Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy’

The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy’ 
 America is about to enter a presidential election year. Although the
outcome is of course impossible to predict at this stage, certain features
of the campaign are easy to foresee. The candidates will inevitably differ
on various domestic issues-health care, abortion, gay marriage, taxes,
education, immigration-and spirited debates are certain to erupt on a host
of foreign policy questions as well. What course of action should the
United States pursue in Iraq? What is the best response to the crisis in
Darfur, Iran's nuclear ambitions, Russia's hostility to NATO, and China's
rising power? How should the United States address global warming, combat
terrorism, and reverse the erosion of its international image? On these
and many other issues, we can confidently expect lively disagreements
among the various candidates. 
  Yet on one subject, we can be equally confident that the candidates will
speak with one voice. In 2008, as in previous election years, serious
candidates for the highest office in the land will go to considerable
lengths to express their deep personal commitment to one foreign
country-Israel-as well as their determination to maintain unyielding U.S.
support for the Jewish state. Each candidate will emphasize that he or she
fully appreciates the multitude of threats facing Israel and make it clear
that, if elected, the United States will remain firmly committed to
defending Israel's interests under any and all circumstances. None of the
candidates is likely to criticize Israel in any significant way or suggest
that the United States ought to pursue a more evenhanded policy in the
region. Any who do will probably fall by the wayside. 
This observation is hardly a bold prediction, because presidential
aspirants were already proclaiming their support for Israel in early 2007.
The process began in January, when four potential candidates spoke to
Israel's annual Herzliya Conference on security issues. As Joshua Mitnick
reported in Jewish Week, they were "seemingly competing to see who can be
most strident in defense of the Jewish State." Appearing via satellite
link, John Edwards, the Democratic party's 2004 vice presidential
candidate, told his Israeli listeners that "your future is our future" and
said that the bond between the United States and Israel "will never be
broken." Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney spoke of being "in a
country I love with people I love" and, aware of Israel's deep concern
about a possible nuclear Iran, proclaimed that "it is time for the world
to speak three truths: (1) Iran must be stopped; (2) Iran can be stopped;
(3) Iran will be stopped!" Senator John McCain (R-AZ) declared that "when
it comes to the defense of Israel, we simply cannot compromise," while
former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) told the audience that "Israel
is facing the greatest danger for [sic] its survival since the 1967
victory." 
Shortly thereafter, in early February, Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY)
spoke in New York before the local chapter of the powerful American Israel
Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), where she said that in this "moment of
great difficulty for Israel and great peril for Israel ... what is vital
is that we stand by our friend and our ally and we stand by our own
values. Israel is a beacon of what's right in a neighborhood overshadowed
by the wrongs of radicalism, extremism, despotism and terrorism." One of
her rivals for the Democratic nomination, Senator Barack Obama (D-IL),
spoke a month later before an AIPAC audience in Chicago. Obama, who has
expressed some sympathy for the Palestinians' plight in the past and made
a brief reference to Palestinian "suffering" at a campaign appearance in
March 2007, was unequivocal in his praise for Israel and made it
manifestly clear that he would do nothing to change the U.S.-Israeli
relationship. Other presidential hopefuls, including Senator Sam Brownback
(R-KS) and New Mexico governor Bill Richardson, have expressed pro-Israel
sentiments with equal or greater ardor. 
What explains this behavior? Why is there so little disagreement among
these presidential hopefuls regarding Israel, when there are profound
disagreements among them on almost every other important issue facing the
United States and when it is apparent that America's Middle East policy
has gone badly awry? Why does Israel get a free pass from presidential
candidates, when its own citizens are often deeply critical of its present
policies and when these same presidential candidates are all too willing
to criticize many of the things that other countries do? Why does Israel,
and no other country in the world, receive such consistent deference from
America's leading politicians? 
Some might say that it is because Israel is a vital strategic asset for
the United States. Indeed, it is said to be an indispensable partner in
the "war on terror." Others will answer that there is a powerful moral
case for providing Israel with unqualified support, because it is the only
country in the region that "shares our values." But neither of these
arguments stands up to fair-minded scrutiny. Washington's close
relationship with Jerusalem makes it harder, not easier, to defeat the
terrorists who are now targeting the United States, and it simultaneously
undermines America's standing with important allies around the world. Now
that the Cold War is over, Israel has become a strategic liability for the
United States. Yet no aspiring politician is going to say so in public, or
even raise the possibility. 
There is also no compelling moral rationale for America's uncritical and
uncompromising relationship with Israel. There is a strong moral case for
Israel's existence and there are good reasons for the United States to be
committed to helping Israel if its survival is in jeopardy. But given
Israel's brutal treatment of the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories,
moral considerations might suggest that the United States pursue a more
evenhanded policy toward the two sides, and maybe even lean toward the
Palestinians. Yet we are unlikely to hear that sentiment expressed by
anyone who wants to be president, or anyone who would like to occupy a
position in Congress. 
The real reason why American politicians are so deferential is the
political power of the Israel lobby. The lobby is a loose coalition of
individuals and organizations that actively works to move U.S. foreign
policy in a pro-Israel direction. As we will describe in detail, it is not
a single, unified movement with a central leadership, and it is certainly
not a cabal or conspiracy that "controls" U.S. foreign policy. It is
simply a powerful interest group, made up of both Jews and gentiles, whose
acknowledged purpose is to press Israel's case within the United States
and influence American foreign policy in ways that its members believe
will benefit the Jewish state. The various groups that make up the lobby
do not agree on every issue, although they share the desire to promote a
special relationship between the United States and Israel. Like the
efforts of other ethnic lobbies and interest groups, the activities of the
Israel lobby's various elements are legitimate forms of democratic
political participation, and they are for the most part consistent with
America's long tradition of interest group activity. 
Because the Israel lobby has gradually become one of the most powerful
interest groups in the United States, candidates for high office pay close
attention to its wishes. The individuals and groups in the United States
that make up the lobby care deeply about Israel, and they do not want
American politicians to criticize it, even when criticism might be
warranted and might even be in Israel's own interest. Instead, these
groups want U.S. leaders to treat Israel as if it were the fifty-first
state. Democrats and Republicans alike fear the lobby's clout. They all
know that any politician who challenges its policies stands little chance
of becoming president. 
The Lobby and U.S. Middle East Policy 
The lobby's political power is important not because it affects what
presidential candidates say during a campaign, but because it has a
significant influence on American foreign policy, especially in the Middle
East. America's actions in that volatile region have enormous consequences
for people all around the world, especially the people who live there.
Just consider how the Bush administration's misbegotten war in Iraq has
affected the long-suffering people of that shattered country: tens of
thousands dead, hundreds of thousands forced to flee their homes, and a
vicious sectarian war taking place with no end in sight. The war has also
been a strategic disaster for the United States and has alarmed and
endangered U.S. allies both inside and outside the region. One could
hardly imagine a more vivid or tragic demonstration of the impact the
United States can have-for good or ill-when it unleashes the power at its
disposal. 
The United States has been involved in the Middle East since the early
days of the Republic, with much of the activity centered on educational
programs or missionary work. For some, a biblically inspired fascination
with the Holy Land and the role of Judaism in its history led to support
for the idea of restoring the Jewish people to a homeland there, a view
that was embraced by certain religious leaders and, in a general way, by a
few U.S. politicians. But it is a mistake to see this history of modest
and for the most part private engagement as the taproot of America's role
in the region since World War II, and especially its extraordinary
relationship with Israel today. Between the routing of the Barbary pirates
two hundred years ago and World War II, the United States played no
significant security role anywhere in the region and U.S. leaders did not
aspire to one. Woodrow Wilson did endorse the 1917 Balfour Declaration
(which expressed Britain's support for the creation of a Jewish homeland
in Palestine), but Wilson did virtually nothing to advance this goal.
Indeed, the most significant U.S. involvement during this period-a
fact-finding mission dispatched to the region in 1919 by the Paris Peace
Conference under the leadership of Americans Henry Churchill King and
Charles Crane-concluded that the local population opposed continued
Zionist inroads and recommended against the establishment of an
independent Jewish homeland. Yet as the historian Margaret Macmillan
notes, "Nobody paid the slightest attention." The possibility of a U.S.
mandate over portions of the Middle East was briefly considered but never
pursued, and Britain and France ended up dividing the relevant portions of
the Ottoman Empire between themselves. 
The United States has played an important and steadily increasing role in
Middle East security issues since World War II, driven initially by oil,
then by anticommunism and, over time, by its growing relationship with
Israel. America's first significant involvement in the security politics
of the region was a nascent partnership with Saudi Arabia in the mid-1940s
(intended by both parties as a check on British ambitions in the region),
and its first formal alliance commitments were Turkey's inclusion in NATO
in 1952 and the anti-Soviet Baghdad Pact in 1954. After backing Israel's
founding in 1948, U.S. leaders tried to strike a balanced position between
Israel and the Arabs and carefully avoided making any formal commitment to
the Jewish state for fear of jeopardizing more important strategic
interests. This situation changed gradually over the ensuing decades, in
response to events like the Six-Day War, Soviet arms sales to various Arab
states, and the growing influence of pro-Israel groups in the United
States. Given this dramatic transformation in America's role in the
region, it makes little sense to try to explain current U.S. policy-and
especially the lavish support that is now given to Israel-by referring to
the religious beliefs of a bygone era or the radically different forms of
past American engagement. There was nothing inevitable or predetermined
about the current special relationship between the United States and
Israel. 
Since the Six-Day War of 1967, a salient feature-and arguably the central
focus-of America's Middle East policy has been its relationship with
Israel. For the past four decades, in fact, the United States has provided
Israel with a level of material and diplomatic support that dwarfs what it
provides to other countries. That aid is largely unconditional: no matter
what Israel does, the level of support remains for the most part
unchanged. In particular, the United States consistently favors Israel
over the Palestinians and rarely puts pressure on the Jewish state to stop
building settlements and roads in the West Bank. Although Presidents Bill
Clinton and George W. Bush openly favored the creation of a viable
Palestinian state, neither was willing to use American leverage to make
that outcome a reality. 
The United States has also undertaken policies in the broader Middle East
that reflected Israel's preferences. Since the early 1990s, for example,
American policy toward Iran has been heavily influenced by the wishes of
successive Israeli governments. Tehran has made several attempts in recent
years to improve relations with Washington and settle outstanding
differences, but Israel and its American supporters have been able to
stymie any dÈtente between Iran and the United States, and to keep the two
countries far apart. Another example is the Bush administration's behavior
during Israel's war against Lebanon in the summer of 2006. Almost every
country in the world harshly criticized Israel's bombing campaign-a
campaign that killed more than one thousand Lebanese, most of them
civilians-but the United States did not. Instead, it helped Israel
prosecute the war, with prominent members of both political parties openly
defending Israel's behavior. This unequivocal support for Israel
undermined the pro-American government in Beirut, strengthened Hezbollah,
and drove Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah closer together, results that were
hardly good for either Washington or Jerusalem. 
Many policies pursued on Israel's behalf now jeopardize U.S. national
security. The combination of unstinting U.S. support for Israel and
Israel's prolonged occupation of Palestinian territory has fueled
anti-Americanism throughout the Arab and Islamic world, thereby increasing
the threat from international terrorism and making it harder for
Washington to deal with other problems, such as shutting down Iran's
nuclear program. Because the United States is now so unpopular within the
broader region, Arab leaders who might otherwise share U.S. goals are
reluctant to help us openly, a predicament that cripples U.S. efforts to
deal with a host of regional challenges. 
This situation, which has no equal in American history, is due primarily
to the activities of the Israel lobby. While other special interest
groups-including ethnic lobbies representing Cuban Americans, Irish
Americans, Armenian Americans, and Indian Americans-have managed to skew
U.S. foreign policy in directions that they favored, no ethnic lobby has
diverted that policy as far from what the American national interest would
otherwise suggest. The Israel lobby has successfully convinced many
Americans that American and Israeli interests are essentially identical.
In fact, they are not. 
Although this book focuses primarily on the lobby's influence on U.S.
foreign policy and its negative effect on American interests, the lobby's
impact has been unintentionally harmful to Israel as well. Take Israel's
settlements, which even a writer as sympathetic to Israel as Leon
Wieseltier recently called a "moral and strategic blunder of historic
proportions." Israel's situation would be better today if the United
States had long ago used its financial and diplomatic leverage to convince
Israel to stop building settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, and instead
helped Israel create a viable Palestinian state on those lands. Washington
did not do so, however, largely because it would have been politically
costly for any president to attempt it. As noted above, Israel would have
been much better off if the United States had told it that its military
strategy for fighting the 2006 Lebanon war was doomed to fail, rather than
reflexively endorsing and facilitating it. By making it difficult to
impossible for the U.S. government to criticize Israel's conduct and press
it to change some of its counterproductive policies, the lobby may even be
jeopardizing the long-term prospects of the Jewish state. 
Excerpted from The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy by John J.
Mearsheimer Stephen M. Walt Copyright © 2007 by John J. Mearsheimer and
Stephen M. Walt. Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of
this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing
from the publisher. Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for
the personal use of visitors to this web site. 
pubblicato su
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/23/books/chapters/0923-1st-mear.html?pagewanted=1&_r=3&ref=books
 
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 Stephen M. Walt.
Bello, eh?
Allora non era casuale.
Massi' che lo era.
Tb 

 Bello, eh?
cosa c'e' che non va in questo articolo, goebbelsuccio del likud?


 cosa c'e' che non va in questo articolo
Segui il gruppo, equino.
Sappi pero'  nel frattempo che nel tuo apprezzamento per Walt & 
Mearsheimer, e nell'idea che gli USA siano eterodiretti dalla lobby 
sionista, hai un autorevole compagno antimperialista: David Duke. 
Oltre ovviamente a tutta la feccia antisemita del pianeta.
Mi sembra la compagnia adatta ad un somaro dal culo 
pluritastidecorato.
Tb 

 Oltre ovviamente a tutta la feccia antisemita del pianeta.
feccia che ora controllerebbe, secondo le paranoie del cloacogobbelsuccio
del likud, perfino il NYT che pubblica questi articoli.


 feccia che ora controllerebbe
Non controlla un cazzo, somaro.
Negli Op-Ed del NYT si pubblica tutto quello che e' controverso, 
soprattutto quello che e' caldo.
Ed e' bello caldo della linguetta somaresca, vedo.
Comunque buone slinguazzate con David Duke. Dopo i killer antisemiti 
libanesi, era qualcosa che ti mancava.
Gradisci una tastiera?
Tb 

 Ed e' bello caldo della linguetta somaresca, vedo.
pero' non vedo nessuna riga dell'articolo smentito da te. Sei cosi'
incapace? Sei davvero una gran mezzasega come il tuo amichetto agente
segreto bottegaro? lol


 pero' non vedo nessuna riga dell'articolo smentito da te.
Segui il gruppo, somaro.
E buone slinguazzate con David Duke.
Devo avvertirti che se volessi entrare nell'organizzazione da lui 
diretta per ragliare alto e forte sulla invadenza della lobby 
sionista, ti occorrera' un cappuccio bianco con extraspazio per le 
orecchie. E un cappuccio anche per il culo tastierato.  Forse non 
sarai molto in incognito. Ma cosa conta? La compagnia e' quella che 
conta.
Tb 

 Beh certo. E' la land of the free.
per questo rosichi eh nazilikudnik?


 nazilikudnik
Saranno scemi, fanno schifo ma sono davvero buffi, questi revisionisti 
rossobruni.
Divertiti con i compagni antimperialisti del KKK.
Tb 

>> Chissà se è lo  stesso in america o Israele.

 >> sionista, hai un autorevole compagno antimperialista: David Duke.
perchè ste troiate non le dici ai due professori? quelli guadagnano
bene e non sono buoni come sergio, una querela coi controcazzi ti
farebbe pensare 2 volte prima di metterli alla pari di una merda come
Duke...

 metterli alla pari di una merda come Duke...
Eh, ma sfortunatamente ho ragione io.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/24/AR2006032402147.html
Sei particolarmente stupido anche per essere un rossobruno.
Tb

 Eh, ma sfortunatamente ho ragione io.
per aver ragione tu dovrebbero essere i 2 a dire che la pensano come
Duke, non il contrario: che una merda antisemita cerchi appoggi
autorevoli per giustificare le stronzate che scrive è perfettamente
normale, anormale (e segno di malafede totale) è prendere per buone le
sue parole e dire che questi appoggi esistono...


perche' è solo una fogna del likud, non credo che i due professori
vogliano sporcarsi le mani con una merdaccia craxiana del genere.

 Duke, non il contrario
Ma no, servile rossobruno. Quel che ho detto e' ben chiaro.
W&M sono i teorici (alquanto traballanti, com'e' ovvio) di un'america 
governata da Israele, teoria che fa impazzire te, sergio, David Duke, 
e tutti gli antisemiti del mondo.
Buone slinguazzate con David Duke anche per te.
Tb 

 Buone slinguazzate con David Duke anche per te.
continua pure a calunniare, i fatti restano quelli che ho detto io..

 continua pure a calunniare
Ahi ahi, servile rossobruno.
Non sei per caso pienamente d'accordo con W&M, esattamente come il 
somaro e David Duke? Un bel team...
Tb

 somaro e David Duke?
no, emerito calunniatore streicheriano, e servile ci sarai tu col tuo
padroncino Maisele..

 no
Ah non ti e' piaciuto l'articolo? Vuoi lasciare il somaro solo a 
slinguazzare con DD? Tsk tsk...
Tb


no, pezzo di merda calunniatore, Sergio non slinguazza con nessuno....