Mearsheimer and Walt Face Critics at Hebrew University

This is cross-posted from H-ANTISEMITISM, which is an academics-only list which the listowner was kind enough to make an exception for me. If only the same ones who would allow these gentlemen in to address Hebrew University would have been the decisionmakers about Norman Finkelstein, the account would be squared. Finklestein, who has not caused the same public stir as Herren Mearsheimer and Walt have with their much-and-rightly-maligned book, was easier to ignore, but the principle of allowing even the most disgusting individuals into the country to air their laundry would have been upheld. Personally, I wish they all would have the chance to spend one night in Germany: November 9, 1938. Then talk to us about "the Israel lobby". At this point, when one considers the real power of the oil lobby, the Arab lobby, the military industrial complex lobby and the rest, the fact that these allegedly educated individuals choose to point people's noses -- still getting over the idiocy of anti-Semitism -- at the Jews is just flat out Jew-hate with a new name and is done for sport. Personally, I am a fan of Justice William O. Douglas of the United States Supreme Court who, in a case whose name escapes me at the moment said: (paraphrasing) "if it's so disgusting, nothing will illuminate its shamefulness like the bright light of the sun". Hebrew University absolutely did the right thing.

Randy Shiner


Yocheved Menashe to H-ANTISEMITISM
show details 2:58 PM (46 minutes ago) Reply


Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer are in Israel and asked to speak at the
Hebrew University. Because of the academic boycotts and threats of
boycotts against us, the University did not wish to be accused of the same
thing and allowed them to present their lecture. Here is Herb Keinon's
report on the event earlier this evening.

Yo

URL:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1212659722336&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

TEXT:

Israel Lobby authors face critics at HU
Jun. 12, 2008
Herb Keinon , THE JERUSALEM POST

After arguing in their book The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy that
Israel and its US supporters were instrumental in pushing the US to war in
Iraq, authors Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer said in Israel on Thursday
that Israel and its lobby were now pressuring the US to attack Iran.

"There is only one country in the world that is putting any pressure on
the US to attack Iran, and that is Israel," Mearsheimer said to a packed
lecture hall of some 200 people at Hebrew University. "And it is putting
enormous pressure on the US."

"Inside the United States, it is pro-Israel individuals and groups who are
almost wholly responsible for pressure being brought to bear on [US
President George W.] Bush and [Vice President Dick] Cheney to use military
force on Iran," he went on. "The idea that the lobby and Israel don't put
huge amounts of pressure on the US, is contradictory to the evidence."

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 Israel since
the publication of a controversial article in 2006 in the London Review of
Books, that was then extended into an even more controversial book,
published last year, that led some critics to brand the two as tainted by
anti-Semitism.

"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 Jerusalem to Tel Aviv.

"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 Israel lobby's pressure, Mearsheimer has
no problem when the roles are reversed, and in fact welcomed US pressure
on Israel.

"I would have no problem in significantly reducing American economic and
military aid [to Israel] for the purpose of getting Israel to allow the
Palestinians to have a viable state," he said. "I would have no problem in
joining in with other countries in the UN criticizing Israel."

Regarding Iran, Mearsheimer said that Israel and the Israel lobby were
acting legitimately in lobbying for military intervention.

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 Israel and the Israel lobby who
is pushing the US to attack Iran.

"As you know, if you said that in the US you would be called an
anti-Semite. And that is what we are protesting against. And we think it
would be bad for the US and for Israel if the US would attack Iran."

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 Israel
lobby are pushing these days. But that does not mean we are claiming that
they are acting in an illegal or illegitimate way," he said. "We are just
arguing that the policies they are pushing don't make sense."

According to Mearsheimer, Iran wants nuclear weapons to protect itself,
the same reason he said both the US and Israel want nuclear weapons. He
said that the best way to get a negotiated settlement with Teheran over
the issue is to take the military threat off the table completely.

"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 Iran has significant
enrichment capability but doesn't take the final step in developing
nuclear weapons. And if it decides to do that, you rely on deterrence,
much as the US relied on deterrence during the Cold War."

Describing Israel's concern about Iran's nuclear capacity as paranoid,
Mearsheimer said that a close look at Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad's words will reveal that he has not threatened to use military
force to eliminate Israel.

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 Harvard University and
Mearsheimer is at the University of Chicago) said that they believed in
Israel's legitimacy and right to exist, one graduate student prefaced his
question by saying that "with friends like these, who needs enemies?"

An Israel advocacy group, StandWithUS, distributed an eight page pamphlet
just prior to the lecture against Walt and Mearsheimer's arguments in
their book.

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 Israel, he and
Mearsheimer approached the Hebrew University and requested to speak.