Figured this was on its way, and it is: my cousin Caroline's response to Walt-Mearsheimer. Looks like she and I agree on at least one point:
...the "academic" version of the paper's first footnote maintains, "The mere existence of the Lobby suggests that unconditional support for Israel is not in the American national interest. If it was, one would not need an organized special interest to bring it about." Every semi-sentient person with even an incidental knowledge of American politics knows that there is no area of human endeavor that is not represented by a lobby in the US. Walt and Mearsheimer's asinine assertion means is that every American interest group - from the elderly to the insurance industry, from the Muslims to gun owners to organic food lovers - stands opposed to the American national interest simply by existing. Any professor who made a similar assertion about any other interest group would be imperiling his career.
Indeed. This strikes me as crucial. If the endlessly diverse array of interest groups in America all get to be "American interest groups," save one, then clearly that one group is being singled out. (Professional?) blog-commentor Petey responded to my post with the following: "AIPAC is being singled out because they wield political influence in Washington far, far beyond any other ethnic group, not just other middle eastern ethnic groups. They make the Cuban exiles look like absolute amateurs.The whole point of the article is about how outsize the AIPAC influence in Washington really is." Outsize? What does that even mean? Too much for Petey's taste? Lobbying that is successful is not inherently suspect, and if lobbyists could never successfully convince the government that their interests are its interests as well, what would be the point?
The missing key here is why, according to Mearsheimer and Walt, America has gone along with something "against its interests" for so long. The (not proven) idea is that either a) Jews do wield special, secret powers that control the otherwise rational American government, or b) America, good ol', pure, cornfed America, has been duped by those sneaky Jews. In other words, it's either that the Jews are super-clever or the "Americans" super-stupid. Because of course "Americans" and "Jews" are mutually exclusive. So it's basically the old idea that, get enough Jews into a country, even a rather small proportion of the overall population, and they'll mess everything up for everyone else. Again, I fail to see how Daniel Drezner did not find this to be at all anti-Semitic. It strikes me as the textbook case.
Friday, March 24, 2006
More on Walt-Mearsheimer
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3 comments:
"Outsize? What does that even mean? Too much for Petey's taste?"
Outsize means out of the scale of the surrounding landscape.
Whether that is too much or not enough is indeed a matter of individual taste, but calling it outsize is a mere statement of rather obvious fact.
In the same way the French refer to the American global dominance of military and economic power as being a hyperpower, AIPAC is a hyperpower on the Potomac.
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"The (not proven) idea is that either a) Jews do wield special, secret powers that control the otherwise rational American government, or b) America, good ol', pure, cornfed America, has been duped by those sneaky Jews"
The fascinating aspect of the AIPAC hyperpower is that it's a relatively recent phenomena, and it's not entirely about the Jews.
What has brought about the 'outsize' influence of AIPAC is the unholy union of Jews and fundamentalist Christians who have their tentacles deep inside the current majority party in Washington. AIPAC wouldn't have anywhere near it's current monopoly of power without the bizarre alliance with right-wingnut Christians.
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"If the endlessly diverse array of interest groups in America all get to be "American interest groups," save one, then clearly that one group is being singled out."
Again, AIPAC is by far the largest force in Washington dedicated to support of a specific foreign country. Nothing else is close. And given the primacy of middle eastern foreign policy to our nation's current politics, it's not odd to single out AIPAC as a topic of discussion.
It would be odd not to.
There are plenty of other narrow lobbies in Washington which have reached a size that makes them cancers on the political process. The pharmaceutical and health industry lobbies are good examples of lobbies that have the power to constantly frustrate the common good in pursuit of their sectarian interests.
But folks can write articles about the evil of the Big Pharma lobby without being called anti-semites, of course.
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And finally, as to my blog commenting status: I'm an amateur, and am considering participating in the blog commenting event in the 2008 Olympic games.
"AIPAC is a huge lobby for a religion/race that constitutes 1-3% of the country."
FWIW, I think a lot of people are getting tripped up on this topic by thinking AIPAC is a lobbying organization for American Jews. It's not. It's a lobbying organization for the independent nation of Israel.
This distinction may seem overly subtle, but it's key to understanding the Christian fundamentalist support for AIPAC, as well as understand some of the other issues surrounding AIPAC.
Phoebe,
I didn't find the paper anti-Semitic because Walt and Mearsheimer made it clear that they distinguished their "Lobby" from American Jews as a whole (indeed, one of their arguments is that many Jews oppose what the "Lobby" favors).
Also, I've interacted with both of these people for quite some time. Their argument might be half-assed and their evidence might be tissue-thin -- but that does not mean that they're anti-Semitic.
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