Walt and Mearsheimer
as an integral part of the Israel Lobby, has been among the pair's fiercest
critics.
Walt said that when it became clear they were coming to
Op-ed, Gil Troy, Israel Insider, June 13
In the 1890s, a German anti-Semitic preacher named Rector Ahlwardt visited
As president,
Those outraged that Professors John J. Mearsheimer
and Stephen M. Walt are lecturing at
Given the professors' popularity in anti-Zionist circles and
their notoriety among the pro-Israel crowd, partisans have criticized
Moreover, in fairness, Professors Mearsheimer
and Walt are neither Rector Ahlwardt nor President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who should
not have spoken at
We need a war of sources not swords, we need to fight about
their footnotes not their freedom. Their book should be subject to rigorous
academic scrutiny. Their conclusions should be challenged thoughtfully and thoroughly.
But there is no reason to ban them from
Academic freedom, like most liberties we cherish, rests on
mutuality; it must be a two-way street, a neutral ideal. Academics cannot only
champion freedom for the thoughts we love; it is freedom for the thoughts we
hate that challenges us. When we boycott speakers, when we try to suppress criticism,
we reflect a lack of faith that truth will triumph in the free marketplace of
ideas. Censorship is an indulgence of the insecure, mocking the celebration of
stability
By hosting Mearsheimer and Walt,
Too many academics these days impose their own orthodoxies,
methodologically and politically. Such intolerance constitutes educational
malpractice. If only one view is promulgated, if there is too much pressure on
faculty members and students to toe one party line, the university suffers.
Partisan politics pollutes far too many academic discussions
these days. When I lecture about American political history, I ask my students:
can we learn to study politics, and even be passionate about studying politics,
without always injecting partisan passions? Only then, if we put partisanship
aside and open ourselves up to challenging our assumptions, can we start to
learn.
In that spirit we should say, "Welcome Professors Walt
and Mearsheimer to
Polite welcome for
They might well be among Israelis' most unpopular men these
days, but two
It was not necessarily what they had been expecting.
"If the subject is American Middle East policy, and you
bring up the
The Israel Lobby And U.S. Foreign
Policy is the title of a controversial book Walt co-authored last year with
In it, they conclude the Jewish state has become "a
strategic liability" for
The authors argue that a network of pro-Israeli interest
groups – collectively referred to as "the Israel lobby" – has
pressured a succession of U.S. governments into providing immense political and
economic support for the Jewish state, even though this aid, they say, serves
the interests of neither country.
Explains Mearsheimer: "Our
argument is that the lobby, working with
The authors believe U.S. economic backing for Israel – to
the tune, they say, of about $500 per capita per year – was "a major
cause" of the 9/11 attacks and has continued to fuel bitter anti-American
feelings throughout the Arab world.
They want
"
"The
You would not expect such ideas to sit well with Israelis
and, on the whole, they haven't.
Publication of The Israel Lobby was met with a firestorm of
outrage and denunciation among pundits and opinion-makers here.
Last night, a young volunteer with the pro-Israeli advocacy
group Stand With Us handed out eight-page glossy
booklets that typified the reaction of many Israelis, accusing Mearsheimer and Walt of shoddy scholarship, factual errors
and anti-Semitism.
The two men say they are used to such charges by now.
"There is nothing remotely anti-Semitic about the book,"
says Walt. "When you can't address someone's actual arguments, you then
attack them by calling them names."
Last night's lecture was organized by a left-wing Israeli
peace group called Gush Shalom. Most of the 200 or so in attendance at a Tel
Aviv community centre seemed to be of a left-leaning persuasion.
They listened attentively and now and then clapped politely
as the two Americans denounced the Israeli government for its treatment of
Palestinians and decried ongoing Israeli settlement in the
After the presentation, audience member Tomer
Haramaty, 24, a former naval officer, criticized the
authors for giving the impression Israelis don't want peace.
"That's very simplistic," he said, arguing that
most people here would agree to dismantle most
"I think most Israelis are in the same place on this.
This is kind of mainstream now."
Jewish Telegraphic Agency, June 13
The authors of a controversial book about the pro-Israel
lobby said
Profs. John Mearsheimer
and Stephen Walt spoke Thursday at a forum in Tel Aviv and at
Echoing their claim that pro-Israel forces in
"There is only one country in the world that is putting
any pressure on the
Mearsheimer added, "Inside
the United States, it is pro-Israel individuals and groups who are almost
wholly responsible for pressure being brought to bear on Bush and Cheney to use
military force on
The authors of 'The
Ilene R. Prusher, The Christian Science Monitor, June 14
JERUSALEM - With many eyes in Israel already turned toward
the American presidential election this November, questions over what and who
is good for the Middle East are fast becoming hot topics.
Warming things up that much more, two academics who have
cast a critical light on the nature of US-Israel ties came here Thursday as
part of a larger Middle East tour, during which they called on America to end
its "special relationship with Israel and treat it as a normal
country."
Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer,
professors at
In pro-Israel circles, the book is viewed – along with
former
Critics of Profs. Walt and Mearsheimer say that the book and the arguments they make
in it has anti-Semitic overtones and paints the pro-Israel lobby in the US as
an all-powerful interest group doing damage to American and international
interests.
But the two men, who were brought to Israel as guests of the
left-wing group Gush Shalom (Peace Bloc) and later invited by colleagues to
speak at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said their words had often been
misread and misinterpreted.
"Giving
He said that anyone who questions that relationship is
"playing with fire" and risks "being smeared" as
anti-Semitic.
"These policies have been misguided. They're not good
for the
In the talk, Mearsheimer charged
that Israel and the Israel lobby – which he said also included many Christian
Zionists and Evangelicals, and therefore was not synonymous with being a
"Jewish lobby" – was trying to push America into military action
against Iran.
"There is only one country that is putting pressure on
the
That the two men were invited to speak at all was the
subject of some controversy, with several Israeli professors questioning
whether the invitation was appropriate. The university did not widely advertise
the lecture, which was held in a moderate-sized lecture hall unable to contain
the number of students and faculty who had arrived. But most seemed to agree
that, especially at the school that is viewed as
"There is more criticism being heard here in
Indeed, in recent weeks, Israeli politicians and pundits
have been speaking more critically about the state of relations between the
Following President Bush's visit here last month, some
commentators worried aloud that the unconditional support he expressed for
Additional reservations about the US-Israel relationship have
been voiced amid a deeply damaging scandal in which Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is alleged to have
taken more than $150,000 in unaccounted-for cash from a
The Israeli government, says Uri Avnery, the head of Gush Shalom, is content with having a
very pro-Israel American administration. Supporters of the peace camp, on the
other hand, are hoping that November will bring a change in policy and are
pinning their hopes on Democratic candidate Barack Obama. Peace advocates were dismayed, he said, to hear
Senator Obama's comments to AIPAC last week.
"The first thing Barack Obama did after he secured the nomination was to go to
AIPAC to make a speech which is scandalous as far as peace as concerned,"
Mr. Avnery said. "He said that
"It shows us that without AIPAC, he feels he can't be
elected, and that shows us how crucial AIPAC is."
There are fears in
Robert Wistrich, a historian at
the
"Whichever way you turn it around, they're saying that
if only there wasn't so much Jewish or Israeli power, everything would be fine
in the Middle East, which we know isn't true," Professor Wistrich says. Israelis, he adds, still can't figure out
where Obama stands.
"I don't think Jews or Israelis want to go out on a
limb and prejudge a man who might be president," he says. "The main
worry here is more along the lines of appeasement, such as what he's said about
meeting Iranian leaders, and we know where that's led so far."
IBA Radio, International Hour, June 12
Oren Nahari: Two professors are
now in
Alon Shani:
It is doubtful that John Mearsheimer and Stephen
Walt, authors of the book "The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy",
expected to sign autographs on their new book this afternoon at the end of the
discussion at the
Professor Gerald Steinberg: There is a basic moral defect, they want to gain American support for Israel, but they actually are joining with all the boycotts and the movements in Europe and also Cyprus and the United States to define Israel as a criminal state responsible not only for war crimes, but also for manipulating the United States into invading Iraq, etc., etc. From my point of view, this is simply immoral and I must protest.
Alon Shani:
A reminder. A year ago, these two senior lecturers publish their book which
overnight turns into a bestseller. In it, they claim that the Jewish lobby has
taken over American foreign policy, steers it in directions it sees fit, and
causes the superpower to act against its own interests.
***END***