Tweet
WHAT IS THE ISRAEL LOBBY?
Atlantic Online
http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2009 /01/what_is_the_israel_lobby.php
Jan 13 2009
Stephen Walt, of The Israel Lobby fame, launches into the blogosphere
with a bang:
Here's a thought experiment:
Imagine that Egypt, Jordan, and Syria had won the Six Day War, leading
to a massive exodus of Jews from the territory of Israel. Imagine
that the victorious Arab states had eventually decided to permit the
Palestinians to establish a state of their own on the territory of
the former Jewish state. (That's unlikely, of course, but this is a
thought experiment). Imagine that a million or so Jews had ended up as
stateless refugees confined to that narrow enclave known as the Gaza
Strip. Then imagine that a group of hardline Orthodox Jews took over
control of that territory and organized a resistance movement. They
also steadfastly refused to recognize the new Palestinian state,
arguing that its creation was illegal and that their expulsion from
Israel was unjust. Imagine that they obtained backing from sympathizers
around the world and that they began to smuggle weapons into the
territory. Then imagine that they started firing at Palestinian
towns and villages and refused to stop despite continued reprisals
and civilian casualties.
Here's the question: would the United States be denouncing those Jews
in Gaza as "terrorists" and encouraging the Palestinian state to use
overwhelming force against them?
Ross replies:
The odd thing is that by Walt's own account, the answer would seem to
be "Yes," since presumably the rump Orthodox Gaza - run, perhaps, by
Verbover Jews - wouldn't have an all-powerful lobby shaping U.S. policy
and public opinion to its specifications. Or am I missing something?
If the implication is that minus the current state of Israel, there
would be no "Israel lobby", then yes, I think Ross is missing quite
a lot. There managed to be an "Irish lobby" for decades in this
country which survived not on the support of the Republic of Ireland,
but on the support of Irish politicians, and Irish voters in heavily
populated areas. The lobby existed independent of the state itself,
and indeed kept right on going on Northern Irish issues even though
the territory was part of Great Britain. As long as there is a largish
population with a strong desire for a state, and an interest in the
fate of that state's nationals, there will be a lobby for it.
I share the discomfort with noting the obvious fact that Jewish
Americans, like every other hyphenated-american, actively seek the
benefit of their ethnic compatriots by influencing US policy. Other
hyphenated Americans don't have the same history of accusations that
they are engaged in a virulent conspiracy to run the world for their
benefit, and thus we have no need to pretend that all the Turks just
happen to take a different position on the Armenian genocide than all
the Armenians do--nay, not even the Turks and Armenians themselves
bother to claim this. For that matter, I've spent a fair amount of
time around members of organizations like the ADC, and I've never
encountered any particular hostility when pointing out the obvious
fact that their members identify with the Palestinians in part because
the Palestinians are Arabs.
But though I understand why statements like this have to be made very
carefully, if at all, the strenuous efforts to avoid making them
have become cancerous. The reluctance to state the obvious allows
Israel's partisans to duck the undeniable fact that AIPAC and so forth
do actively attempt to influence American policy, and frequently
succeed. Questions about whether this is really best for America,
or the world, can be countered with more-or-less sly insinuations of
anti-semitism. In part because almost the only people who will state
the obvious are looney-tunes anti-semites who think that there's a
Jewish conspiracy, rather than . . . Jews acting boringly just like
every other ethnic group to ever hit our shores. Or Arabs with tin
ears who come off as mostly mad because they're way behind in the
ethnic lobbying sweepstakes.
It will not do my career much good to say it, but here goes. America
has an influential Israel lobby in large part because of ethnic
affinity. Not just Jewish ethnic affinity, I hasten to point out. Yes,
we have a large number of Jewish people--many more than we have
Arabs. And those Jewish people mostly strongly identify with Israel
in the conflict. Europe, which has more Arabs, and decimated its
Jewish population 60 years ago, has more natural sympathizers with
the Palestinians, and this probably influences their political and
media coverage quite a lot.
But America also has an influential Israel lobby because it has a much
larger group of people who identify, quasi-ethnically, with Israel:
evangelical Christians who think of themselves as in some way descended
from the ten tribes of Israel. (Not to mention the lunatic fringe who
hopes that the Israelis can in some way hasten the End Times. As if
God could be influenced by a sufficiently robust foreign policy.)
And then most of the rest of us, because almost all Americans see
Israelis as sharing a common European cultural heritage that the
Palestinians do not. (I believe Al-Qaeda agrees.)
Such identifications are, I'd wager, rooted deeply in our genes--our
selfish alleles want to advance alleles more similar to them, which
is why we tend to side with our family against our nation, our nation
against foreigners, and foreigners against sabre-toothed tigers. Those
ties are not all-powerful, of course, which is why mothers don't let
their children kill all the other children on the block. But they
are often decisive in complicated situations like the one in Gaza.
So we are the Israel lobby, to a greater or a lesser extent--all
Americans who think of themselves as more like the Israelis than the
Palestinians. If the state of Israel were to vanish tomorrow, the
lobby would remain. It might not be as vigorous as it is now--the
peace accords in Northern Ireland (and the Republic's prosperity)
have left the Irish groups with a lot less to do. But where issues
concerning that territory, and those people, came up, that lobby
would still spring into action.
I think there is nothing wrong with having an Israel lobby. In a
multiethnic society, there needs to be a great deal of tolerance for
the fact that various ethnicities will still care about what happens
in the Old Country. And even if I did think ethnic lobbies were evil,
I'd be out of luck, because they're inevitable. If your relatives are
in a country, you are going to care what happens to that country. Until
we allow unlimited robot immigration, we're stuck.
What's wrong isn't the Israel lobby, but the attempt to pretend that
there isn't an Israel lobby, or that it consists of the nice folks
at the Israeli embassy.
One of the great strengths of conservatism is the recognition that
all politics is interest-group politics, and all interest groups have
more or less explicit ulterior motives. It's not an insult to farmers
to note that there is a powerful farm lobby--and we're not going to
get good farm policy if we deny this obvious fact, much less demand
that anyone who points it out prove that they don't hate farmers.
Atlantic Online
http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2009 /01/what_is_the_israel_lobby.php
Jan 13 2009
Stephen Walt, of The Israel Lobby fame, launches into the blogosphere
with a bang:
Here's a thought experiment:
Imagine that Egypt, Jordan, and Syria had won the Six Day War, leading
to a massive exodus of Jews from the territory of Israel. Imagine
that the victorious Arab states had eventually decided to permit the
Palestinians to establish a state of their own on the territory of
the former Jewish state. (That's unlikely, of course, but this is a
thought experiment). Imagine that a million or so Jews had ended up as
stateless refugees confined to that narrow enclave known as the Gaza
Strip. Then imagine that a group of hardline Orthodox Jews took over
control of that territory and organized a resistance movement. They
also steadfastly refused to recognize the new Palestinian state,
arguing that its creation was illegal and that their expulsion from
Israel was unjust. Imagine that they obtained backing from sympathizers
around the world and that they began to smuggle weapons into the
territory. Then imagine that they started firing at Palestinian
towns and villages and refused to stop despite continued reprisals
and civilian casualties.
Here's the question: would the United States be denouncing those Jews
in Gaza as "terrorists" and encouraging the Palestinian state to use
overwhelming force against them?
Ross replies:
The odd thing is that by Walt's own account, the answer would seem to
be "Yes," since presumably the rump Orthodox Gaza - run, perhaps, by
Verbover Jews - wouldn't have an all-powerful lobby shaping U.S. policy
and public opinion to its specifications. Or am I missing something?
If the implication is that minus the current state of Israel, there
would be no "Israel lobby", then yes, I think Ross is missing quite
a lot. There managed to be an "Irish lobby" for decades in this
country which survived not on the support of the Republic of Ireland,
but on the support of Irish politicians, and Irish voters in heavily
populated areas. The lobby existed independent of the state itself,
and indeed kept right on going on Northern Irish issues even though
the territory was part of Great Britain. As long as there is a largish
population with a strong desire for a state, and an interest in the
fate of that state's nationals, there will be a lobby for it.
I share the discomfort with noting the obvious fact that Jewish
Americans, like every other hyphenated-american, actively seek the
benefit of their ethnic compatriots by influencing US policy. Other
hyphenated Americans don't have the same history of accusations that
they are engaged in a virulent conspiracy to run the world for their
benefit, and thus we have no need to pretend that all the Turks just
happen to take a different position on the Armenian genocide than all
the Armenians do--nay, not even the Turks and Armenians themselves
bother to claim this. For that matter, I've spent a fair amount of
time around members of organizations like the ADC, and I've never
encountered any particular hostility when pointing out the obvious
fact that their members identify with the Palestinians in part because
the Palestinians are Arabs.
But though I understand why statements like this have to be made very
carefully, if at all, the strenuous efforts to avoid making them
have become cancerous. The reluctance to state the obvious allows
Israel's partisans to duck the undeniable fact that AIPAC and so forth
do actively attempt to influence American policy, and frequently
succeed. Questions about whether this is really best for America,
or the world, can be countered with more-or-less sly insinuations of
anti-semitism. In part because almost the only people who will state
the obvious are looney-tunes anti-semites who think that there's a
Jewish conspiracy, rather than . . . Jews acting boringly just like
every other ethnic group to ever hit our shores. Or Arabs with tin
ears who come off as mostly mad because they're way behind in the
ethnic lobbying sweepstakes.
It will not do my career much good to say it, but here goes. America
has an influential Israel lobby in large part because of ethnic
affinity. Not just Jewish ethnic affinity, I hasten to point out. Yes,
we have a large number of Jewish people--many more than we have
Arabs. And those Jewish people mostly strongly identify with Israel
in the conflict. Europe, which has more Arabs, and decimated its
Jewish population 60 years ago, has more natural sympathizers with
the Palestinians, and this probably influences their political and
media coverage quite a lot.
But America also has an influential Israel lobby because it has a much
larger group of people who identify, quasi-ethnically, with Israel:
evangelical Christians who think of themselves as in some way descended
from the ten tribes of Israel. (Not to mention the lunatic fringe who
hopes that the Israelis can in some way hasten the End Times. As if
God could be influenced by a sufficiently robust foreign policy.)
And then most of the rest of us, because almost all Americans see
Israelis as sharing a common European cultural heritage that the
Palestinians do not. (I believe Al-Qaeda agrees.)
Such identifications are, I'd wager, rooted deeply in our genes--our
selfish alleles want to advance alleles more similar to them, which
is why we tend to side with our family against our nation, our nation
against foreigners, and foreigners against sabre-toothed tigers. Those
ties are not all-powerful, of course, which is why mothers don't let
their children kill all the other children on the block. But they
are often decisive in complicated situations like the one in Gaza.
So we are the Israel lobby, to a greater or a lesser extent--all
Americans who think of themselves as more like the Israelis than the
Palestinians. If the state of Israel were to vanish tomorrow, the
lobby would remain. It might not be as vigorous as it is now--the
peace accords in Northern Ireland (and the Republic's prosperity)
have left the Irish groups with a lot less to do. But where issues
concerning that territory, and those people, came up, that lobby
would still spring into action.
I think there is nothing wrong with having an Israel lobby. In a
multiethnic society, there needs to be a great deal of tolerance for
the fact that various ethnicities will still care about what happens
in the Old Country. And even if I did think ethnic lobbies were evil,
I'd be out of luck, because they're inevitable. If your relatives are
in a country, you are going to care what happens to that country. Until
we allow unlimited robot immigration, we're stuck.
What's wrong isn't the Israel lobby, but the attempt to pretend that
there isn't an Israel lobby, or that it consists of the nice folks
at the Israeli embassy.
One of the great strengths of conservatism is the recognition that
all politics is interest-group politics, and all interest groups have
more or less explicit ulterior motives. It's not an insult to farmers
to note that there is a powerful farm lobby--and we're not going to
get good farm policy if we deny this obvious fact, much less demand
that anyone who points it out prove that they don't hate farmers.